Who's in
Classical way to see in the new year
On the first day of 2007, Maestro Zubin Mehta greeted the new year by performing works of the Strauss family at the Golden Hall of Musikverein in Vienna. On December 31, the conductor will farewell the year by bringing Strauss' melodies to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
With the noted Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mehta will also bring audiences a special gift - the opening performance of John Williams' Olympic Fanfare.
Metha will also conduct Chinese composer Lu Qiming's Ode to the Red Flag, an orchestral work paying tribute to China's National Day.
Highlights also include Mehta's personal favors, including Johann Strauss' Die Fleidermaus Overture and Edmund Strauss' Ohne Bremse Polka Schnell, Op 238. Antonin Dvorak's eminent From the New World, Op 95 is also on the list.
Due to high demand for tickets, Mehta will also perform a similar bill on December 30.
It will be Mehta's sixth trip to China. Before the Beijing performance, he will conduct two concerts, one in the Shenzhen Concert Hall on December 27 and another in the Shanghai Grand Theater on 29.
Another New Year's Concert will be staged in the newly built National Center for Performing Arts, featuring internationally acclaimed conductor Seiji Qzawa leading the China National Symphony Orchestra.
Love conquers all
Young director Wang Xiaoshuai's art house film In Love We Trust (Zuo You), starring rising actor Chen Taisheng (pictured) is to compete at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival, starting February 7 and lasting 11 days.
Chen has teamed up with the sixth-generation directors such as Jia Zhangke, Li Xin and Zhu Wen. Jia's The World (Shijie), starring Chen, has won 11 awards from various international film festivals.
In Love We Trust tells the story of a divorced couple who want to have another child and use umbilical cord stem cells to save their daughter from cancer. But the problem is, they have both remarried. Chen is paired with budding actress Yu Nan, who plays the leading role in Tuya's Marriage (Tuya de Hunshi), a film that won Golden Bear at last year's Berlin festival.
Douglas is voice of news
Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas doesn't have to memorize too many lines for his latest role - a recorded voice-over introducing the "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams."
The 63-year-old Hollywood star debuted on Monday night as the new announcer for the network newscast - "This is the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" - succeeding Howard Reig, who opened the program live for 25 years and retired in 2005.
NBC News had been using a recording of Reig's voice to introduce Williams since then.
Williams, who took over as the Nightly News anchor when Tom Brokaw retired in December 2004, said in a statement that he appealed to the actor's "sense of romance and sentimentality" to persuade him to take the job.
"I called him and said, 'On top of all you've done as an actor, producer and Academy Award winner, this will mean a small slice of immortality in our industry,"' Williams recounted. "'It also means wherever you are on Earth, at 6:30 pm Eastern time, you'll know your voice is on the air."'
Douglas, who is married to Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, earned an Oscar as best actor for his role as the ruthless tycoon Gordon Gekko in the 1986 film Wall Street, whose most memorable line was, "Greed is good".
He also famously co-starred opposite Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, was with Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. His father is screen legend Kirk Douglas.
NBC is not the first network to introduce its news with a Hollywood voice-over. Actor James Earl Jones has long intoned the signature line "This is CNN" for Cable News Network.
China Daily-Agencies
(China Daily 12/21/2007 page18)
