THE BROOKLYN RECORD
Richard E. Rubin’s articles covered a wide variety of subjects including; Opera, Classical Music, Broadway, Musicals, Film, Literature, Travel and Popular Culture. Many of the articles began life at his favorite place to write, the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York.
“Life is a very tough proposition, culture is merely a compensation.”
April 1999
Chinas Fifth Generation
For some reason China ranks its directors by generation. Even though China is ostensibly a communist country I suspect that this generational labeling is Confusion. Now I know writing about the four generations of film-makers that preceded. In fact I assumed, but did not really know, that China had a film industry before this fifth generation brought China to the world stage as a film making country. If you have any interest in the first [...]
February 1999
Jean Luc Godard
Time has a way of making fools out of many serious and committed activists and artists. With the collapse of communism many left-wing artists and intellectuals just look foolish, no matter what their genius. In the sixties, maybe early into the seventies, partly because of Vietnam there was a concept of the "World Wide Revolution." With the rise of "Al-Fatah" the Palestinian cause became a part of the "World Wide Revolution." Today, in my opinion, [...]
December 1998
Menotti and Barber
This article evolved in an odd way with many switches in my own point of view. It all began with a New York Times article in the Arts and Leisure section by John Adams lamenting the fact that neither of his operas "Nixon in China'' and "The Death of Klinghoffer" have been revived. What good arc these commissions to composers if after the big bash opening the operas fade into oblivion? Let me say, and [...]
September 1998
The Great Detective Stories
We come into the world with a question: Where did I come from? We leave this world with a question: Where am I going? Even religious writers refer to these questions as the mysteries. Science has no answer: the story about the Birds and the Bees will not suffice. As far as l am concerned, the best answer is supplied in Wright & Forrest's musical Kismet: Wise men come! Wise men go' Ever promising the [...]
March 1998
The MGM Musical
When I sat down to write this piece I had in mind "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "An American in Paris," and "Singing in the Rain" as the epitome and essence of an MGM musical. All a combination of magnificent technicolor, and I do mean technicolor, singing, dancing, character and plot. In my mind, at least, you need all of those things for a movie made even by MGM, to qualify as an MGM musical. [...]
February 1998
F. W. Murnau
I recently saw F. W. Murnau's Faust and I want to write about it while the feelings are white hot. That makes for a very poor introduction to one of the worlds great filmmakers but we will pick up background later. "Faust" made in 1926 is silent, but it speaks volumes. Mephistopheles is not your cynical devil with all the good lines. He is pure evil. He is infinitely closer to Murnau's "Nosferatu" the [...]
October 1997
Star Trek: For All Generations
Someone once said of me that I was "alienated." I myself have thought of myself as a bit of a misanthrope. You have to be both of those things to spend as much time alone in libraries as I do. Neither of these qualities are particularly appropriate to an introduction for a column on "STAR TREK." "Star Trek" is the ultimate fantasy of commitment, caring, and not only antimisanthropy, but philotranspecies. To go where no [...]
September 1997
Pushkin and Eggs
The Brooklyn Record About twenty-five years ago when I became interested in Russian Opera, I took out of the library a Modern Library Giant of all the works of Pushkin. Alas, Modern Library regular and Giant are out of print, and Grand Army Plaza does not have a copy. On a recent Tower Annex bargain basement shopping trip, I purchased Dargomizhsky's "The Stone Guest." "The Stone Guest" is one of the four "Little Tragedies" all [...]
July 1997
Schubert’s Operas
This is the 200th anniversary of Schubert's birth. The major record magazines are pulling out all the stops, or maybe I should say almost all the stops. BBC "Music Magazine" for March 1997 has "Schubert at 200" with seven essays about Schubert, his life, work. and music. Gramophone for April has Franz Schubert 1797-1997 a survey. Neither yet has touched the operas. Let this be my contribution although I'm sure some magazine or newspaper will cover [...]
June 1997
Wallace Stevens – The Eye of the Blackbird
I am a graduate of Brooklyn Law School, and proud of it. That means that, fairly or unfairly, I believe it is the best "local" law school. That also means, I think it is better than New York Law School. However, if both schools last through the next millennium, I doubt that Brooklyn Law School will equal one achievement of New York Law School. Admittedly, I say that this achievement of New York Law School [...]
May 1997
Captain Vere’s Disgrace
I must've been about twelve, maybe even eleven when I first encountered "Billy Budd". It was not in Herman Melville's novella which I did not read until much later. It certainly wasn't in Benjamin Britten's opera, which was not even composed at that time. Grand Army Plaza has a play version of the novella listed in the computer. I didn't even note the authors or more properly the adapters; yet I'm sure it was in [...]
March 1997
Djuna Barnes
If Djuna Barnes is remembered today it is for her novel "Nightwood". Her admirers may call that shortsighted and add "Antiphon" a play, "Ryder" a novel, and some may even seek to remind us of "Ladies Almanack". The latter a send up of lesbian life of the expatriate lesbian community in Paris. Once thought to_ be an "affectionate Lampoon," but now thought, like all her works, to be a product of a woman whose rage [...]
February 1997
Random Thoughts on T.S. Eliot
When I first thought of writing this article, I wanted to write about the poetry of T.S. Eliot, but then I realized I'm not well-versed enough (pun intended) to write about the poetry. Oh! I can understand it, but only with a guide book and, then, even with multiple guide books. In this column, I have not concerned myself much with originality, but I have concerned myself with point of view and pointing you (no [...]
December 1996
A Wonderful Weekend in Chicago/Evanston
The Brooklyn Record This article will be more literature than culture. We had known for some time that Steppenwolf Theater Company was going to do my son Daniel's play, The Viewing Room. If truth be told, he has been married some three years and we hadn't visited once. Daniel and his wife Karen bought a home in Evanston, where she grew up, and we hadn't seen the house, either. Now, in our defense, Daniel has [...]
November 1996
Across the Wide Missouri
Oh! Shenandoah, I love your daughter far across the wide Missouri. Folks this year it wasn't Paris, but Missouri. We went to St. Louis, Branson, and Kansas City all in the great state of Missouri. I must tell you that the night before we left someone (not something) brought down TWA Flight 800! At the time my own son was flying to Los Angeles. Paris really might have been our second choice. I can't begin [...]
October 1996
Cadillac Zarzuela
When I was a kid, upper middle class people drove Buicks and rich people drove Cadillacs. Thus giving rise to expressions such as this is the Cadillac of toothbrushes or vacuum cleaners, or whatever. Then, of course there was Elvis's Pink Cadillac. Alas: at the end, Elvis bought Priscilla a Mercedes. Now there's Lexus, BMW, Jaguar - you name it. How the mighty have fallen. No matter how much the mighty have fallen, the most [...]
May 1996
The Jew Who Rode With Cossacks
I have always had a fascination for historical oddities. For instance, a German, three years after Hitler's accession to chancellor, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and deserved it. I always loved Ripley's "Believe it or Not." Well believe it or not, there was a Jew who rode with Cossacks. What, you may ask, is so odd about a Jew who rode with Cossacks? In the mid seventeenth century, Bogdan Chmielnicki's Cossacks inflicted horrible massacres on [...]
La Traviata
I have been at these articles for over two years and suddenly I realized we've never had Verdi. So, we'll set out to partially rectify the situation, In number of productions I'm sure La Traviata leads all of his other operas. Not anymore, but I'm sure that at some point in time La Traviata may have been produced more than all the other operas put together. Why? What makes La Traviata so popular. Deems Taylor [...]
April 1996
Arias and Madrigals of Giulio Caccini
One of the things I like to do on a Saturday afternoon is browse the Tower Records Bargain Annex. I'm looking for new composers (new to me) and new labels (new to me). Somewhere I'd always heard of Caccini, but if you quizzed me I couldn't tell you where. As to madrigals, if you quizzed me all I could say is Monteverdi. Anyhow, Tower had an Arion two-disque set of Giulio Caccirti's Nuove Musiche Integrate [...]
February 1996
Hitler’s Spanish Legion
The Brooklyn Record Hitler's Spanish Legion, subtitled The Blue Division in Russia, by Gerald R. Kleinfeld and Lewis A. Tambs chronicles the war Franco's "volunteers" fought in Spain. Volunteers is put in quotes because toward the end, replacements were not volunteers at all. However, there can be no question that in the beginning, the 16,000 men and officers set off Don Quixote-like or conquistador-like to rid Russia of the great evil of communism. The book [...]
Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott is the best selling author who ever lived, and that includes Stephen King and Harold Robbins. Now that's ridiculous just on the basis-of modern printing. Both Stephen King and Harold Robbins must outsell Scott by millions. Well maybe, but that's only one way to measure best sellers. That doesn't take into account categories and Scott did it in four categories: poetry; biography; novels; and collected works. I can't imagine anyone buying the collected [...]
January 1996
Thomas Moore
As I remember it, there are two statues in front of Trinity College, Dublin. I know one is of Oliver Goldsmith, but I can't remember who is the other statue. Now, my Encyclopedia Britannica says it is of Edmund Burke, who was at Trinity with Oliver Goldsmith. However, in the marvelous booklet that comes with Hyperion's "Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies" it says that there is a statue of Thomas Moore outside Trinity College, Dublin. Were [...]
September 1995
England
Having written about Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, we know that England often lived more by the might of her navy and army than by her democratic principles. Throw in imperialism and one might ask why we should care about England at all. Well, the U.S. doesn't always live up to its ideals either. Yet on a field at Runymede, King John was forced to give a great charter. In a cottage in Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare was [...]
Scotland and Wales
Both Scotland and Wales were once rivals of England, but subjugated. Scotland even more so than Wales. Culturally both have fought to keep a separate identity and language. Welsh is probably spoken today by fewer than 600,000 people. Even then to what ends? I saw appeals everywhere we went to "use it or lose it." In reality, it's probably already lost, though the road signs are in English and Welch. The Scottish Gaelic is related to [...]
August 1995
Ireland
This year our trip was to Great Britain and Ireland. I want to deal with Ireland alone. Ireland, the land of poets and writers. Three Nobel prizes: W.B. Yeats. George Bernard Shaw. and Samuel Beckett. Three Nobel prizes and an uncrowned king: James Joyce. Ulysses is probably more written about than read. I myself have not yet tackled it. Even Harold Bloom in the Western Cannon recommends using a guidebook(s) in reading it. I have [...]
New posts are uploaded regularly – come back to read more!
This image shows a small portion of the extensive collection of articles in the Richard E. Rubin archive. In 2021 conversion of the archive to digital assets was begun with the goal of preserving and organizing the articles.
“In black and white, light and shadow abound.”
From 1994 through 1999 Mr. Rubin wrote articles for several Brooklyn newspapers, including The Brooklyn Record and The Phoenix. His articles covered a wide variety of subjects including; Opera, Classical Music, Broadway, Musicals, Film and Star Trek. Many of the articles began life at his favorite place to write, the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza.