To read and reread

KnightArts informs that the April 21st performance of Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights at the Minnesota Opera was the chosen to be filmed in HD. There's a video where you can see the arrangements:

Tuesday night the Minnesota Opera did an eight camera High Definition video shoot of its production of Wuthering Heights. The HD video made for a night of many firsts—a first for any Twin Cities major cultural organization, a first for the Minnesota Opera and a first for this major work of art by one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. (Patrick Deware)

Still about Hermmann's Wuthering Heights. Next year (March 18, 2012) the American Symphony Orchestra will present a concert version of the opera at the Carnegie Hall, New York.

The Guardian reviews the Withering Looks tour by Lip Service:

More than just a potted version of Wuthering Heights, it's a witty send-up of Emily and Charlotte's novels featuring strange moans coming from the attic, lost souls, and a wind machine. The award-winning show has been around for a good few years and remains one of the most popular plays in the repertoire of a company whose comedy-theatre style has seldom been bettered. (Lyn Gardner)

Jane Eyre 2011 is reviewed by

Inside Pulse:

What people should take away from this umpteenth adaptation of Jane Eyre is that it is possible to cut the fat of a classic novel and have it retain its heart and soul. Also, it helps when you have two comparable leads, as is the case with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. Wasikowska is so good at expressing much when expressing very little. The moments where hand-held cameras are walking with her are visual proof. Jane Eyre, while not a complete cure all for box office malaise at the moment, is still worth your time and should appease those who at the very least enjoyed Joe Wright’s stellar interpretation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  (Travis Leamons)

Albany Times-Union:

I’d also love to recommend Jane Eyre (you can link to my earlier entry here and my full review here). This gorgeously-filmed and brilliantly-acted adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel of gothic romance is my pick for best film of 2011 so far. (Peg Aloi)

The Portuguese premiere triggers some articles and reviews in the local media:

IOnline talks about the Brontë sisters with the usual mix of facts, legend and blunders:

Se a família Brontë fosse um prato de comida chinesa, não poderia constar no menu como "família feliz". Dos seis irmãos, órfãos de mãe, atenção, sobraram quatro: Charlotte, Branwell (o único rapaz), Emily e Anne.
Juntos criaram um mundo imaginário chamado Angria e encheram caderninhos com histórias passadas nesse universo alternativo.
As três manas, mais amigas das letras, chegaram mesmo a editar um livro de poemas em conjunto, sob os pseudónimos masculinos de Currer, Ellis e Acton Bell.
A tragédia chegou em 1848, com a morte de Branwell, alcoólico e viciado em ópio, e de Emily, que sucumbiu à tuberculose. No ano seguinte seria a vez de Anne, que ficou tísica por causa da irmã. Uma desgraça nunca vem só.
Charlotte, a resistente, só morreria em 1854, grávida do primeiro filho, de desidratação, consequência de uma pneumonia. Dizem as más línguas que a escritora poderá ter-se deixado morrer. Com tantas tragédias acumuladas, quem somos nós para julgar? (Diana Garrido) (Translation)

Let herself die? Charlotte? ... Anyway, she died in 1855. You can read the rest of the article here.

The film is also presented on Tvprime, Diário Digital, Correio da Manhã,

RTP-Cinemax (3 out of 5 stars)

A nova adaptação cinematográfica de "Jane Eyre", dirigida por Cary Fukunaga ("Sin Nombre"), é fiel a essa energia romântica, ao mesmo tempo confirmando-nos a admirável subtileza de Mia Wasikowska, uma actriz que, não tenhamos dúvidas, se vai impor como um talento realmente invulgar. (...)
Fukunaga percebeu isso mesmo e faz um filme que renova as nossas esperanças no romantismo, ao mesmo tempo demonstrando que a relação com a literatura não tem que ficar presa das convenções que dominam muitas "reconstituições históricas" de raiz televisiva.  (João Lopes) (Translation)

Las Horas Perdidas reviews Dario Marianelli's soundtrack in Spanish.

And the blogosphere: Ardith's Quest, An Extrordinary Machine, Seongyong's Private Place, A última sessão (in Portuguese), A Lovely Inconsequence, thumbsupordown?. 

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis) talks with Candace Bushnell who admits to her Brontëiteness:

And what does Candace Bushnell read when she's not writing? Right now, she says, "A Widow's Tale" by Joyce Carol Oates, and next, "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. "I've read it three times, but I'm one of those people, I read the same book again and again." (Peggy Burch)

Edward Champion reviews Wide Sargasso Sea on Reluctant Habits. He likes Jean Rhys's prequel far better than Jane Eyre:

As someone who has recently confessed his own blind spots and “allergies” in relation to Jane Eyre (along with a willingness to confront this aesthetic resistance), I feel it incumbent to report that Jean Rhys’s masterpiece placed me in such a great trance that approaching it like some notch to be etched on my belt or miscomprehending the first part never entered my mind. If anything, I wished to comprehend it more. It could very well be that the silly ambition of this project has forced me to become obsessed with some of the individual volumes. But when I read Wide Sargasso Sea a second time, I had to stop myself from reading it a third time. (Read more)

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's TV Q&A column talks about Elizabeth Taylor's role in Jane Eyre 1944:

Q. I have been a fan of Elizabeth Taylor for many years and have watched all her movies. Whenever her movies are mentioned, her role as Helen Burns in the 1939 version of "Jane Eyre" is not. She is not on the credit roll but one cannot deny that it is her. Why? -- R.M., Sunrise
A. The version of "Jane Eyre" you are referring to was made in 1943. Liz Taylor is listed as playing Helen Burns on the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB.com, a great resource) but it is noted "uncredited." Actors choose not to take a credit for many reasons, often because the role is not prominent or because they don't want to mislead their fans. (Tom Jicha)

Iowa Press-Citizen interviews the poet Robert Pinsky:

Jeff Charis-Carlson: How is reading a poem on a Kindle different than reading it in a book, journal or magazine?
RP: I've never bonded with my Kindle -- I use it to read a chapter or two of Dickens or Brontë or Elmore Leonard on airplane rides.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette publishes an obituary of the local author Athena Warren:

She loved to edit her children's and grandchildren's essays for errors of grammar. In the last few years of her life, Athena became especially enamored of Charlotte Brontë and her work "Jane Eyre," which she read and underlined, and reread and annotated, and reread, etc.

The Spanish writer Ana María Matute recommends Wuthering Heights once again:

La Matute no se olvida de los cuentos de los hermanos Grimm, Perrault y Andersen, sobre todo los de este último «porque era un escritor»; no olvida 'Huckleberry Finn' «con el que me asomé al mundo de los adultos», ni tampoco las obras de Chejov, Kafka -«una lección del literatura»-, Emily Brontë -«cada vez que he leído 'Cumbres borrascosas' he sentido que estaba dentro del libro»[.] (Gontzal Díez in La Verdad) (Translation)

Otro de sus héroes literarios fue Faulkner, «al que no pude conocer»; y, remotándonos en el tiempo, cita a Emily Brontë. «Ella fue quien me abrió los ojos. Me di cuenta que se podía escribir de todas las maneras... Y me arranqué con “Los Abel”. Si no hubiera leído “Cumbres borrascosas” no habría realizado ese libro. Me dio alas para escribir de una familia desgarrada». (Ángel de Antonio in ABC) (Translation)

El Nuevo Herald (Spain) visits Haworth and talks about it:

Imagínense esta escena de hace más de 150 años. En el pueblo de Haworth, en Yorkshire, tres diminutas mujeres están sentadas en el comedor de su casa, escribiendo novelas con la esperanza de publicarlas. Su padre, de humilde origen irlandés, ha llegado a ser el Reverendo Patrick Brontë, gracias a su gran educación. También ha publicado libros de poesía, y alienta a sus hijos -incluyendo a las hijas- a educarse. Branwell, el único hijo y talentoso poeta y pintor, otrora esperanza de la familia, está adicto al opio y al alcohol. Las tres hijas, al fín, logran publicar sus novelas bajo los seudónimos de Currer, Ellis y Acton Bell. Jane Eyre se convierte en éxito comercial y literario. Otra, la genial Cumbres borrascosas, alarma a los críticos por su salvaje pasión y amoralidad. Ambas son obras clásicas de la literatura mundial. Hablamos de una de las familias literarias más famosas de la historia: los Brontë. (Aida Levitan) (Read more) (Translation)

We wonder what this columnist from La Opinión de Málaga has in mind when he uses the Brontë sisters as examples of Holy Week devotion ("that honest Popish superstition"):

A veces pienso, ¿y si no se acuerdan? ¿Y si se equivocan? Pero no, los nazarenos llevan la lealtad hasta un nivel que espantaría por excesivo a las mismísimas hermanas Brontë.  (Lucas Martín) (Translation)

Le Monde reviews La Fuite en Egypte by Michel Chaillou and quotes from the novel:

"La littérature, c'est mon muscadet : avec elle, je prends la route. J'ai découvert, grâce à ce livre, que j'étais un Rom. Or, chose curieuse, Bertrand Poirot-Delpech disait que j'étais le Heathcliff de la littérature contemporaine. Et, dans Les Hauts de Hurlevent, Heathcliff est un Gitan ramassé à Liverpool par un pasteur." (Translation)

The readers of La Vanguardia (Spain) and Nosotras recommend Wuthering Heights for this year's Sant Jordi; Some reviews: Shelf Love reviews Shirley; My Love-Haunted Heart  Wuthering Heights and The Rimless Reader Jane Eyre, Reading for Sanity publishes the winner of their Café Press Brontë contest, Movie Matinee!.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Opera, References, Shirley, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights