Romeo And Juliet

'Romeo and Juliet' Where: Los Angeles Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, downtown L.A. When: 2 p.m. Nov. 6, 20 and 26; 7:30 p.m. Nov. 9, 12 and 17 Tickets: $20 to $270 Information: (213) 972-8001 or http://www.laopera.com Running time: 3 hours

Milo O'Shea, a versatile Dublin-born stage and screen actor known for his famously bristling, agile eyebrows and roles in such disparate films as "Ulysses," "Barbarella" and Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet," has died. He was 86. O'Shea, who also appeared in many popular television series, including "Cheers," "Frasier," "The West Wing" and "The Golden Girls," died Tuesday in New York after a short illness, according to Irish news accounts. Familiar both in starring and supporting roles, he appeared in numerous stage productions before coming to wider attention with his first leading screen role as Leopold Bloom in the 1967 adaptation of James Joyce's "Ulysses.

What if Shakespeare had it wrong about love in "Romeo and Juliet"? In fact, what if all of us have it wrong and our ideals of love and romance are hopelessly awry? Although we are supposed to be celebrating our love for that special someone on Valentine's Day, perhaps the time has come to reconsider the concept of romantic love, at least as it has been conceived in Western societies. As we busily track down red roses, the best chocolates and the finest champagnes, we need to ask whether, in the pursuit of the perfect romance, we haven't declared war on true love.

Heidi Klum, on vacation in Hawaii, and her boyfriend and father saved her 7-year-old son and two nannies when they were caught in a riptide on Sunday at a beach in Oahu. (It's a good thing Klum stays in shape. She even launched a line of workout clothes, Heidi Klum for New Balance, in mid-March by lifting some weights for the cameras.) [ETOnline] Orlando Bloom -- husband of model Miranda Kerr -- is set to play Romeo in an updated, interracial interpretation of "Romeo and Juliet" on Broadway.

Brooklyn's infighting Hasidim meet the Bard in "Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish," Eve Annenberg's exuberant new feature. Openhearted and kvetching, the comedy filters a very particular slice of contemporary New York through Shakespeare's star-crossed tale and a bit of kabbalistic magic. One joy of the gawky-lovely film is that it probably represents the most extensive use of Yiddish on the big screen in decades. Annenberg ("Dogs: The Rise and Fall of an All-Girl Bookie Joint")

William Shakespeare once wrote: "A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. " That seems to be the guiding philosophy behind a new line of Shakespeare e-books from Sourcebooks that seeks to demystify the playwright's work. Called the Shakesperience and available through iTunes' iBookstore for $9.99 per title, the e-books use audio readings, a glossary, photos from notable performances and other tools to help student readers better understand Shakespeare's famously challenging texts.

Nino Machaidze, the 28-year-old soprano from Tbilisi, Georgia, has only been singing professionally for a little more than four years, but the origin of her latest turn in L.A. stretches to 2005 and includes a few twists of fate. In January of that year, Los Angeles Opera's production of Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet" helped catapult into operatic superstardom young singers Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Soon these two were headlining at major houses and in 2008 were set to re-create their L.A. roles with a highly anticipated new production at the Salzburg Festival — until Netrebko dropped out due to a much publicized pregnancy.

You go, girl. A phrase that would probably be as foreign to William Shakespeare as some of his might be to students today. And yet, on Friday, as a professional troupe performed acts of "Romeo and Juliet" for students at Van Nuys Middle School, Shakespeare's lines more than once gave rise to an emphatic "You go, girl!," from the audience. Not to mention the students who felt Juliet's father should "step off" and Tybalt, killer of Romeo's cousin, was "the bomb."

Considering the big risk the Joffrey Ballet took less than three years ago when it first ventured John Cranko's full-length "Romeo and Juliet," it's amazing how comfortable the company now looks in the ballet--how successfully the dancers manage the unorthodox caractere -flavored dance style, the vigorous but scarcely veristic narrative pantomime, the florid ensemble acting.

I'm all for bringing Shakespeare to the schools. And there's evidence--based on the kids in attendance at the Los Angeles Theatre Center last weekend--that Will & Company's "Romeo and Juliet" will, in fact, delight some of the estimated 6,000 grade school and high school students the company plans to reach. But for anyone who's at all conversant with the Bard, this "Romeo and Juliet" is a three-hour exercise in amateurism, a school play in every sense of the word.

Orlando Bloom and Tony nominee Condola Rashad will star in a Broadway production of “Romeo and Juliet” that transports Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers to modern times with race as a central theme. David Leveaux will direct the production, featuring Jayne Houdyshell (“Follies”) as the nurse and Joe Morton (the musical “Raisin”) as Lord Capulet, with additional casting to be announced. Leveaux recently directed "Backbeat" at the Ahmanson Theatre, a musical about the Beatles' formative period playing in German nightclubs.

TIMBUKTU, Mali - It didn't matter that Timbuktu had been occupied by Islamist militias notorious for meting out 100 lashes to young women who flirted with, or even talked to, men. When Mamou Maiga encountered a dazzling young man while out for a walk, her world turned upside down. "He had beautiful eyes and a gentle smile," recalls Maiga, 21, smiling shyly as she remembered that day in mid-September. "He asked me if he could drop me at my house. I saw no problems. " His name was Adama.

James Conlon, the music director of Los Angeles Opera, was in Milan, Italy, this week to conduct the opening-night ballet performance of Hector Berlioz's "Romeo and Juliet" at La Scala. But as things sometimes happen in Italy, Wednesday's big opening was canceled due to a strike by members of the chorus. A notice on the website for Teatro alla Scala read that the performance was called off due to the strike organized by unions representing the chorus.  The new production of Berlioz's piece features choreography by Sasha Waltz and is a co-production between La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opéra National de Paris.

Much ado about something: William Shakespeare has gone digital in a big way. The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials, launched the Folger Digital Texts on Thursday. It's a set of authoritative Shakespeare plays available for free -- along with the source code. Noncommercial app builders, scholars and others can use the code to build their own Shakespeare-oriented projects. That's pretty cool. The plays, of course, are in the public domain and have been available online for a long time.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada -- one of the premiere repertory theater companies in the world -- is undergoing a name change by removing the "Shakespeare" from its title. The company, which will be known simply as the Stratford Festival, announced the change Thursday and said its new name takes effect immediately. Earlier this year, the festival named Antoni Cimolino as its new artistic director, taking over from Des McAnuff. Cimolino, who had served as general director of the company since 2006, assumed his new role Thursday.

When two-time PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist John Edgar Wideman finished his most recent book, “Briefs: Stories for the Palm of the Mind,” two years ago, he opted to take an unorthodox route to release, putting it out himself through the self-publisher Lulu. Partly, this was a family decision; Wideman's son worked for the company and, as the author recalled this week by phone from his home in Manhattan, “To do a book with him was pure joy.” At the same time, 71-year old Wideman, who has also won a MacArthur genius grant, was interested in playing with new forms, with seeing how the changing infrastructure of publishing might be exploited to get his work across in different ways.

William Shakespeare once wrote: "A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. " That seems to be the guiding philosophy behind a new line of Shakespeare e-books from Sourcebooks that seeks to demystify the playwright's work. Called the Shakesperience and available through iTunes' iBookstore for $9.99 per title, the e-books use audio readings, a glossary, photos from notable performances and other tools to help student readers better understand Shakespeare's famously challenging texts.

Brooklyn's infighting Hasidim meet the Bard in "Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish," Eve Annenberg's exuberant new feature. Openhearted and kvetching, the comedy filters a very particular slice of contemporary New York through Shakespeare's star-crossed tale and a bit of kabbalistic magic. One joy of the gawky-lovely film is that it probably represents the most extensive use of Yiddish on the big screen in decades. Annenberg ("Dogs: The Rise and Fall of an All-Girl Bookie Joint")