An honest sense of one’s own failings and shortcomings is part of what makes levity possible. One of the best books I know for inculcating humility through humor is Jerome K. Jerome’s novel, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog).

In The Crowd, Le Bon warns that when ideals are erased, cohesion is lost, individual characters weaken and develop excessive egoism, and, as their capacity for self-sufficiency diminishes, they become increasingly reliant on the government to direct them.

The program gave a splendid overview of ‘America’s Mezzo’ Susan Graham’s legendary career across the operatic firmament as well as in the jazzy tunes of the American Songbook. One only missed her triumphs in the operas of Richard Strauss.

Lohengrin, with its lush music and tragic exploration of trust, betrayal, and forbidden knowledge, has imaginative gifts to offer contemporary audiences. The music still soars, but only to the cave ceiling, not to the skies.

In his book The Disappearance of Rituals, Korean-German philosopher Byun-Chul Han presents a genealogy of the disappearance of rituals and its catastrophic effects on society.

For the Utopian, a unified and uniform mass of humanity is enabled by the “abolition of war,” which in turn can only be safeguarded by a “supranational agency, ultimately a world government.”

Strauss’s opera prizes innocence in a time of chaos, beauty over disorder, and the transcendence of suffering. Daphne is precisely the work that could lend itself to the revitalization of an opera company.

The Spear serves as a lectio divina of sorts, that is, as an opportunity to imagine oneself in the action of the Holy Scriptures.

Ultimately, the founding and the success of the State of Israel can only be described in religious terms: the flourishing existence of today’s Israel is a miracle.

A step up from the very literal productions usually seen here, this co-production by Opéra de Monte-Carlo and San Francisco Opera removes the action from its usual eighteenth-century setting to the fateful year of 1914.

Pogo’s use of politics complements the other layers of art and satire perfectly. In a world where we are surrounded by bad art made for purely political purposes, Walt Kelly’s work is a breath of fresh air.

Bauerlein demonstrates in clear, elegant prose that a common frame of reference no longer exists, and the result for Millennials and Gen Z has been a disaster.

One only hopes that the current wave of political masochism in America will crest and that elites will understand that you cannot build a stable future by destroying the past or demonizing your heritage.

This is the Madama Butterfly we know and love—almost to the point of guilty pleasure.

“In the shadow of the eccentric, the charming, and the zany, terror lurks. Maybe that’s the background against which man’s wickedness is clearest.”—Lars von Trier

By asserting that the common good does exist and can be defined and applied, Vermeule contests the cultural Left and libertarian Right’s chimera of a values-neutral jurisprudence.

To read Franquin’s Spirou and Fantasio comics is to blur the line between child and adult and to enter a world of wonder of which we could all use a taste.

Could Fauda prove the clearest testament yet to the Palestinian question’s irreducible unsolvability?

Tolkien’s most intimidating book may be his richest.

To borrow from Flannery O’Connor, The Secret History might not be Christ-centered, but it is certainly Christ-haunted. As such, the novel makes for excellent Lenten reading.

Fresh off forming Israel’s most right-wing government ever, Bibi Netanyahu appears in his recently published memoir as the Jewish people’s shrewdest leader since King Solomon.