Month: August 2021

BAYREUTH, Germany — Asmik Grigorian was hungry after all. The soprano, whose debut at the Bayreuth Festival the evening before had been met with a roaring ovation, initially ordered an espresso to help her wake up. But then she wanted more. “Do you have ice cream?” she asked a waiter. “Chocolate?” he responded. “Strawberry, vanilla ——” “All,” she said, cutting him off. “All of it.” He returned with a coupe glass nearly overflowing with five scoops of different flavors. And she ate it all. Grigorian, 40, approached dessert the way she does opera: with daring, total commitment and a bottomless appetite. She has a voice by turns steely and lyrical, immense and delicate, and one of the fiercest dramatic talents in the field. “She’s the complete package,” said Franz Welser-Möst, who con...

Prince Harry issued a statement regarding the Taliban’s new hold on Afghanistan.  The Duke of Sussex, who previously served in the British Army for a decade, including two deployments in Afghanistan, issued a joint statement with Dominic Reid, the CEO of Harry's Invictus Games, on Monday.  In it, they call on the international community, particularly those who have served or whose family members have served in the country, to reach out to one another as emotions flare regarding the Taliban takeover.  "What's happening in Afghanistan resonates across the international Invictus community," their statement reads. "Many of the participating nations and competitors in the Invictus Games family are bound by a shared experience of serving in Afghanistan over the past two decades, and for sev...

Maki Kaji, a university dropout who turned a numbers game into one of the world’s most popular logic puzzles and became known as the “Godfather of Sudoku,” died at his home in Tokyo on Aug. 10. He was 69. His death was announced on Tuesday by the puzzle company he co-founded, Nikoli. The cause was bile duct cancer, the company said in a statement. In a speech in 2008, Mr. Kaji said he first “fell in love” with a game called Number Place in 1984. He renamed it Sudoku. “I wanted to create a Japanese name,” Mr. Kaji said. “I created the name in about 25 seconds.” The reason: He had been in a rush to get to a horse race. He said he had not expected the name to stick. (“Sudoku” roughly translates to “single numbers.”) By then, with two childhood friends, he had started the company that w...

Jennifer Lopez is at the center of a pretty cheesy war between her current BF and her ex-fiance Alex Rodriguez, who got trolled with a symbolic chicken pizza order ... TMZ has learned. So, here's the deal ... a certain someone named Ben hit up the Florida-based online pizza joint Bulls Bears & Squares, and plunked down $141.32 to send some pies to A-Rod back on June 17. It's unclear exactly how many pizzas were ordered, but the joint's owner, Samuel Tadros, confirms the only topping requested was chicken. He says their Chicago stuffed jalapeño ranch chicken deep dish pizza is one of its most popular choices. ...

Lil Wayne's never forgotten "Uncle Bob" -- the former New Orleans police officer who saved his life when he attempted suicide at age 12 -- and he's told him he's got his back for life if he ever needs anything. "Uncle Bob," whose real name is Robert Hoobler, tells TMZ ... he saw Lil Wayne in 2019 when the rapper was in NOLA for a radio show, and that's when Wayne offered to provide Bob with financial support if he ever needed it, telling Bob all he has to do is say the word. Bob says he hasn't taken up Weezy on the generous offer, but there have been talks about him joining Weezy's team in some sort of administrative capa...