Takács Quartet joins Meryl Streep to celebrate author Philip Roth
Meryl Streep and the Takacs String Quartet applaud Philip Roth, in the audience at an event presented by Princeton University Concerts. Denise Applewhite/Princeton University Office of Communications
By Landon Jones and Pia De Jong | Time.com
Actress Meryl Streep is here to do a one-time performance, reading selections from Philip Roth’s meditation-on-death novella, Everyman, accompanied by a string quartet and a star-struck audience of 900.
The project was born a few years ago when Ed Dusinberre, the British-born first violinist of the Takács String Quartet, was reading Everyman, Roth’s indictment of death, against old age, against the loss of erotic energy that is the source of life. One of its cheerier lines: “Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.” But Dusinberre, who has a reputation for innovative programming, wondered if Everyman could be excerpted and performed with music—specifically, with Franz Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”, written shortly before the composer died of syphilis at age 31.
Have news? Submit here: http://www.cupresents.org/submit-news