AP

By RONALD BLUM Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Tenor Rolando Villazón was singing the title role in Massenet’s “Werther” in 2006 at Nice, France, when he started thinking about how he would direct the opera. “I said, ‘oh, this last act is very difficult. He shot himself and keeps singing for 40 minutes.’ And

By THOMAS ADAMSON AP Fashion Writer PARIS (AP) — The spring fashion season ended with silhouettes you could spot from a block away. As Paris Fashion Week wrapped up this week after myriad debuts and shake-ups, three trends took hold. Shoulders were broadened and jackets snapped to attention. Skin showed on the wearer’s terms. And

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer TORONTO (AP) — The lengths writer-director Derek Cianfrance goes to create immersive environments for his actors has grown into a kind of legend. After making the much-improvised doomed romance of “Blue Valentine” (2010), Michelle Williams said she would have to remind herself that she was never, actually, married to

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer VENICE, Italy (AP) — Andrew Garfield would like everyone to know about his gesticulating. Not in his performance as a Yale philosophy professor accused of sexual misconduct in “After the Hunt,” but while discussing an actor’s responsibility to comment on the work they’re putting out in the world. It’s

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Fiction by Rabih Alameddine, Megha Majumdar and Karen Russell and a memoir of family tragedy by Yiyun Li are among this year’s finalists for the National Book Award. On Tuesday, the National Book Foundation a nnounced five nominees in each of five competitive categories, narrowing

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for public television stations suffering from cuts in federal funding. Ross, a public television stalwart in the 1980s and ’90s, “dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone,” said