29 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - A packed performance of a West End opera was saved at the weekend when a member of the audience stepped in to sing the lead role after the star lost his voice.

Paul Whelan, 38, saved the English National Opera's production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor by singing the part of Raimondo from the wings while bass Clive Bayley, who suffered a chest infection, mimed the part on stage.

Whelan was able to carry off the feat as he had been studying the role and is due to take over from Bayley in a few weeks' time, although he hadn't had any chance to rehearse.

"It was an extraordinary experience and we had an extraordinary reaction," Whelan, who stands six feet four inches tall, said after receiving a standing ovation and taking his bow with the cast while wearing a smart suit and tie.

"I'm just so glad I was wearing my Armani tie," he said.

A spokesman for the ENO said it was not the first time such a late-minute replacement had occurred. He added it had gone off much more successfully than might otherwise have been the case.

"He got a huge cheer," he said.

(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Charles Dick)

By MICHAEL CIDONI, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — If it truly is a pleasure just to be nominated for an Oscar, Alan Menken must be Hollywood’s happiest man.

The co-composer of songs from Walt Disney’s musical hit “Enchanted” has three of the five nominations in the original-song category going into Sunday’s Academy Awards.

While that’s not a record — three of Henry Krieger’s songs from “Dreamgirls” were nominated just last year — news of the triple play still took Menken by surprise.

“My publicist, Ray Costa, called me and said, ‘Alan, you’re nominated for “Happy Working Song” … and “So Close” … and “That’s How You Know,”‘ Menken recalled for AP Television at the Oscar nominees luncheon in early February. “I was really blind-sided, completely blind-sided. Three nominations. I said, ‘Now we’re gonna lose.’”

Menken said he expects the three “Enchanted” entries, co-written with Stephen Schwartz, may split the vote, improving odds for the other song contenders at the ceremony: “Falling Slowly” from “Once” and “Raise It Up” from “August Rush.”

Last year, the three “Dreamgirls” songs lost out to Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up” from “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Then again, Menken and his late co-writer Howard Ashman got three 1991 nods for “Beauty and the Beast,” and won for the title tune.

Menken, 58, also has Oscars for co-writing “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid,” “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin” and “Colors of the Wind” from “Pocahontas.”

Those four Oscars “live in my studio, and they’re all in a cabinet,” Menken said. “And I occasionally let them out and let people hold them.”

Menken said he points out the statues when he has a studio disagreement with a collaborator.

“I say, ‘Turn around and look over there,’” he noted with a laugh. “It’s obnoxious, but sometimes effective.”

By JOE EDWARDS, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Just in time for Presidents Day comes a new album saluting Abe Lincoln. Honest. Chris Vallillo’s “Abraham Lincoln in Song” is a collection of mostly Civil War-era songs, including “Dixie” and “Battle Cry of Freedom.”

The target audience? Certainly not the Britney Spears crowd.

“Lovers of acoustic music, history buffs and especially the educational audience,” will enjoy the album, said Vallillo, a singer-songwriter from Macomb, Ill., who has studied Lincoln’s life and Illinois folk traditions.

This album probably won’t shoot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 or dominate radio play.

But Mark Summers, a history professor at the University of Kentucky in Lincoln’s native state, said the project can educate as well as entertain.

“Music shows you a good slice of the time period, tells you about sentimentality and the emotions at the time. I’d like to have it for my classes,” he said.

The album of mostly acoustic ballads — released on Feb. 12, Lincoln’s birthday — grew out of a one-man show in which Vallillo used period music to illustrate Honest Abe’s era.

“Battle Cry of Freedom,” written by George F. Root, was inspired by Lincoln’s call for Union volunteers in 1862. “Hard Times Come Again No More” is by Stephen Foster. There are additional songs about Lincoln’s funeral train, a runaway slave and tunes said to be liked by Lincoln. “Aura Lee,” written in the 1860s, is the melody for Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.”

“This should be of interest to anyone who loves Lincoln,” said Vallillo, 53.

“Dixie,” though popularly associated with the South, was written by a Northerner and was reportedly Lincoln’s favorite song.

“On the day peace was declared, he broke the news to the crowds by having the White House band perform the song,” Vallillo said.

Instruments on the CD include guitar, fiddle, mandolin and harmonica.

Vallillo will be selling it at his shows and on the Internet.

He said recent projects like Ken Burns’ “Civil War” documentary and the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” have made roots music more accessible to mainstream America.

From 1990 to 1997, Vallillo was host and co-producer of the award-winning public radio series “Rural Route 3.” He has sung at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Ill., other Lincoln historic sites, performing arts centers and small theaters.

Vallillo has no illusions about selling as many records as Garth Brooks. But he said the popularity of the 16th president should not be underestimated.

The album has the endorsement of the Illinois Bicentennial Commission, which is overseeing two years of events to celebrate Lincoln’s birth on Feb. 12, 1809.

“With the upcoming bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, that interest should be significant,” he said.

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On the Net:

Gin Ridge Music: http://www.ginridge.com

7 minutes ago

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - It's a doggone chartbuster — a song audible only to dogs has topped New Zealand record charts, and is looking to go global.

A Very Silent Night, recorded at a frequency only dogs can hear, was so popular among owners it hit number one at Christmas, but has been receiving mixed responses from listeners.

"The most violent one was a dog that physically attacked the radio when it was played and went quite berserk and totally destroyed it," said Bob Kerridge, chief executive of animal welfare group, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

"On the other side of the scale, they just lie down and did nothing." The charity CD, priced at NZ$4.99 ($3.93), contained an instrumental and a vocal version of the song, but Kerridge said he did not know what kind of music dogs would hear.

"Never having heard it myself, I don't what they'll hear and of course I don't know how dogs hear music," he said.

Kerridge added dogs in Australia and the United States could soon have a listen.

Around NZ$22,000 ($17,300) has been raised by the disc's sale.

(Reporting by Kazunori Takada; Editing by David Fox)

By Darryl Morden 6 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Memo to Beyonce and her father: Yes, Tina Turner is one of the greats, but Aretha Franklin is still the queen — of soul and more.

A full house of loyal subjects agreed during the first of two nights Thursday at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, giving her all the R-E-S-P-E-C-T she deserves. (Four days earlier at the Grammy Awards across the road, Beyonce had introduced Turner as the "queen," sparking a rebuke from "Queen of Soul" Franklin, and a counter-attack from Beyonce's father/manager, Mathew Knowles.)

The Valentine's Day show was a lovefest between the legend and fans, with plenty of standing ovations, cheers and shouts for the all-time favorite numbers. Franklin wore a pink gown and matching wrap for the occasion, leading off with a jubilant version of Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher" followed by an appropriate "My Funny Valentine," given a torch-to-R&B bluster treatment.

With five backing vocalists and a large orchestra that included a horn section, the arrangements at times were too busy and, yes, over the top, as on "A House Is Not a Home." The performance also was somewhat old-fashioned; the star was led out as the band vamped on jazz and R&B, and she later went offstage while the band played on its own again, then returned.

Although her voice isn't quite the powerhouse it was a couple decades back, it's still an amazing instrument — combined with technique. That's what contemporary stars, from Beyonce to Mariah and so on, don't comprehend: It's not about showboat note-holding and bending around the lyric. It's all in the delivery, and Franklin can still belt like nobody's business, yet she also knows how to hold back.

The classics were winning as ever, such as "Think" and later "Chain of Fools," which was kicked off by her son Teddy on guitar. Seated at the piano — and still quite the ivory tickler herself — she took Simon & Garfunkel's already-spiritual "Bridge Over Troubled Water" right into church.

Of course, her signature song, the Otis Redding-penned "Respect," brought the crowd ranging from seniors down to college-age kids to its feet, as did a final gospel climax that included a white-robed choir.

Some songs were MIA: Surprisingly, no "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" or the 1980s hits "Jump to It" and "Freeway of Love." But during numbers like "Ain't No Way," dating back to her 1968 "Lady Soul" album, she showed that she's indeed still the Queen, and while the kingdom is no longer the same, she's not quite ready to step down from that throne yet.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Sun Feb 17, 9:08 AM ET

HAMBURG, Germany - Heidi Klum wants to help Britney Spears. The 34-year-old model says she’d be willing to open her home to Spears while the troubled pop singer puts her life back together.

“She can call me and come live in our house with us for a couple of months,” said Klum, a mother of three who is married to the singer Seal and lives in Beverly Hills, Calif. “I would help set her straight.”

“I am sorry when a young person gets thrown so off track,” Klum said, according to a transcript of an interview that will be aired Monday night by the German broadcaster ARD. “She has, of course, lived an extremely wild life.”

After more than a year of bizarre behavior and two stints in a psychiatric hospital this year, Spears was placed under a conservatorship by the Los Angeles County Superior Court commissioner at the beginning of February. Conservatorships are established when a court determines that someone cannot take care of themselves or their affairs.

To hear Klum, the host of Bravo’s “Project Runway,” describe it, her own life seems like a fairy tale.

“I have never been as happy as I am today,” Klum said. “I have found the man of my life and we have three great kids. They are all so different and fantastic that it really can’t get better than this.”

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On the Net:

http://www.heidiklum.com