Latest news with #LincolnintheBardo
Gulf Today
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Abraham Lincoln's empathy is what our divided nation needs
Christi Parsons, Tribune News Service In our era, they might seem like performative gestures for the president. A quiet visit with the wife of a wounded soldier. A conversation with a battlefield nurse or a kitchen worker. A hand extended to a Black woman who had once been enslaved. Abraham Lincoln didn't publicise these moments, though. He prioritised them for personal reasons. Because even as he held the Union together with the force of his will — even as he buried his own child and bore the weight of a nation at war — he made time for mercy. He listened to the voices of those without power, a practice that steeled him for wielding his own. Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Elon Musk recently declared it the 'fundamental weakness' of Western civilisation, summing up the ethos of the administration he just left. Even those who defend empathy speak of it mainly as a private virtue, not one that compels any particular action by public figures. But in the hands of a great leader, empathy can become a powerful political force. Whenever America has begun to fray — during war, depression, civil upheaval — the country has rallied behind a president who focused on the disenfranchised. If we're to survive our current crisis of division, our civic leaders need to do the same thing. And, as citizens, so do we. Maybe that's why Lincoln's name keeps rising in our conversations, as historians and storytellers nudge us in this direction. Lincoln is a figure in exhibits, podcasts and intellectual festivals this summer. The Metropolitan Opera is working to produce George Saunders' moving novel 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' a deeply empathetic portrayal of the 16th president. New scholarship further reveals a deeply sensitive and heartfelt man. In this modern moment of anxiety, they're showing the way to a better place — or at least the first step toward it. How did Lincoln cultivate the trait of empathy? Partly by surrounding himself with compassionate people. That's according to 'Loving Lincoln,' a new biography examining his story through the lives of the women who, despite their lack of franchise, were his key influencers. By his female relatives, Lincoln was nurtured into what his stepmother called 'the best boy I ever saw,' historian Stacy Lynn writes. Their stories 'offer evidence of Lincoln's kindness and sensitivity, his patience, his moral center, his social and political virtues, the breadth of his compassion, and his inspirational legacy.' By far, the deepest relationship of his life was with his wife, Mary, whose steely resolve helped bolster his commitment to freeing enslaved people. She was in favor of emancipation very early on, and she pressed her husband on the issue. The Lincoln White House became a place of mercy and goodwill, in no small part because of the compassion the president showed for his wife in her grief. He welcomed Black people to the White House. Mary Dines, who worked in the kitchen, urged Lincoln to visit the camps where newly freed families lived, and he went. Elizabeth Keckley, a formerly enslaved woman who became Mary Lincoln's dressmaker and confidante, called him 'kind and generous by nature.' Lincoln also welcomed Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. 'I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln,' Truth said later. To meet the gaze of all these people, to shake their hands, to give them audience — these were not symbolic gestures. They were radical acts of inclusion by the leader who kept the Union intact. This is meaningful for us today, in our moment of deep national division. For those in office, the life of Lincoln is a guideline. He spoke publicly of the need for love and compassion. He surrounded himself with confidantes who embraced it. And he took action on it, ultimately assisting the emancipation of 4 million people from bondage. Elected officials today can do likewise. They can reject the dogma of hatred in discussing immigration. They can surround themselves with advisers who, even if they favor downsising government, hold respect for public service and public servants. They can vote and act with care for those on the margins of society. But the work of public compassion isn't all on their shoulders. Each of us can train ourselves individually for compassion. A good first step is the one Lincoln modeled all his life. We can start today by using compassionate language, a practice that can lead to feeling it in the heart. Research shows language doesn't just express emotion — it can help shape it. Certain practices can actually increase activity in the neural networks that enhance empathy and emotional regulation. Showing empathy to others feels good, too. Compassion, as with charity, begins at home. Ultimately, though, we have a compassionate responsibility to one another. So what can we as individuals do to fulfill it? We can reach out to friends and family members with differing perspectives. We can try to talk, understand and share. We can reward kindness in those who seek our votes — this fall, next year and the two after that. We can help change the national tenor by changing our own.
Chicago Tribune
27-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Christi Parsons: Abraham Lincoln's empathy is what our divided nation needs
In our era, they might seem like performative gestures for the president. A quiet visit with the wife of a wounded soldier. A conversation with a battlefield nurse or a kitchen worker. A hand extended to a Black woman who had once been enslaved. Abraham Lincoln didn't publicize these moments, though. He prioritized them for personal reasons. Because even as he held the Union together with the force of his will — even as he buried his own child and bore the weight of a nation at war — he made time for mercy. He listened to the voices of those without power, a practice that steeled him for wielding his own. Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Elon Musk recently declared it the 'fundamental weakness' of Western civilization, summing up the ethos of the administration he just left. Even those who defend empathy speak of it mainly as a private virtue, not one that compels any particular action by public figures. But in the hands of a great leader, empathy can become a powerful political force. Whenever America has begun to fray — during war, depression, civil upheaval — the country has rallied behind a president who focused on the disenfranchised. If we're to survive our current crisis of division, our civic leaders need to do the same thing. And, as citizens, so do we. Maybe that's why Lincoln's name keeps rising in our conversations, as historians and storytellers nudge us in this direction. Lincoln is a figure in exhibits, podcasts and intellectual festivals this summer. The Metropolitan Opera is working to produce George Saunders' moving novel 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' a deeply empathetic portrayal of the 16th president. New scholarship further reveals a deeply sensitive and heartfelt man. In this modern moment of anxiety, they're showing the way to a better place — or at least the first step toward it. How did Lincoln cultivate the trait of empathy? Partly by surrounding himself with compassionate people. That's according to 'Loving Lincoln,' a new biography examining his story through the lives of the women who, despite their lack of franchise, were his key influencers. By his female relatives, Lincoln was nurtured into what his stepmother called 'the best boy I ever saw,' historian Stacy Lynn writes. Their stories 'offer evidence of Lincoln's kindness and sensitivity, his patience, his moral center, his social and political virtues, the breadth of his compassion, and his inspirational legacy.' By far, the deepest relationship of his life was with his wife, Mary, whose steely resolve helped bolster his commitment to freeing enslaved people. She was in favor of emancipation very early on, and she pressed her husband on the issue. The Lincoln White House became a place of mercy and goodwill, in no small part because of the compassion the president showed for his wife in her grief. He welcomed Black people to the White House. Mary Dines, who worked in the kitchen, urged Lincoln to visit the camps where newly freed families lived, and he went. Elizabeth Keckley, a formerly enslaved woman who became Mary Lincoln's dressmaker and confidante, called him 'kind and generous by nature.' Editorial: The idea of America, under stressLincoln also welcomed Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. 'I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln,' Truth said later. To meet the gaze of all these people, to shake their hands, to give them audience — these were not symbolic gestures. They were radical acts of inclusion by the leader who kept the Union intact. This is meaningful for us today, in our moment of deep national division. For those in office, the life of Lincoln is a guideline. He spoke publicly of the need for love and compassion. He surrounded himself with confidantes who embraced it. And he took action on it, ultimately assisting the emancipation of 4 million people from bondage. Elected officials today can do likewise. They can reject the dogma of hatred in discussing immigration. They can surround themselves with advisers who, even if they favor downsizing government, hold respect for public service and public servants. They can vote and act with care for those on the margins of society. But the work of public compassion isn't all on their shoulders. Each of us can train ourselves individually for compassion. A good first step is the one Lincoln modeled all his life. We can start today by using compassionate language, a practice that can lead to feeling it in the heart. Research shows language doesn't just express emotion — it can help shape it. Certain practices can actually increase activity in the neural networks that enhance empathy and emotional regulation. Showing empathy to others feels good, too. Compassion, as with charity, begins at home. Ultimately, though, we have a compassionate responsibility to one another. So what can we as individuals do to fulfill it? We can reach out to friends and family members with differing perspectives. We can try to talk, understand and share. We can reward kindness in those who seek our votes — this fall, next year and the two after that. We can help change the national tenor by changing our own. In the grand scheme of things, it was just a few years ago that Lincoln led our country through something much worse than the conflict we're now experiencing. His example feels even more relevant when we consider how powerfully his words land in our hearts today. He's telling us how to bind up the wounds of our nation, 'with malice toward none, with charity for all.' For the love of Lincoln, let's listen. Christi Parsons is a former Tribune White House correspondent and a longtime political journalist now on the faculty at the University of Maryland.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jess Kidd: ‘My older sister taught me to read with Mills & Boon'
My earliest reading memory One of my older sisters taught me to read using Mills & Boon romance novels. I grew up autistic and queer and feel a nostalgic bewilderment about this genre, which at that time was populated by strong heroines who would – predictably but unfathomably – go weak at the knees for their male love interests. Otherwise, we had few books in the house. There are talented storytellers in my family, particularly my mother. I preferred to hide under the stairs and deliver my stories by writing them down. The book that changed me as a teenager Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. I had known it in childhood in the vinyl format, my late father had the Richard Burton recording. Even though it is a play for voices, I found reading the text myself thrilling. I loved the opulence of the language and the narrative range of it. The book that made me want to be a writer Conrad the Factory-Made Boy by Christine Nöstlinger. As a late-diagnosed autistic person I have only recently realised why this book resonated with me. Conrad is a child packaged in a tin can who arrives in the post by accident. His chance caregiver is the feral, endearingly anarchic Mrs Bartolotti. Neither of them play by the society-designated rules for adults or children. But Conrad must learn to be a convincing 'real' child if they are to stay together. Poignant and funny; for me, more so in retrospect. It made me think that telling stories was a way to understand the oddness of being alive. The author I came back to George Saunders. A college drop-out, I studied with the Open University when my daughter was young, then received a bursary to return to university to study for an MA and PhD in creative writing studies. A lecturer introduced to me to CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. I prefer reading short stories to novels because they are usually braver in terms of the use of structure or narrative voice. Saunders feels courageous across the board. For me, Lincoln in the Bardo is a work of genius, complete but fragmented, grotesque and poignant, with a bleak seam of gallows humour. I love the traffic between the dead and the living in his work. The book I reread We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Or in fact anything by Shirley Jackson, who is the perfect writer to lead me somewhere twisted and wry and difficult. The book I could never read again Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Thinking about the story as a hallucinatory clash between good and evil – and the disastrous consequences that might arise if you had the freedom to act on your worst impulses – is fun and satisfying. But on the line, it's just a gaggle of wealthy bachelors bumbling around London. The female characters are relegated to a small girl mown down by Hyde and a maid who faints. For such a small book it throws a big shadow. The book I am currently readingI usually have two on the go, fiction and nonfiction. North Woods by Daniel Mason, which takes the setting of the same house in New England through four centuries. I'm also reading Joan Schenkar's excellent biography The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith which shifts dizzyingly through time, although not chronologically. It is strong and sinewy but light on its feet, like a boxer with a terrifying left hook. I came to it intrigued by Highsmith's obsession with snails and stayed for insights into someone as fascinating and disturbing as the fictional killers she invented. My comfort readAnything by Kelly Link. Her fiction is wonderfully off-kilter but makes perfect sense to me. She's been variously called a writer of magical realism, or modern fables, or postmodern fairytales. I feel she ought to be in a genre of her own. I wouldn't say the read would be entirely comforting, but her stories are always original and that offers its own comfort. Murder at Gulls Nest is published by Faber on 13 March. To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply. copy go to. Delivery charges may apply.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
LA Opera drops Missy Mazzoli's `Lincoln in the Bardo,' which will premiere at New York's Met
The Los Angeles Opera dropped a contemplated world premiere for the second straight season in a cost-cutting move, and Missy Mazzoli's 'Lincoln in the Bardo' will instead open at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Adapted from George Saunders' 2017 novel and with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, 'Lincoln' was to debut in Los Angeles in February 2026, Saunders said last October. But it was not included when the LA Opera announced its 2025-26 season on Tuesday, 'With rising expenses, it's harder for us to manage the manifestation of all of our potential dreams,' LA Opera president Christopher Koelsch said. 'It's a wonderful project and I think it will be very impactful when it gets to the Met. What Missy and Royce have done in adapting something that is essentially unadaptable is really miraculous, a very beautiful and very moving piece.' Saunders' novel, about the death of President Abraham Lincoln's son William Wallace Lincoln, takes place between life and rebirth. Mason Bates' 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' was to have premiered in LA last October but was left off the schedule and instead given a test run with a student cast at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in November. It is planned to open the Met's 2025-26 season on Sept. 21. The Met announced it 2018 it had commissioned 'Lincoln' and by 2023 said the work would be seen first in LA. It will now debut in October 2026 at the Met. Koelsch, managing his company's return following the coronavirus pandemic, said he had never fully committed to 'Lincoln' and decided last fall LA couldn't afford it. Revenue was $46.8 million in 2023-24, up from $40.8 million in 2022-23 but down from $47.1 million in 2021-22. 'Expense and income ratios for the next season were coming more into focus,' he said. Met general manager Peter Gelb said an additional workshop of 'Lincoln' will be scheduled to make up for the loss of the LA dates. It will be the Met's 32nd world premiere. LA Opera's 2025 productions James Conlon will conduct three of LA's five main stage productions at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in his final season as music director, ending a 20-year run. He leads Francesca Zambello's staging of Bernstein's 'West Side Story,' first seen at the Houston Grand Opera in 2018, to open the season on Sept. 20. Conlon then conducts a revival of Lee Blakeley's 2013 staging of Verdi's 'Falstaff' starting April 18, 2026, and Barrie Kosky's 2012 staging of Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' from Berlin's Komische Oper opening May 30. The season also includes revivals of Herbert Ross' 1993 staging of Puccini's 'La Bohème' and Philip Glass' 'Akhnaten' in a Phelim McDermott production first seen at the English National Opera in 2016. 'A victory lap for James,' Koelsch said. 'He has been music director for over half of the organization's history. The musical priorities of the company and its musical maturity and the sound of the orchestra and chorus are a creation of his expertise and imagination.' The five main-stage productions match 2024-25, down from six in the prior two seasons and a high of 10 in 2006-07. LA will present two world premieres at smaller venues: Sarah Kirkland Snider's 'Hildegard,' based the writings of Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen, at The Wallis in Beverly Hills from Nov. 5-9, and Carla Lucero's 'The Tower of Babel,' a new community opera that Conlon will conduct at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on May 8 and 9. Koelsch hopes to hire Conlon's successor ahead of the 2026-27 season. Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
Associated Press
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
LA Opera drops Missy Mazzoli's `Lincoln in the Bardo,' which will premiere New York's Met
The Los Angeles Opera dropped a contemplated world premiere for the second straight season in a cost-cutting move, and Missy Mazzoli's 'Lincoln in the Bardo' will instead open at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Adapted from George Saunders' 2017 novel and with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, 'Lincoln' was to debut in Los Angeles in February 2026, Saunders said last October. But it was not included when the LA Opera announced its 2025-26 season on Tuesday, 'With rising expenses, it's harder for us to manage the manifestation of all of our potential dreams,' LA Opera president Christopher Koelsch said. 'It's a wonderful project and I think it will be very impactful when it gets to the Met. What Missy and Royce have done in adapting something that is essentially unadaptable is really miraculous, a very beautiful and very moving piece.' Saunders' novel, about the death of President Abraham Lincoln's son William Wallace Lincoln, takes place between life and rebirth. Mason Bates' 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' was to have premiered in LA last October but was left off the schedule and instead given a test run with a student cast at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in November. It is planned to open the Met's 2025-26 season on Sept. 21. The Met announced it 2018 it had commissioned 'Lincoln' and by 2023 said the work would be seen first in LA. It will now debut in October 2026 at the Met. Koelsch, managing his company's return following the coronavirus pandemic, said he had never fully committed to 'Lincoln' and decided last fall LA couldn't afford it. Revenue was $46.8 million in 2023-24, up from $40.8 million in 2022-23 but down from $47.1 million in 2021-22. 'Expense and income ratios for the next season were coming more into focus,' he said. Met general manager Peter Gelb said an additional workshop of 'Lincoln' will be scheduled to make up for the loss of the LA dates. It will be the Met's 32nd world premiere. LA Opera's 2025 productions James Conlon will conduct three of LA's five main stage productions at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in his final season as music director, ending a 20-year run. He leads Francesca Zambello's staging of Bernstein's 'West Side Story,' first seen at the Houston Grand Opera in 2018, to open the season on Sept. 20. Conlon then conducts a revival of Lee Blakeley's 2013 staging of Verdi's 'Falstaff' starting April 18, 2026, and Barrie Kosky's 2012 staging of Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' from Berlin's Komische Oper opening May 30. The season also includes revivals of Herbert Ross' 1993 staging of Puccini's 'La Bohème' and Philip Glass' 'Akhnaten' in a Phelim McDermott production first seen at the English National Opera in 2016. 'A victory lap for James,' Koelsch said. 'He has been music director for over half of the organization's history. The musical priorities of the company and its musical maturity and the sound of the orchestra and chorus are a creation of his expertise and imagination.' The five main-stage productions match 2024-25, down from six in the prior two seasons and a high of 10 in 2006-07. LA will present two world premieres at smaller venues: Sarah Kirkland Snider's 'Hildegard,' based the writings of Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen, at The Wallis in Beverly Hills from Nov. 5-9, and Carla Lucero's 'The Tower of Babel,' a new community opera that Conlon will conduct at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on May 8 and 9. Koelsch hopes to hire Conlon's successor ahead of the 2026-27 season.
