Saturday night at the opera
Latvian Radio 3 is the national classical channel and while it is worth listening to at any time of day or night, Saturday evenings are always sure to contain something special. This Saturday it's Rossini's roistering opera The Barber of Seville, live from the Vienna State Opera, just after 8 p.m. It's worth hanging around afterwards, too, for a taste of the latest collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
Early photography in Rīga
A sad and beautiful story is told in the exhibition "Fragile Memories. Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes and Ferrotypes in Latvia" that has just opened at the Riga History and Navigation Museum. The exhibition features unique historical photographs taken during the earliest days of photographic equipment, not many of which have survived in Latvia. Highly evocative, it runs until May.
European artists at the Rothko Center
The Mark Rothko Art Center in Daugavpils currently has three acclaimed and contrasting European artists hanging side by side: Michael Kidner, a British artist who pioneered optical art in the 1960s, French abstract minimalist Elissa Marchale and German contemporary wood carver Daniel Fuchs. We're particularly taken by Marchale's crisp works which show the clear influence of Rothko himself, making the location all the more appropriate.
