Free arts offerings abound in Boston. There are free museum days, Berklee hosts free concerts at 20 venues this summer (college.berklee.edu/events/summer), Shakespeare on the Common (“Much Ado About Nothing,” July 20 – Aug. 7).
Then there’s the Boston Pops Firework Spectacular.
The Boston Pops’ signature July 4 concert is so embedded into the fabric of the city that it almost hides in plain sight. But it’s Boston’s biggest free arts offering.
This Independence Day, the Boston Pops and nearly half a million fans will celebrate the orchestra’s return to the stage of the Hatch Shell at the Charles River Esplanade for the first time since 2019.
“This concert has always been expected to take place on the banks of the Charles,” Pops conductor Keith Lockhart told the Herald. “It’s our gift to the people of Boston. It is and always has been a free concert. It also puts the whole city on a national stage as the seat of the Revolution and our democracy.”
“When we do this concert we are more part of a sociological phenomenon than a musical phenomenon,” Lockhart added. “And maybe it’s something I took for granted, so it will be pretty exciting to return.”
As usual, Lockhart balances the program between superstar guests and homegrown talent, patriotic requisites and progressive compositions. This year that means a Stephen Sondheim tribute and a performance of the Ukrainian National Anthem, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Chaka Khan.
Yes, Chaka Khan!
“I grew up listening to Chaka Khan, the soundtrack to my senior prom,” Lockhart said. “It’s very cool.”
Lockhart’s tastes run from disco to Duke Ellington to Antonín Dvořák. That’s part of the reason he’s so good at his job. But as a self-proclaimed “theater geek” in his teens, one of his deepest passions is the work of the late Stephen Sondheim. Lockhart wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass to celebrate Sondheim in front of his biggest audience of the year.
“He was probably the greatest American creative genius alive in my lifetime,” he said of the Broadway maverick.
Tony and Grammy winner Heather Headley will help the Pops with a couple of Sondheim selections. Elsewhere, “The Voice” series premiere winner Javier Colon, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums and the Honor Guard of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Regiment will join the Pops for new works and classics.
As always, Lockhart has crafted a night that caters to multiple tastes.
“This is a concert that has to be omni directional,” he said. “Everyone watches it so that’s a huge age range, background range. In that older Pops tradition, this is a variety show that promises that the next thing up will be something completely different.”
Completely different but back home at the same venue the Pops have played for decades.
The Boston Pops concert will be broadcast live nationally on Bloomberg TV and radio, and locally in Boston on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7), from 8 to 11 p.m. Details at bso.org/pops.
A would-be scathing, Evelyn Waugh-ish look at a group of British and American elites using rural Morocco as their exotic setting for a licentious weekend, ”The Forgiven” is a foreigners-misbehaving mixed bag. Driving in the High Atlas Mountains, English doctor David Henninger (Ralph Fiennes) and his American wife Jo Henninger (Academy Award-winner Jessica Chastain) strike and kill a Moroccan adolescent with their rental car. They take the body with them to the gated castle of their hosts Richard Galloway (Matt Smith) and Dally Margolis (Caleb Landry Jones), an obnoxious gay couple with scant regard for the feelings or beliefs of their Muslim staff. In fact, Dally deliberately gives the head of the staff Hamid (Mourad Zaoui) a look at the bare bottom of a young man with whom he has slept.
Food and drink flow non-stop at the party. We are invited to compare the wanton, wasteful behavior of the invasive Westerners with ancient Rome and recall Rome’s eventual fall. The Muslim staff refer to their employees in Arabic using a gay slur and clearly hate them, but will take their money.
Jessica Chastain and Ralph Fiennes star in ‘THE FORGIVEN.’ (Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment)
David is a “functioning alcoholic” with a practice in Chelsea and literal blood on his hands. The police are summoned. The body is stored in the garage. Jo is the author or children’s books, but has suffered from writer’s block. Someone whispers, “Infidels killed the boy.” One of the party goers, a young woman named Cody (Abbey Lee, “Mad Max: Fury Road”), wakes up the morning after the first day of festivities on top of a sand dune outside the castle grounds.
An angry Berber tribal leader (Ismael Kanater) appears and claims the dead boy is his only son Driss (Omar Ghazaoui). Hamid unleashes the first of what you know will be more Arabic proverbs. The tribal leader and his armed companions insist that David attend the funeral many miles away. For reasons I don’t understand, David agrees to go with the strange men in their vintage Defender on a journey into the moonscape-like mountains from which I do not expect him to return. Like much of “The Forgiven,” this plot twist did not add up.
Directed by London-born John Michael McDonagh (“Calvary”), the brother of playwright and director Martin McDonagh (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), and based on a book by Lawrence Osborne, “The Forgiven” is somewhat reminiscent of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1959 Southern Gothic hybrid “Suddenly, Last Summer,” based on the play by Tennessee Williams (If you haven’t seen this scandalous-for-its-time effort, check it out).
Hamid is clearly sympathetic to the tribesmen, and you wonder if he is going to lead an insurrection. Fiennes, whose most memorable line is a drunken, “Of course, I speak (expletive) French,” in reference to the colonial language still spoken in Morocco. Can someone explain to me the meaning of “Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous”?
In David’s absence, Jo ponders an affair with a handsome, young, jaded American named Tom (Christopher Abbott). In the mountains, workers mine slate-like pieces of stone embedded with fossils that will be used as a coffee table by some Norwegian billionaire. Someone observes that a single bathroom renovation in the West would feed an entire Moroccan village for a year. Meanwhile, fancy grub is being thrown out by the barrel-full back at the party. Cue the proverb, Hamid.
Chastain does not have much to do except act decadent. Fiennes is, as usual, terrific. But “The Forgiven,” which ends exactly as you expected, is nothing if not obvious.
(“The Forgiven” contains sexually suggestive scenes, profanity, drug use and brief violence.)
This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
Undeterred by shouts and catcalls from supporters of rival Dan Cox — and Cox himself — Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Schulz and Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr., denounced a Democratic effort to boost her main rival in the July 19 primary.
Hogan, who is term-limited, and his former commerce secretary stood in blistering heat outside the State House, where — surrounded by sign-waving backers — they slammed the Democratic Governors Association’s plan to spend more than $1 million in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
According to companies that monitor media spending, the association intends to run an ad called “Meet Dan,” a certain reference to the conservative firebrand. The Frederick County state delegate is one of four Republicans running for governor and, according to one new independent poll, he is the frontrunner.
In races around the country, Democratic groups have run ads that appear to be critical of far-right candidates but which have the real goal of boosting office-seekers who might struggle in a general election.
Hogan and Schulz offered a full-throated rejection not just of the DGA but of Cox as well. Cox and his family, including a newborn, having gotten wind of the event, stood just feet away, occasionally shouting back at the governor and his protege. Cox supporters waved signs and accused the pair of lying and Schulz of ducking debates.
It was, in short, as raucous and tense an event as tends to occur in Maryland politics.
The governor said that “Democrats are so scared about losing again, that they are now enabling, emboldening and embracing a QAnon conspiracy theorist, someone who bused people to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and called Vice President Pence ‘a traitor’ asthe Capitol was under attack.”
Cox, who has the endorsement of former President Trump, has advanced baseless theories about the 2020 elections, including the vote-count in Maryland.
“The people who scream all day long about democracy being at stake are willing to play Russian roulette with the Maryland State House just to win an election,” Hogan said. “It’s the worst kind of hypocrisy.”
Schulz called Cox a “lying conspiracy theorist who is a danger to our party and to our state,” and she accused Democrats of making a strategic investment in the GOP primary to save money in November.
“The math is easy,” she said. “Spend a million now and save $5 million by not having to face me in the general election. … I am a threat standing in the way of one-party rule in Annapolis.”
Remarkably, the rally also featured the chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, Dirk Haire. Although he acknowledged that his post requires him to be neutral in party primaries, he called on GOP voters to be vigilant. “Don’t get fooled by the national Democrats and their rich liberal cronies,” he said.
Schulz drew applause from GOP lawmakers and other supporters when she pledged to “fight back” against the Democrats’ plan to sway the GOP electorate.
According to Kantar, a New York-based research firm, the DGA intends to spend $1.037 million over a two-week period starting on July 5. Mail-in ballots have already gone out and early voting begins on July 7.
A DGA spokesman declined to provide the “Meet Dan” ad. A spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party declined to make Chair Yvette Lewis available for an interview.
Speaking to reporters after the Schulz rally, Cox said the statements from her camp “are proof that we’re winning.” He cast Hogan’s denunciation of him as a distraction from the increase in the state gas tax that is set to take place at midnight Thursday.
“This is all a distraction from the establishment that is going to crush the people at midnight,” he said. “And they’re doing nothing about it.”
In a series of cell-phone videos posted to social media, Cox accused Schulz of running a “failing” and “lousy” campaign. “This whole smear campaign is laughable. It’s hilarious,” he said. “They’re desperate. It’s going to be exposed and they’re going to fall into their own pit on this one…”
There was a heavy security presence during the Schulz rally. When a sign-holding Cox supporter tried to crowd in next to Schulz supporters before the rally, Schulz strategist Doug Mayer ordered him to leave. The two men then exchanged insults.
Trump’s “hand-picked candidate”
The 30-second spot hit the internet late Thursday. It is, effectively, two ads in one.
The first section appears designed to appeal to the GOP base. The second part labels Cox “too conservative.”
Speaking over graphics and video, a narrator calls Cox “Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidate for Maryland governor.”
“Cox worked with Trump, trying to prove the last election was a fraud. 100% pro-life, he’s fighting to end abortion in Maryland,” the narration continues. “And Cox will protect the Second Amendment at all costs, refusing to support any federal restrictions on guns, even pushing to put armed guards in every school.”
“Dan Cox. Too close to Trump,” the ad concludes. “Too conservative for Maryland.”
A risky strategy, critics warn
D.C.-based Democratic groups like the DGA have spent money in GOP primary races across the country in an effort to boost fringe candidates thought to be less attractive in a general election contest. In many cases, the gambit has paid off, but the practice is not without its critics.
They argue that the country is harmed when races don’t play out as expected.
Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson told The Washington Post it is “very dangerous and potentially very risky to elevate people who are hostile to democracy.”
“Either this is a crisis moment or it isn’t,” said Wolfson, who has worked for former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others. “And if it is — which it is — you don’t play cute in a crisis.”
Gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox and his family listen as rival Kelly Schulz and Gov. Larry Hogan denounce him at a Schulz campaign rally in Annapolis on Thursday. (Courtesy Maryland Matters/Bruce DePuyt)
In a statement, DGA spokesman Sam Newton defended the association’s spending in Maryland.
He faulted “Republican politicians and organizations” who repeat false claims about the 2020 election, “pander to conspiracies or are simply too cowardly to issue a full-throated condemnation.”
“Educating the public on the MAGA extremism, and cowardice, of today’s Republican party is essential to ensuring all citizens have the facts,” he added. “It’s time for the GOP to look in the mirror and have a reckoning with itself, instead of trying to find someone else to blame.”
The new ad buy is not the DGA’s first foray into the Schulz-Cox race. The organization has sponsored two surveys of Maryland Republicans, both of which showed Cox in the lead.
Although subsequent independent polling produced similar results, Schulz loyalists were quick to denounce the DGA-funded surveys, calling them an attempt to sway the electorate.
A worker at an assisted living facility in Montgomery County, Maryland, has been charged with numerous counts of theft following an investigation into her history of selling expensive jewelry.
Maritza Ramirez, 57, had worked at Marian Assisted Living, in Brookeville, for 14 years, according to police.
Montgomery County police said in a statement that Ramirez recently became the focus of an investigation after family members of a Marian resident claimed that multiple items of jewelry and a cellphone had gone missing from the resident’s secured bedroom.
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The resident was not there at the time because they were recovering from surgery.
According to police, investigators found evidence when they searched Ramirez’s home in Germantown.
Marian Assisted Living in Brookeville. (Google Street View)
“Further investigation revealed that Ramirez had an extensive pawn history dating back to 2015, including fine jewelry such as wedding bands, diamond rings, gold pendants and gold necklaces,” police said.
Items pawned by Ramirez from September 2015 through April of this year included four wedding bands; 28 rings consisting of wedding, engagement and birth stone rings; 14 gold necklaces; eight pairs of earrings; 13 gold pendants; four gold bracelets, and six purses.
Detectives said they believed additional victims have not contacted the police department, and they urged them to do so.
Police also released the following specific details about certain items pawned by Ramirez:
A gold bracelet with the inscription “Samantha 6-7-92”
A diamond ring with inscription “G.L.G to H.C.E. 5-23-83”
A gold wedding band with inscription “S.C.D. and M.A.K. 12-27-54”
A gold wedding band with inscription “F.J.F. to C.M.D.”
A gold baby ring with inscription “M.L.P.-J.A.G. 11-2-18”
“This concert has always been expected to take place on the banks of the Charles,” Pops conductor Keith Lockhart told the Herald. “It’s our gift to the people of Boston. It is and always has been a free concert. It also puts the whole city on a national stage as the seat of the Revolution and our democracy.”
