Richard Wagner’s masterpiece Tannhauser was, if all went to plan, performed by the Metropolitan Opera last night, at the Academy for Performing Arts, in Wan Chai. The self-taught 19th-century German composer was born into a performing family – several of his sisters became opera singers and actresses. A vehement anti-Semite, Wagner is one of the most controversial figures in the history of classical music. The Ku Klux Klan-glorifying 1915 silent film, The Birth of a Nation, featured music from one of Wagner’s operas, Ride of the Valkyries. Soon after the film’s release, a screening was held at the White House, for Woodrow Wilson …
As its 28th president, Wilson is best known for leading the United States during the first world war, for championing his idealistic Fourteen Points during the post-war peace negotiations and for trying to start the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations. But he is also remembered as being a racist: he re-segregated the federal workforce and believed that black Americans did not deserve full citizenship. In 1948, Princeton University honoured him by creating the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, a graduate of which is Chinese banker Li Ruogu …
When Li took over as chairman of the state-owned Export-Import Bank of China, in 2005, the institution was going through a major expansion. Two years into his new role, Exim Bank became the world’s largest export credit agency. Known for being outspoken, in 2004 Li accused the US of China-bashing. Last February, Li retired, but not before having held a high-profile meeting and signing multiple loans with visiting Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa …
