For the second year in a row, the company's critically praised September week of mostly new opera is called off; even as other groups expect to be in the concert hall by then, management feels that opera requires too many people collaborating in too-close quarters to be safe so soon. Meanwhile, says general director David Devan, the company will...
"Six fragments of wall frescoes stolen from the ruins of ancient Roman villas have been returned to Pompeii's archaeological park after an investigation by Italy's cultural protection police squad. Three of the relics, which date back to the first century AD, are believed to have been cut off the walls of two Roman villas in Stabiae, a historical site...
Police in Berlin have captured Abdul Majed Remmo, the fifth and final suspect connected to the shocking 2019 jewel heist at Dresden's Green Vault Museum. … Authorities had been searching for the 22-year-old man since he evaded capture in a sting operation late last year. He is the twin brother of fellow suspect Mohammed Remmo; … one of...
If universities, such as Yale, Stanford and UCLA, are planning to require returning students to be fully vaccinated, why can’t performing arts venues do the same? This policy would offer audience members some insurance that the stranger crammed into the seat next to them wasn’t a potential petri dish of COVID variants eagerly seeking a crack in their newly...
While the number of visitors remains below the threshold, tourists use services and provisions designed for residents. Once this threshold is crossed, however, residents are forced to use services designed for tourists. - Daily Beast
Throughout the pandemic Glyndebourne has been notably agile, putting on outdoor performances last summer and leading the brief UK return to theatres in the autumn. Now, for summer 2021, the only real casualty of the originally planned season is a revival of Barbe & Doucet’s staging of Mozart’s Magic Flute, which, with its huge drop sets and puppets, would...
On average, entry-level arts administrators in Los Angeles County earn $36,847 annually—a figure that’s higher than the $31,200 minimum wage in the area, but lower than the living wage of $40,200, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. BIPOC respondents from the same group reported an average income of just $32,027, while white arts workers earned $43,437, or 35 percent...
The deal represents a major step forward for the digital library market. Not only is Amazon Publishing finally making its digital content available to libraries, the deal gives libraries a range of models through which it can license the content, offering libraries the kind of flexibility librarians have long asked for from the major publishers. - Publishers Weekly
The discomfort we have over hearing our voices in audio recordings is probably due to a mix of physiology and psychology. For one, the sound from an audio recording is transmitted differently to your brain than the sound generated when you speak. - The Conversation
Art critic Enid Tsui looks at the perennial controversy over Rirkrit Tiravanija's performance piece untitled (pad thai), in which the artist creates a "micro-utopia" by cooking the eponymous noodle dish in the gallery and sharing it with everyone in attendance (which means the kind of people who go see performance art in galleries). - South China Morning Post (Hong...
To be burned out is to be used up, like a battery so depleted that it can’t be recharged. In people, unlike batteries, it is said to produce the defining symptoms of “burnout syndrome”: exhaustion, cynicism, and loss of efficacy. Around the world, three out of five workers say they’re burned out. A 2020 U.S. study put that figure...
In We Are Lady Parts, "the stakes are high: can an extra guitarist give Lady Parts the edge they need to get out of playing in their bedrooms (and occasionally the halal butcher) and break into the toilet circuit?" (That's British for the dive bar circuit.) "What follows is an exuberant exploration of female self-expression and sisterhood, complete with...
"This sounds corny, but that’s what I love about art, especially comedy. It’s not evergreen. It changes so much every time you return to it, and as the world changes and as hopefully you change. That’s how art can teach us, whether it’s good stuff or bad stuff, problematic or inspirational, it’s all the same." - The New York...
"First editions of Palladio and Alberti as well as 16th century printings of Vitruvius — oh, and first editions of Piranesi etchings that once belonged to the House of Lords. All of these sit behind glass and wood cabinets in an English country house library hidden within the I-Am-America-Hear-Me-Roar Gilded Age splendor." - The Daily Beast
Early on, positive press rolled in for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, focusing on the MFAH’s safety precautions for guests, who would be allowed a welcome distraction during the pandemic. But behind the scenes, employees were growing increasingly frustrated with the risks they encountered while working low-wage jobs to keep the museum running; their job duties had been...
