Three of the five unions representing Opera di Roma employees say they’ll shut down the entire run of Manon Lescaut, starring Anna Netrebko and conducted by Riccardo Muti, that opens Thursday if management doesn’t withdraw plans – required by law – to revamp the budget and reduce the staff at the near-bankrupt opera house.
Dresden’s Semper Opera Fires New Boss Before He Starts
Saxony’s arts minister said that Serge Dorny, who had received widespread praise for reinvigorating the Opéra de Lyon and was due to start full-time in Dresden in September, “has managed to gamble away any confidence employees might have had in him in the shortest possible period.”
Does Reading Literature Make You More Moral? (It’s Not a Ridiculous Question)
“So, if the answer to the question of whether reading literature makes us more moral is so obviously ‘no’, why ask it in the first place? And why did so many people show up to the event to consider the question?” Paula M.L. Moya allows as how literature helps shape what we consider to be moral in the first place.
‘Annie’ Co-Creator Disses Recent Broadway Revival (As His Colleagues Run the Other Way)
Martin Charnin, lyricist and director of the original production (and of an upcoming non-Equity tour): “The entire [original] creative team (Tom, Charles, and I) simply had to restore the charm and the magic of the musical, that has endured for lo, these many years, and that seemed to veer off-course in the recent Broadway production.” Composer Charles Strouse and book writer Thomas Meehan very promptly disavowed Charnin’s statement.
Amtrak’s Writers-in-Residence Idea: What Would DFW Do?
Vauhini Vara looks to David Foster Wallace’s great cruise ship essay, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”.
Here Is This Year’s Gender Count For Literary Publications
“Turnarounds like the Paris Review’s make it clear that with the right editorial effort, putting more sustainable gender practices into action isn’t too difficult for these magazines at the top of the major market heap.”
Fan Fiction Is Huge. So How Do Publishers Get In?
“Literary publishing’s uneasy relationship with fan fiction has been complicated by the realization that fandom is a huge potential market—one stocked with both prolific authors and enthusiastic readers. But tapping that market is a dilemma few publishers seem quite prepared to engage.”
How The Public Square Helps Or Hurts Civil Protest
It’s an “increasingly universal phenomenon: the public square as an epicenter of democratic expression and protest, and the lack of one—or the deliberate manipulation of such a space—as a way for autocrats to squash dissent through urban design.”
What Is This Theatre Pipeline Of Which You Speak?
“Today, the pipeline flows in many directions at once. Theaters genuinely interested in serving their communities would do well to develop twenty-first century ways of making theater.”
Something In The Water? The World’s Oldest (And Best) Pianists
Here’s a gallery of performances by some of the piano world’s best artists when they were very old.
Alice Herz-Sommer, 110, Pianist and Oldest Holocaust Survivor
A successful concert musician in Prague before World War II, she was interned at the Nazi’s Potemkin concentration camp, Theresienstadt, where she played in the now-famous orchestra. She is the subject of the short documentary The Lady in Number 6, in contention for an Oscar this weekend.
Ivan Nagy, 70, One of 20th Century’s Great Ballet Dancers
A major star during the 1970s, he made headlines when he abruptly retired from the stage at age 35, when many observers thought he was at his peak. He went on to direct three ballet companies – Santiago (twice), Cincinnati, and English National – where he raised standards, garnered international attention, and always seemed to bring turmoil.
An Anna Deavere Smith for the Revolution in Ukraine
“Kiev’s Independence Square has been home to many writers and artists. The Ukrainian playwright Natalya Vorozhbit spent the last three months conducting interviews around the area. Her intention, she writes, is to create a piece of theatre to capture what happened when a peaceful protest escalated into horror.”
Is ‘House of Cards’ Really a Hit? Depends on What You Mean By ‘Hit’
“If you live somewhere with easy access to Variety or an I-95 exit, it might be impossible to imagine finding somebody who hasn’t heard of (or hasn’t sat, bleary-eyed, ingesting the entirety of) House of Cards … But how many people actually watched the show?” (It may not matter as much as you’d think.)
A Bolshoi Ballet Refugee Gets a New Start in Berlin
In a short video titled Dancing on Rough Ground, “Anastasia Kurkova describes the challenges she faced after leaving her home country to join one of the most competitive ballet companies in Germany.”
Beethoven’s Rowdy, Rambunctious 8th Symphony, Now 200 Years Old
Colin Fleming: “And it is absolutely bonkers, mad, brave, cheekily pugnacious, punchy, and akin to what Lear’s Fool, Samuel Beckett, and a young Mozart might have come up with if those three ever got together to have a musical bash.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.24.14
Artists in the Digital Age, and Falling in Love with Technology
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-02-24
Speed to the Speed For a Discovery
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-02-25
Emergency Manager Favors Detroit Institute’s “Grand Bargain” (plus: more controversies)
AJBlog: CultureGrrl | Published 2014-02-25
Islands Meet Underwater
AJBlog: Dancebeat | Published 2014-02-24
Is Sculpture Boring? Winners of 4th Plinth
AJBlog: Aesthetic Grounds | Published 2014-02-24
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Musician Reveals: Here’s How Much I Earn From Digital Music Sales
Zoë Keating, the cellist, self-releases her music rather than work with a label, and “has made a habit of sharing details of how her earnings break down between different sources, for the benefit of her peers and the wider debate around digital music payouts.”
Sochi Olympics Closes Featuring Arts Culture
In addition to music by Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff, there were performances by the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Ballets, as well as an homage to artist Marc Chagall.
“Ghostbusters” Writer/Director Harold Ramis, 69
Ramis leaves behind a formidable body of work, with writing credits on such enduring comedies as “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (which upon its 1978 release catapulted the film career of John Belushi, with whom Ramis acted at Second City), “Stripes” (1981) and “Ghostbusters” (in which Ramis also co-starred) plus such directing efforts as “Caddyshack” (1980), “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (1983), “Groundhog Day” and “Analyze This.”
Moviefone Is Going Silent
“The automated telephone service — once so popular that it was lampooned on “Seinfeld” — will be disconnected in about a month, before a planned reintroduction of the Moviefone brand by AOL and BermanBraun, a web and television company.”