Dealer Massively Overcharged Sheikh For Art Why did Oliver Hoare, a leading London art dealer, invoice the world’s biggest collector Sheikh Saud Al-Thani of Qatar for massive overcharges? "On one occasion Mr Hoare invoiced Sheikh Saud £5.5 million for a jade pendant originally made for Shah Jahan. Ten months earlier the same object had sold at Sotheby’s for £454,500. Mr Hoare’s invoices are now being examined by Qatari authorities as part of the investigation into Sheikh Saud’s spending." The Art Newspaper 04/22/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 10:10 am
Expert: Famed Shakespeare Portrait A Fake "One of the most recognizable portraits of William Shakespeare is a fake, experts say. According to Britain's National Portrait Gallery, the image – commonly known as the "Flower portrait" – was actually painted in the 1800s, not while the Bard was alive." CBC 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:46 am
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Power To The People - Opera In An Ice Rink "Graham Vick, the respected opera director, is attempting his own radical solution to declining audiences and the trappings of elitism by staging a Monteverdi opera with a mix of professionals and amateurs in a burnt-out ice rink in Birmingham's Chinatown." The Guardian (UK) 04/23/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 8:26 am
Remmereit - A Star-In-Waiting? James Oestreich reports that 43-year-old Norwegian conductor Arild Remmereit has come out of nowhere to be a star-in-waiting. He's recently substituted at La Scala and at the Pittsburgh Symphony, and seems destined to be a major conductor. The New York Times 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 8:05 am
Are Opera DVD's Too Much Of A Good Thing? Anthony Tomnasini views the flood of new opera DVD's with alarm. "With the DVD boom, will the labels start issuing operas based primarily on the production's visual elements? The market is already flooded with routine musical performances of well-known works that just happened to have been taped for DVD. Also, as dramatic as opera may be, it's refreshing to hear just the music on a fine recording without the powerful distraction, in a sense, of a production. There are recordings that I never tire of because the visceral impact of the music-making allows my dramatic imagination such fancy. But I do tire of seeing the same sets and costumes, the same camera angles, the same close-ups." The New York Times 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:55 am
Will The Internet Save Indy Music? "Radio is in decline; satellite services XM and Sirius are ascending. Warner Music is scrambling to meet shareholder's demands, but independent labels Merge, Sub Pop, and Kill Rock Stars are watching records sell in unprecedented numbers. These days a band doesn't have to be seen on MTV, or heard on WBCN, or written about in Rolling Stone for fans to find out about it. The Internet is challenging the corporate clutch on both radio and retail." Boston Globe 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:42 am
Atlanta Opera Founder Leaves After 20 Years Atlanta Opera director and founder William Fred Scott leaves the company. "Scott stepped in near the beginning of the Atlanta group's life, and helped build it into a $5.4 million organization. His departure comes at the end of a revolution that promises major changes in Atlanta's cultural landscape." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 04/17/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:13 am
La Scala's New Artistic Director La Scala has chosen a new artistic director. "Frenchman Stephane Lissner, of Paris's Theatre de la Madeleine, has been given a four-and-a-half year contract. Musical director Riccardo Muti quit on April 2, citing the "hostility" of fellow employees after a series of rows. His post has yet to be filled. The president of the orchestra quit last week, giving no explanation. Mr Lissner's appointment was welcomed both by the musical establishment and unions representing the opera's 800-strong workforce." BBC 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 6:59 am
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The Art Of The Anti-Cell Phone Message Cell phones have become such a nuisance at stage shows that they've spawned their own mini-art form - the pre-curtain anti-cell phone announcement... They're often as amusing as the shopw itself.
Baltimore Sun 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:22 am
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Sir John Mills, 97 Acting great Sir John Mills has died at the age of 97. "He died at home in Buckinghamshire on Saturday morning after a chest infection that lasted several weeks. His films included Great Expectations in 1946 and War and Peace in 1956 and he won an Oscar in 1971 for playing a village idiot in Ryan's Daughter." BBC 04/23/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 6:56 am
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Hollywood's Theatre Drain "Since the beginning of this year, four of Hollywood’s best and most established small-theaters companies — Open Fist, the Actors’ Gang, West Coast Ensemble and Theatre/Theater — have either been evicted or are considering leaving the Hollywood area due to redevelopment and rising property values. All have resided in Hollywood for years, establishing themselves in marginal neighborhoods. 'Lip service is paid to the importance of theater and the theater community and yet there’s so little public support and certainly no public assistance'." LAWeekly 04/21/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 9:16 am
Fun Rules In New Broadway Hits "The juggernaut shows are no longer based on teary epics or lugubrious legends or dark poems. The singing gloom-and-doom characters of the Great White Way -- the bedraggled street urchins and guilt-ridden Vietnam War veterans and weather-beaten felines -- have packed up their dressing rooms. One formidable survivor, that spectral opera-house haunter in the half-mask, is looking ever lonelier. Today, the hits are all about tee-hee and ha-ha and oh-ho-ho. What packs 'em in is hilarity in major chords. Monty Python, Mel Brooks, sex-crazed puppets, Harvey Fierstein in a triple-D cup: These are the new aristocrats of Broadway. Types with a thing for the funny bone." Washington Post 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 8:39 am
Cast Album As Promotional Giveaway Broadway cast albums rarely make much money. But they are very valuable as promotional tools for a show trying to hit it big. So the producers of Broadway's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is giving away 50,000 copies of the show's album as a way of promoting it. The New York Times 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 8:13 am
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2005 PEN Awards "An American librarian, an imprisoned Saudi Arabian writer, a Turkish book publisher and a Gambian newspaper editor who was fatally shot last year were honored at the 2005 PEN Montblanc Literary Gala." Yahoo! (AP) 04/18/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 9:05 am
English Exams That Skip The 19th Century Is the English school curriculum being dumbed down? "More than 400,000 students took the AQA GCSE in English literature last year. The exam offers questions on one of eight novels, including Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, and The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger - both 20th century classics. But no 19th century novels make it on to the list, and teenagers can also get an AQA A-level without studying a single pre-20th century novelist. 'This is a real sign of dumbing down. Many of the books which are put in front of children nowadays simply do not merit the amount of time which is spent on them'." The Guardian (UK) 04/23/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 8:31 am
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Argentina - The World's Most Exciting Filmmaking "Argentina is home to the most exciting filmmaking in the world at the moment – and certainly, with the possible exception of South Korea, it is the core site of fresh work by women directors – if the country itself and the new voices emerging from it weren't so disparate, drawing from European and American influences as well as the history of a Latin American country second only to Brazil in terms of film production. This achievement is amazing, considering the country's new wave has risen from – and crashed against – economic ruin." San Francisco Bay Guardian 04/21/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 9:56 am
Movie Moguls And Their Outrageous Percs Shocked by the salaries and percs that big Hollywood stars demand and get? Oh come now. The really outrageous feeding at the trough of greed is done by entertainment company execs whose philosophy seems to be 'why spend a dollar when you can spend a million?' LAWeekly 04/21/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 9:29 am
Is Video The Next Big Internet Search? Before video really takes off on the internet there will have to be a way to find the video you want. "In recent weeks, Yahoo, Google and MSN have each rolled out services designed to make it easier to upload or locate video online. The portals' rollouts come as a handful of startups and independent film sites are creating tools to make putting video online nearly as simple as publishing text." Wired 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 8:59 am
Women Lead At the Movies Women have quietly taken their places at the top of the Hollywood movie business. "Though men still figure most prominently in the corporate echelons of the media companies that own the studios, and talent agencies like William Morris and Creative Artists Agency are still male dominated, these women, who over the years have fought and fostered one another as part of a loose sisterhood, have finally buried the notion that Hollywood is a man's world. So striking is the change that some now see Hollywood as a gender-balanced model for the rest of corporate America." The New York Times 04/24/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:49 am
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Forsythe Company Rises From Frankfurt Ashes Last year, William Forsythe watched as his Frankfurt Ballet was dismantled after it lost financial support. Now he's back with the Forsythe Company. "Such is Mr. Forsythe's reputation that his new company is already booked all over Europe and beyond. At 18 dancers, it is half the size of his old company, although Mr. Forsythe says he may hire guest dancers to help perform his larger works. All but one of the new company's dancers come from the Frankfurt Ballet." The New York Times 04/23/05
Posted: 04/24/2005 7:07 am
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