What Are We Losing In Iraq's Destructive Chaos? "As the first images of a massive destruction at one of Iraq's holiest shrines began coming in yesterday, it was hard not to think of the building, rather than what it stands for. How old was it? What was the architecture like? Was this another loss, like the Bamiyan Buddhas, needlessly destroyed by the Taliban? Is its destruction equivalent, say, to the bombing of St. Peter's in Rome, or Chartres Cathedral? The mind grasps for an easy equivalence... Unlike so many images of terrorist destruction, the calculated demolition of the shrine in Samarra captures the 'was' and 'is' with rare power." Washington Post 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 6:59 am
Why Paris Is It For American Artists "Paris, for Americans, has for two centuries embodied something other, and simpler. For two centuries Paris has been attached for Americans to an idea of happiness, of good things eaten and new clothes bought and a sentimental education at last achieved. To Americans, Paris suggests the idea of happiness as surely as an arrival in New York suggests hope and Los Angeles, in literature at least, hopelessness." The Guardian (UK) 02/23/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 9:28 pm
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A Long Lost Michelangelo? Is the fresco on a wall of a church in Chianti, Italy a lost Michelangelo? "Stylistic verification of the claim will be difficult because the central part of the fresco was damaged by damp and painted over. But at least one scholar has said there is something of Michelangelo in the muscularity of the thief who stands on the right of the painting." The Guardian (UK) 02/23/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 9:35 pm
Britain Bans Sale Of Canalettos Abroad The UK has extended a ban on the sale of two Canaletto paintings that would be exported abroad. "Experts told the Department for Culture, Media and Sport the paintings were of such national importance it should try to keep them in the UK. About £6m is needed to match an offer received from abroad to ensure the paintings remain." BBC 02/21/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 8:31 pm
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Cleveland Opera Merger Approved With the boards of Cleveland's two opera companies having officially agreed to merge, both groups are now playing the waiting game, hoping that transitional funds will come through and that all the niggling details on the legal end will work themselves out. When the dust clears, the combined company plans to present two large productions per season, plus lighter fare during the summer. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 5:15 am
- Previously: Two Become One Cleveland's two opera companies are on the verge of combining operations while maintaining their separate missions. "Like many American opera companies, Cleveland Opera and Lyric Opera Cleveland have struggled in recent seasons with deficits and declining attendance. The two organizations view a merger, no matter how challenging, as a means of controlling finances and presenting a reasonable number of performances of varied repertoire." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/11/06
Classical Music? Define Your Terms! "Classical music is the music that has lived on or will live on. The implication here is that there's lots of other music that hasn't or won't live on because it isn't as good. Contemporary implies having a quality of newness, which is impermanent at best. Once something becomes familiar, by being around for a while and people getting to know it, it can't really be contemporary anymore. So the more out there and inscrutable the music is to an audience, the longer it can stay contemporary." NewMusicBox 02/21/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 8:25 pm
A Longer, Finished Porgy The version of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess known to the world may not be the version he intended to be the final one. "It turns out that Gershwin, during rehearsals for the New York premiere at Broadway's Alvin Theatre, made extensive cuts and additions to his 700-page score. Since the composer died only two years later, in 1937, that edited but unpublished version represents, in effect, his final word on the subject." The Tennessean 02/19/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 7:18 pm
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Urban Renewal Through Art "Can there be a weirder, more alienated place than [Tijuana's] Avenida Revolución on a Saturday night? The dark side of the moon, perhaps? Yet Avenida Revolución also is the pulsing subconscious of an exciting and restless city — one of the world's busiest, most notorious border towns." There is plenty of illicit "fun" to be had in the new Tijuana, as you might expect, but surprisingly, the backbone of the city's dramatic reinvention has been its embrace of contemporary art, and of the arts in general. Los Angeles Times 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 6:40 am
Trusting The Free Market To Achieve Public Good New York's city government is asking developers to submit proposals to revitalize and redevelop Governors Island, a 175-acre parcel of land that sits just south of Manhattan, and which has been virtually abandoned since the Coast Guard pulled up stakes ten years ago. "In asking developers to take the lead, government officials risk quashing creativity at the outset. More broadly, their appeal raises questions about how American cities — New York in particular — are approaching large-scale urban development these days, handing over enormous swaths of public land to private interests." The New York Times 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 5:51 am
Looking For Diversity In The Great White North The lack of racial diversity in major arts organizations is one of those nagging issues that no one ever seems to know how to address, and the lily-white quality of many on-stage productions registers immediately, even in a lily-white city like Duluth, Minnesota. "Arts administrators and artists of color gave myriad reasons why diversity in arts is lagging behind diversity in the local population: Socio-economics. Image. Lack of arts education in schools. Most discouraging, the lack of diversity appears to feed itself." Duluth News-Tribune 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 5:27 am
What Next For UK Lottery? The UK lottery has transformed the country's culture, building many significant projects. So what should be next? The Guardian (UK) 02/23/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 9:31 pm
Summers Forced Out Of Harvard - What Does It Mean? What does Harvard president Larry Summers' resignation mean? "Some look at him and see a textbook example of why trustees need to pay attention to what professors think. Others think he’s a textbook example that faculty members have too much say in what goes on at their campuses. Some think his biggest legacy in higher education will be unprecedented national discussion of women in science — an issue on which he didn’t intend to set off a public debate. Others think the collapse of his presidency may scare boards from hiring presidents who want to speak out on any controversial issues." InsideHigherEd 02/22/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 9:10 pm
Historic Apollo Theatre Gets Makeover It will cost $65 million and remake the landmark theatre where Ella Fitzgerald once sang... The New York Times 02/19/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 7:24 pm
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Dawn Of A New Day In a classical music world where soloists are almost forced to lean dramatically towards the conventional, and seem to exist mainly to lend star power and attract cash to the box office, soprano Dawn Upshaw has carved out an unlikely niche for herself as the diva of new music. In the process, she is changing not only the way that the public thinks about contemporary music, but how the critical press perceives performers who play it. The New York Times 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 6:00 am
You Don't Know Jack Jack Vettriano may be the most unpopular painter of the last 50 years - unless, that is, you measure popularity by what the general public thinks. "Vettriano is far and away Scotland's most successful contemporary painter... But critics tend either to ignore Mr. Vettriano or to swat him lazily away with the backs of their cultured hands." Is it pure elitism on the part of the critics, or is the public simply blind to such niceties as painting skill? The New York Times 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 5:54 am
Shakespeare's Mask "Forensic scientists claim to have proved a bust and a death mask are the exact likeness of William Shakespeare. Scientists in Germany scanned the sculptures using computerised imaging techniques to show that they match up with portraits of the Bard. The systems, used by police, map out a person's face to identify whether they tally with known pictures. Elizabethan experts deny the claim, saying busts and portraits were not true likenesses [and] often look similar." BBC 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 5:46 am
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A Musical About Totalitarian North Korea?... Chorus lines of goose-stepping soldiers and emaciated political prisoners will prance across the stage when "Yoduk Story," a tear-jerker about a North Korean concentration camp whose name has the resonance of Auschwitz for some Koreans, opens here next month. Among the catchy tunes that South Korean theatergoers might soon be humming are "If I Could Walk Freely" and "All I Want Is Rice."
Los Angeles Times 02/21/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 7:22 pm
Can Hip Hop Save Theatre? "Of course, to say hip-hop can save the day doesn’t mean it will. Already it has been around for a quarter century and registered barely a flicker on the New York theatrical radar. Whether its potential will ever be realized depends a great deal on what’s going on right now at New York Theatre Workshop, where the playwright Will Power has written a hip-hop adaptation of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes." New York Magazine 02/19/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 7:16 pm
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Canada's Queen Of Fluff At 49, Lise Ravary is sitting on top of Canada's ever-expanding world of magazines, and she thrives on a synthesis of serious journalism and celeb-soaked pop culture that publishers can't get enough of. "Arguably, Ravary is the most pivotal force in Canadian consumer publishing today. And in both official languages — probably no one else more closely experiences this country's two cultures of magazine journalism." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 6:34 am
The Pope - Copyrighted The vatican wants publishers to pay royalties on the Pope's writing. "The demand by the Vatican to respect copyright on the pontiff's writings and pay for their use has triggered hot debate: Should an institution which exists to spread the word of God be putting a price on papal writ? Unthinkable, say some authors. Not so, counters the Vatican; the authors are being paid for their efforts, so why not the church?" Yahoo! (AP) 02/22/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 9:14 pm
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Who Needs A Critic When You've Got An Army Of Teens? Sometimes, all it takes to doom a film's box office prospects is a slew of negative reviews in advance of the opening. As a result, more and more studios are bypassing the review process altogether, refusing to give critics an early look at flicks deemed unlikely to win them over, or unlikely to need a critical boost in any case. "In the past, a typical nonscreened movie was a studio mistake dumped to satisfy contractual obligations. Now, nonscreening is more often part of a conscious marketing policy, particularly flicks aimed at teens." New York Post 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 6:45 am
Law & Order: Video Piracy Unit A newly organized police unit in London will be dedicated exclusively to combating video piracy. "By targeting the financial gains at the heart of film piracy, the Metropolitan Police unit hopes to prevent the funding of criminal activities in other areas." The unit will be working closely with an advocacy group that fights piracy on behalf of the UK recording industry. BBC 02/23/06
Posted: 02/23/2006 5:41 am
High Def Threatens TV's Stars "Surely the greatest aesthetic threat to TV news since Technicolor, high-definition television is nearly 10 times sharper than regular television. About 18 million households now have HDTV-ready sets. By next year, that number could be as high as 50 million, according to some industry estimates. In 2009, when most of the broadcast networks are finished converting their news programs to high-def, much of the viewing public will be able to inspect the enamel on Katie Couric’s teeth, if they are so moved." New York Observer 02/21/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 7:21 pm
China bans Movies With Humans And Animation "In one of the more bizarre orders from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, TV shows and films featuring human actors with animated companions will be banned." Variety 02/21/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 7:14 pm
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Thinking You Can Dance Dance shows are big in the TV ratings. So You Think You Can Dance is a competition that "puts dancers through a 12-week competition/boot camp to master everything from ballroom to hip hop. The winner gets a New York apartment and enough cash to live their dream." New York Daily News 02/22/06
Posted: 02/22/2006 9:43 pm
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