The Los Angeles Opera is canceling a major production for the second time this season, but this time, its the fault of a virus, rather than the economy. “Italian composer Luciano Berio’s new orchestration of Monteverdi’s ‘The Coronation of Poppea’ — slated for Jan. 11-19 with L.A. Opera artistic director Plácido Domingo and Frederica von Stade performing — is off the schedule because the composer is ill and the new version of the opera has not been completed.” The new Poppea was highly anticipated, and LA Opera plans to present it at some later date.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Calgary Cancels Christmas
Something short of a massive, wailing public outcry greeted September’s news that the Calgary Philharmonic was suspending operations, and efforts since the shutdown to revive the troubled orchestra have achieved mixed results. Now, the CPO is being forced to cancel four of its five holiday concerts, traditionally some of the ensemble’s biggest money-makers of the year. On the plus side, officials expect to unveil a full scale restructuring plan tomorrow.
The Nutcracker Factor
Few would deny that the popularity of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s music in the US is predicated largely on the approximately 18,763,594 stagings of The Nutcracker which occur around the country every December. But even leaving Drosselmayer’s brood aside, the Russian master can be counted as possibly the most listened to composer in America, even if many Americans probably couldn’t tell you who he was. So what is it about Tchaikovsky that attracts the American ear?
Quartet Quota
The St. Lawrence String Quartet may be Canada’s best-known international chamber music ensemble. Certainly no other group has done as much to promote Canadian composers as the Stanford-based foursome. But when the group’s cellist decided to step aside last year, the St. Lawrence faced the decision that every string quartet dreads most – how to replace a musician, a partner, and a friend. First decision for the remaining members: should Canadian citizenship continue to be a requirement for admission?
Most Powerful List Short On Artists
Who are the most powerful people in the artworld? ArtReview Magazine names them, but there are very few artists on the list. So who makes it? Mostly “collectors, businessmen, a pub landlady… The top 10 “list includes just one artist, German painter Gerhard Richter, with the rest mainly coming from the business sector. Advertising tycoon Charles Saatchi heads the list, which is chosen by critics, dealers and other experts, for his contribution to the British art scene.”
Italy On Sale?
So the Italian government wants to ‘lease or even sell off some of the national treasures”‘ in its care. Will the private sector do any better at managing them? The government “strongly denies that Italy’s world-famous culture is under threat,” while critics fear that is. “At issue is a law passed in June, setting up an agency to make an inventory of state-owned monuments and ‘artistic and cultural assets’, with a view to selling them, leasing them or using them as security for loans. The measure was hotly contested by the centre left opposition.”
Never In England
Could the British government try to sell its way out of financial hardship by doing an Italy, selling off assets? Couldn’t happen. “The British genius, during nearly two centuries, has been in hiving off various parts of the cultural patrimony and placing them under the control of a motley crew of quangos, boards of trustees and other bodies that have the reputation of independence without, necessarily, the joy of it.”
Architecture Through The Lens
If ever there were a figure who proves that architecture is as much about process as end result, Grant Mudford is it. The photographer specializes in taking pictures of buildings in progress, and claims that the half-finished structures he captures are as much art as the finished buildings themselves. “I see buildings that are accepted as being great works of architecture, and I’ve always experienced them through photographs before I’ve actually experienced them firsthand… But there’s a whole bunch of mediocre works of architecture that look great in photographs, a lot more interesting than they really are.”
A Distinct Pleasure (Not)
“In the era of customized consumer capitalism, distinction is mass-produced, and connoisseurship has been democratized. The wide availability of a variety of beautiful, unusual things – at Pottery Barn, on eBay, at stores that turn the junk of earlier eras into today’s collectibles – increases the pressure, the sense of responsibility, that attends every purchase. Like the food revolution, the design revolution is built on the lovely paradox that what is special should be available for everyone’s enjoyment and that good taste can at last shed its residue of invidious social differences. Which means that indifference is unacceptable.”
Michelangelo The Miser
“Michelangelo, who painted the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel and designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, passed himself off as poor but was actually too miserly to show his huge wealth… [An art historian] has unearthed two of Michelangelo’s bank accounts and numerous deeds of purchase that show the prolific painter, sculptor and architect was worth about 50,000 gold ducats when he died in 1564, more than many princes and dukes of his time.”