“In an unconventional scheme to bring opera and ballet to the masses,” the Royal Opera House plans to set up giant open-air screens in locations around Britain to show live ballet and opera performances direct from the Opera House.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Do Dumbed-Down Audiences Require Dumbed-Down Opera?
Opera audiences have grown, sure, but are they any smarter? No one would agree with that. So “does deepening musical illiteracy really affect the health of opera?” Matthew Gurewitsch talks with four of America’s top opera managers about the problems of having to pay attention to audiences that may not know much about your art…
Police Bust Pirate Ring
Police bust a New York-area pirate CD operation which turned out 10,000 bootlegged CD’s a week. The operation was run out of a strip mall, and the family, (with mob ties) “sold rows of the CD’s at the store and also delivered about $50,000 of pirated goods each month to various sites in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, making about $2.5 million a year in profits.
Lyric Opera Drops Two Productions
Chicago Lyric Opera isn’t in a financial emergency like some of America’s other big opera companies. But it doesn’t want to get their either. So the company has dropped two expensive productions for next season. “With tickets harder to sell, donations more difficult to find and solid institutions like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra reporting sizable deficits, Lyric officials decided they had little choice about changing their plans for 2003-04.”
Redoing Boston’s Opera House
The Boston Opera House, fallen into disrepair since closing in the early-90s, is getting a $31 million makeover. “It’s a pet project of Mayor Thomas Menino, who has been pushing for the renovation since 1996 as part of his effort to revitalize the old theater district along Washington Street in the heart of downtown Boston, just a few blocks north from what used to be the ‘Combat Zone,’a once sleazy collection of sex-oriented shops, bars and porno movie houses.”
Mother Sues Harlem Boys Choir
The mother of a former student at the Boys Choir of Harlem is suing the organization, claiming one of the choir’s counselors “had an improper relationship with her teenage son and at least one other student.” She says the school did nothing to stop it.
Italy, Inc – Privatizing The Monuments
“According to one UNESCO estimate, Italy is the cultural repository of more than two-thirds of western civilisation. But the state spends little on culture—just 0.18% of GDP—and an absence of tax breaks for donations gives the private sector little incentive to help.” So the way Italy’s cultural assets are run is apalling. Could the private sector do a better job? The country’s Prime Minister says yes…
Britart’s New Palaces
BritArt is hot, and the Britartists are getting wealthy. So they’re building. Studios. Homes. Architecture that expresses their sensibilities. Judging by their projects, “this is the most affluent generation of British artists since millionaire Royal Academicians took over Holland Park and Chelsea a century and a half ago.”
Power To The Pub Lady
Sandra Esquilant’s East End London pub has been a gathering place for a generation of BritArt conceptual artists. Now, “for her role as a homely mother confessor to the angry generation of British conceptual artists, has won the improbable reward of 80th place in a list of the 100 most powerful figures in contemporary art.”
Finding A Way Through Music
Matt Savage is 10 years old, and he plays the piano well enough that he turns heads in New Orleans, where he lives. He’s playing jazz in concerts around the world. But he isn’t just a prodigy, he’s also autistic, and “when he was younger, had great difficulty communicating, did not like to be touched and – most incredibly for a musician – couldn’t stand the sound of music or of household noises like a blender or a vacuum cleaner”