Saying that “the energy and time the Brooklyn Philharmonic deserves are beyond my capacities anymore,” conductor Robert Spano steps down as music director of the orchestra after seven years. Spano has recently renewed his contract leading the Atlanta Symphony and becomes director of the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood next year. “As a highly regarded interpreter of new music in particular, he has been mentioned as a candidate for the podiums of leading world orchestras.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Pina Bausch – Old Is In
When Pina Bausch decided to restage one of her classic works with dancers over the age of 60, she had 120 volunteers. “They all had some kind of shimmer in their eyes. They saw this as the chance of a fabulous new life experience, a new adventure.”
No Permission To Move
Why are police raiding clubs in New York? To stop people from dancing?
Israel To Cut Theatre Budgets
In a cost-cutting move, the Israeli government proposes to cut the budgets of the country’s national theatres by 25 percent. “Theater executives say the cumulative 25 percent cut in their budgets threatens to topple the entire industry.”
Mendes Wins Director Award
Sam Mendes, finishing up his last season as director of London’s Donmar Theatre, has been named Best Director at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for his farewell productions of Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya.
Director Attacks His Hosts
Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, was accepting the rarely given Special Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards this week when he suddenly made a sharp political turn. After saying he was proud to receive the award, he “suddenly made a passionate outburst against the money Britain spends on the arms trade. He held up a copy of yesterday’s Evening Standard Just The Job supplement on the Territorial Army and said: ‘This appalling trade is being promoted on these islands and is a reason I am ashamed to be here’.”
Bombay Dreaming
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams has become a hit in London, partly by “tapping into London’s thriving Indian community (population: more than 500,000).” Now the show is moving to Broadway, and observers are wondering if it will find an audience. Critics haven’t been enthusiastic about the show, and while there are 200,000 Indians in the New York area, Bollywood style is not familiar to most New Yorkers. “If you don’t know much about Bollywood (and the majority of the audience will not), it can often seem ridiculous.”
Another Swipe At Lilly
Meghan O’Rourke suggests that Ruth Lilly’s gift of $100 million to Poetry Magazine is a bad idea. “The gift, though well-intentioned, is foolish. The real problem is that the gift is the essence of bad philanthropy—an overblown act of generosity that undermines its own possible efficacy. Poetry, which had a staff of four, an annual budget of $600,000, and a circulation of approximately 12,000, is suddenly among the best-endowed cultural institutions in the world. If Lilly were truly interested in advancing poetry, the best way to do it would have been to spread the wealth around. Lilly should have given $10 million to 10 different magazines or started a nonprofit foundation with an elected board to hand out grants to writers. This would have started a conversation, not a cultural hegemony.”
Share The Wealth
So many resources in the hands of so few. “The vision of an 800-pound tastemaking gorilla, no matter how august, is not a rosy one for all concerned.” There are many other ways Lilly could have made a bigger contribution to the cause of poetry. How about giving a lot of it away to other magazines?
Writing For $133 A Word
Any doubt modern publishing is big business? In 1975, the year’s best-selling book, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime sold 232,000. By 2000, John Grisham’s The Brethren exceeded the sales total of “Ragtime” by twelvefold. So what do the big-time authors make? A New York Magazine survey does the math: Tom Clancy gets $45 million for two books, which works out to an advance of $42,694 per page, or $133 per word. See what some of the others make…