Prices soared at contemporary art auctions this summer, and aggressive dealers seized the opportunity to turn the market upside down: “Gallery owners complain that the extravagant prices achieved recently at auction have prompted speculators to buy artists’ latest works in galleries, then flip them at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, or Phillips for a quick profit, inflating the fragile careers of artists the galleries have painstakingly nurtured.” – New York Magazine
Author: Douglas McLennan
NEW PHILADELPHIA MUSIC DIRECTOR?
There are signs that the Philadelphia Orchestra’s long search for a new music director might soon be over. Recent contenders? “Many members of the orchestra would love James Levine to be named. Occasional guest conductor Christoph Eschenbach is now on the lips of informed pundits. There’s the possibility that Vladimir Ashkenazy, who will guest conduct later this season, could be a dark horse. Likewise for Neeme Järvi. Then there are names discussed in months past, but not lately: Christian Thielemann and Riccardo Chailly.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
SAN JOSE SYMPHONY’S GORDIAN KNOT
The San Jose Symphony recently gave its musicians a 7 percent pay increase. But the orchestra has a growing deficit, and the budget is on a collision course with reality. “The 121-year-old ensemble can’t afford the increases – but can’t afford not to give them.” – San Jose Mercury News
“DEAD MAN” SINGING
San Francisco Opera premieres Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s new opera “Dead Man Walking” this week. The opera’s topicality figures to be controversial – it’s not some classic tale from the distant past safely removed. – Los Angeles Times
DISSECTING ‘GATSBY’
John Harbison’s “Great Gatsby” opened to mixed notices last season at its premiere. In years past that might have been the end of the opera – second productions are few and far between in the modern opera world. But Chicago Lyric Opera is producing a new “Gatsby” and Harbison has done some substantial rethinking. – Chicago Sun-Times
NEW DAY FOR OPERA
“The very fact that America’s two largest opera companies, the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera, are trading productions of untested works by American composers, signifies that the move toward multiple productions has turned into a promising trend. It also suggests that opera directors and audiences are taking new American works a lot more seriously than they once did.” – Chicago Tribune
MY LIFE’S A STAGE
Jeffrey Archer’s new play opened in London last week. But its convoluted plot was “no stranger than real-life on the day that the former Conservative deputy chairman was charged with perverting the course of justice, perjury and ‘using a false instrument’, he was also making his (official) world debut as an actor.” – Sunday Times (UK)
WORDS AND MEANING
“Though the enterprise of literary criticism is a vast and infinitely complicated one, it all begins in a very familiar and basic experience. I read a text, perhaps Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94 (“They that have power to hurt and will do none”), find a deep pleasure in doing so, and want to explain my experience to others, sometimes enabling one of them to find the same kind of experience. I believe that I understand Shakespeare’s poem, and I want to test my understanding against other people’s views, perhaps even to enrich it as I deepen my insights in response to theirs.” – Philosophy and Literature
WORLD ARTS CONFAB
“The Canada Council for the Arts unveiled its plans yesterday to host a World Summit on the Arts and Culture. Two thousand representatives of arts councils and funding bodies from more than 50 countries will meet in Ottawa this December.” – CBC 10/01/00
POLITICIANS AGREE ON VIOLENCE AND MEDIA
Aren’t politicians supposed to disagree? So what’s with all the concern over violence and the entertainment industry? “When you actually look back through the public record and study the candidates’ various utterances on this topic, the striking thing is how similar – virtually identical, in fact – their stated positions are.” – Hartford Courant 10/01/00