Europe’s big cultural festivals are big business. “Salzburg, the most prestigious, sold its soul a long while back. Nowhere on the tourist itinerary of Europe are you more likely to find over-priced hotels and mediocre restaurants. The old town has become little more than a shopping mall for the exceedingly wealthy. How could Mozart’s birthplace have come to this?” All the more to sympathize with Gerard Mortier’s struggle for artistic integrity. – Financial Times 08/09/00
Author: Douglas McLennan
MR. MODERN
Nicholas Serota is smiling. And why not? Serota, director of the Tate Museum, is “one of the handful of culture gurus who have persuaded conservative Britons to cast aside their instinctual suspicion of modern art. Serota has, with Tate Modern, simultaneously catapulted Britain to the forefront of the international contemporary art world, up there with New York’s MOMA and the Pompidou in Paris.” – Los Angeles Times
ON JERRY HALL’S NUDE SCENE
“Without my stopwatch on the night, I had to resort to the trusted old method of counting seconds, muttering “One elephant . . . two elephants . . . three elephants,” and so on. By the time I reached the fifth elephant, my neighbours in the stalls were pushing me under my seat and sitting on my head to shut me up, because they thought my comments would upset Mick Jagger, who was in the audience.” – Sydney Morning Herald
NEW LOUISVILLE DIRECTOR
Marc Masterson, leader of Pittsburgh’s City Theatre for 20 years, has been named the new artistic director of Actors Theatre of Louisville. ATL is home of the Humana Festival of New Plays, the country’s premiere showcase for new plays. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
CELEBRITY TURNS
“Jerry Hall made her official debut on the London stage. “On Tuesday night the critics’ knives were out – and sharpened – as 44-year-old Hall still failed to make anything more than just an adequate impression.” – BBC
ON JERRY HALL’S NUDE SCENE
“Without my stopwatch on the night, I had to resort to the trusted old method of counting seconds, muttering “One elephant . . . two elephants . . . three elephants,” and so on. By the time I reached the fifth elephant, my neighbours in the stalls were pushing me under my seat and sitting on my head to shut me up, because they thought my comments would upset Mick Jagger, who was in the audience.” – Sydney Morning Herald
MR. MODERN
Nicholas Serota is smiling. And why not? Serota, director of the Tate Museum, is “one of the handful of culture gurus who have persuaded conservative Britons to cast aside their instinctual suspicion of modern art. Serota has, with Tate Modern, simultaneously catapulted Britain to the forefront of the international contemporary art world, up there with New York’s MOMA and the Pompidou in Paris.” – Los Angeles Times
EMI SAYS SUIT UNFOUNDED
The recording giant says the price-fixing lawsuits filed against it and the other four major label groups (Warner Music, Sony Music, Universal Music and BMG) are “without merit.”- BBC
COOKING IN CANBERRA
Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery buys a picture for $5.3 million – the highest price paid for an art work by any Australian public gallery or private collector – for a portrait of Captain James Cook. – The Age (Melbourne)
CLEANING THE ACROPOLIS
In preparation for the 2004 Olympics, “teams of archaeologists are restoring and cleaning the 2,500-year-old Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the walls fortifying the Acropolis, and the Propylaia, the main entrance to the monuments. Projects also include work on the Erechtheion, with its porch of statues of young women known as caryatids.” – Boston Globe