The New York Philharmonic truly wanted Riccardo Muti as its next music director, but the courtship’s officially over – the Philharmonic decides now that what it needs most of all is a full-time musical director. So the search goes on… – New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
MODERN-DAY ROMEO AND JULIET
The opera singers Marijana Mijanovic and Kresimir Spicer are “the couple of the summer,” having thrilled audiences at Aix-en-Provence’s popular summer opera festival. “But it is also because they are a real-life Romeo and Juliet: she is a Serb, he is a Croat, and they live together in Amsterdam. – New York Times
ZAI JIAN TO ONLINE CHINESE BOOKSTORE
Chinese Books Cyberstore (CBC), which may have been the largest Chinese-language online bookstore, has declared it will go into voluntary liquidation. The site, which offered over 200,000 titles, video disks, Chinese comic books, and arts and crafts, failed to secure additional funding from shareholders, who are still reeling from the international tech-stock slump. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
BOOK CHAIN SUES NEWSPAPER
Canadian bookstore giant Chapters sues National Post after stories alleging the chain was behind in payments to a large publisher. “CEO of Chapters says that the articles painted a distorted picture of his company.” – CBC
QUEEN OF THE EMPIRE
It’s been noted recently that the art of belly dancing is dying in Egypt, that the profession is being taken over by a torrent of foreign dancers. But watch out for Fifi Abdo, one of Egypt’s top three belly dancers and perhaps the most “violent.” Abdo, who commands a fierce band of bodyguards, recently stormed the office of the censor after one of her performances had been censored for being too provocative, and is on the warpath against the “Russians” – the foreign belly dancers that she says are “giving a bad name to our traditional profession.” – Ha’aretz (Israel)
IT’S MINE TO RESTAGE
Vancouver’s Ballet BC wants to stage a work by its former artistic director, but the choreographer has refused, saying the company must hire her to restage it. – CBC
DISAPPEARING TUMMIES
The art of belly dancing is dying in Egypt, where it was born “Fewer hotels, clubs and Nile River boats are offering the live performances, and more and more Egyptian women are shunning the dance because of Islamic disapproval. As a consequence, more of the dancers performing professionally in Cairo are outsiders – from Japan, South America and the countries of the former Soviet Union. They are from almost everywhere, in fact, except Egypt.” – Los Angeles Times
IL BEL MARCELLO
A salute to Marcello Mastroianni, on the eve of the UK’s National Film Theatre’s major retrospective of 22 of his movies. “Nowadays, if you want to sum up Italian style, that sinuous Italian charm that is so easy on the ear and eye, then it’s usually Mastroianni who comes to mind.” – The Guardian
WHERE OH WHERE
The Moscow Film Festival is supposedly an “A” festival alongside the likes of Cannes and Venice. But it’s difficult getting the stars to come to Russia. “This year, as in the past, many of the promised celebrities failed to show, leading an English-language newspaper here to dub the event the ‘Moscow Vanity Fair – high on vanity but low on fair value.’ ” – New York Post
WILLIAM MAXWELL DIED —
— at age 91 on Monday. Accomplished novelist and revered editor at the “New Yorker” for 40 years, Maxwell honed the prose of some of this century’s finest American writers, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and Harold Brodkey among them. – CNN