This year’s Bard Music Festival “will turn its attention to Richard Wagner, whose towering music dramas are among the most influential and popular works in the operatic literature” — but who, as festival co-artistic director Leon Botstein notes, “was arguably … the most persuasive and evil figure of the Western cultural pantheon.” So Bard is also presenting “major rarities by the two composers whom Wagner singled out for his most vicious shafts of anti-Semitism.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Sony Drops E-Book Price, Matching Amazon’s $9.99
“Book publishers have worried about the $9.99 flat price ever since Amazon.com introduced it for its Kindle reader in 2007, fearing that it could cannibalize sales of higher-priced hardcover books. … Sony is also introducing two new electronic reading devices: the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition. They will sell for $199 and $299 respectively,” substantially less than the devices they replace.
LA City Council Approves $30 Million Loan To Lure Cirque
“The acrobats of Cirque du Soleil and a developer won a victory today when the L.A. City Council unanimously approved a $30-million loan to help finance upgrades that will allow the Kodak Theatre to host the troupe for 368 performances a year. … The federal government must still approve the loan.”
Acropolis Museum Abandons Censorship Of Costa-Gavras
Oscar-winning filmmaker Costa-Gavras last week asked the Acropolis Museum “to withdraw his credit from an animated short that the museum” had edited “after the Greek Orthodox Church objected to what it saw as a depiction of Christian priests destroying parts of the ancient temple. But on Tuesday, the Acropolis Museum said it had reversed its decision to cut the film after days of picketing and the threat of a lawsuit.”
Art Market Has Found Bottom, Sotheby’s CFO Says
“Sotheby’s Chief Financial Officer William Sheridan said art prices and sales have stabilized, after the New York-based auctioneer reported a worse-than- expected 87 percent drop in second-quarter earnings. ‘Unless there’s some external event we’re not aware of, we believe the market has bottomed out,’ Sheridan said in an interview last night. … Yesterday, Sotheby’s reported its first quarterly profit in a year.”
Experts: Bankruptcy May Be Annie Leibovitz’s Best Bet
“Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz may be better off declaring bankruptcy than battling a creditor suing her for breaching a contract related to a $24 million loan, bankruptcy experts said. … While losing the case may result in Leibovitz’s financial ruin, a bankruptcy court filing ‘may be more attuned to fairness issues with regard to her and to all her creditors,'” one lawyer said.
Architect Charles Gwathmey Dies At 71
“Charles Gwathmey, an architect who turned his love of Modernism and passion for geometrical complexity into a series of compelling houses and sometimes controversial public buildings, died in Manhattan on Monday. … Mr. Gwathmey was part of a generation of architects who put their own aesthetic stamp on the ‘high Modernist’ style developed in the early 20th century by Le Corbusier and others.”
Children’s Laureate Lobbies For Drawing In The Classroom
Children’s laureate Anthony Browne, an author and illustrator, “is concerned that the pressure of national curriculum tests means priority is given to reading rather than drawing. He believes that the two should be prized in equal measure and any failure to promote art could lead to a shortage of talented artists in later years.”
Safe Stolen From Garrison Keillor’s Bookstore Is Found
“The safe stolen from Common Goods Books, a St. Paul shop owned by Garrison Keillor, has been found, but the store’s manager still is curious about how the burglar got it out. Sue Zumberge said she is about 5 feet 5 inches tall and the safe ‘was at face height for me.'” She also recalled, “When we opened the store and we were talking about security, Garrison said, ‘Do you really think my neighbors would steal from me?'”
When Opera Is A Pro-Am Enterprise
Welsh National Opera, Birmingham Opera Company, Dorset Opera, London’s Chelsea Opera Group and University College Opera, and Haslemere’s Opera South all have a history of using amateur choruses in some of their productions. They’re not the only ones. “Many of these groups have a reputation for presenting challenging or unusual repertory,” and “[a]ll of them aim higher than a good old romp through G and S.”