“After 58 years and more than 200 productions, the Baltimore Opera Company will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-law protection today amid dwindling ticket sales and contributions. The remaining two productions of the 2008-2009 season, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, have been canceled. Ticket-holders will not receive refunds.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Giving Tattered Celebrities A Hand, Or Maybe An Arm
Upstairs at Madame Tussauds New York, “above the waxy mugs of Picasso and Sinatra, is a gruesome human body shop of sorts, a grisly place where unmouthed teeth and disembodied heads are strewn across the tables and the floor. It is Madame Tussauds’ repair room, the E.R. for the tallow set: the waxed immortals on display downstairs are brought here for their tuneups after being ravaged by the crowds.”
MFA Curator Cornelius C. Vermeule III Dies At 83
“Cornelius C. Vermeule III, who over four decades as curator of classical antiquities at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston built a reputation for astute acquisitions, prodigious scholarship and exuberant eccentricity (his office had a working model of Cyprus’s national railroad), died on Nov. 27 in Cambridge, Mass.”
Photo Curator, Key Figure At Getty, To Retire
“Weston Naef, a curator who helped build the J. Paul Getty Museum’s photography collection over the last two decades into one of the most important in the world, has announced that he will retire in January, the museum said Monday.”
Tuition Fee Would Reconcile Labels With Downloading Fans
“U.S. universities are getting a glimpse at a plan that would build a small music-royalty fee into the tuition payments they receive from students. If successful, the model — proposed by digital music strategist Jim Griffin on behalf of Warner Music Group — could be expanded to make ISPs the collector of such micropayments,” which would free fans up to continue their downloading without the legal worries.
Thundering Across The Dance Floor With David Cameron
“It has always bugged me and continues to irritate me that Labour MPs and ministers tend to steer clear of advertising allegiances to any artform that could be construed ‘elitist’ or ‘effete'” — a far cry from Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s recently voiced enthusiasm for ballet.
Yes, Those Are Mine. Please Don’t Make Me Read Them All.
Far better to buy some new books than to ponder the countless unread volumes we already own. “The to-read pile is more than just a physical stack of books: it’s a tower of ambitions failed, hopes unrealised, good intentions unfulfilled. Worse still, it’s a cold hard reminder of mortality. Already, I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime.”
Does Completing The Sagrada Familia = Betraying Gaudí?
“A group of Spanish architects and art world types has savagely denounced the continuing work to complete Gaudí’s religious masterpiece the Sagrada Familia. Should work on this vast church – often mistaken, with good reason, for Barcelona’s cathedral – have been carried on, after his death in 1926 left it unfinished? The grumpy intellectuals say no. Gaudí, they complain, is being banalised in the name of tourism.”
In Denver & San Francisco, Contrasting Views Of Libeskind
“Two American museums designed by one world-famous architect have evoked two very different reactions from visitors and critics alike. The Denver Art Museum and San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum were both designed by Daniel Libeskind. … Both Libeskind museums are seen as architectural standouts. But in buildings designed to showcase art, can form impede function?”
Hey, Chicago, London Has Something Crucial To Teach You
“In London, arts institutions have figured out that they need to be gathering places as much–if not more–than producers of cultural events. It is a win-win transformation. The provision of a relaxed, open, public space fills a social mission, but it also fills the coffers. … All of this makes one wonder why Chicago is so pathetic in this crucial regard.”