“‘I was just thinking what it must be like to live in Tel Aviv, or anywhere in Israel, and have to face this kind of thing every day,’ Oregon Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Libby Appel said Friday, scanning the confused midday crowd on the festival’s plaza. … For the first time in its 72-year history, the nation’s largest regional repertory theater had to cancel a performance because of a bomb threat.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Manchester United, But Around Culture This Time
“It’s unlikely that this city will ever have the tourist appeal of such summer festival faves as Edinburgh, Salzburg or Aix-en-Provence. Nor can it ever expect the cachet of the capital city festivals in Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Still, the Manchester International Festival 2007, which began Thursday and runs for 18 days, is trying very hard with 25 world premieres.”
Can Street Performers Stop Crime? Seattle Hopes So.
“These crime fighters aren’t in uniform and don’t carry weapons or badges. They wield guitars, Hula-Hoops, washboards, paintbrushes, and will hopefully have the ability to draw a crowd. Last week, Seattle parks began paying street performers — mostly musicians, but also a few visual artists and some vaudevillians — to entertain in five downtown parks in hopes that with more people around, a park will be less hospitable to illegal activity.”
The Bubble Will Burst. But Let’s Define “Bubble.”
“If a bubble, or bubbles, exist in the fine arts–as opposed to the decorative arts–it is in the highly-touted trendy contemporary market; in the late 19th and 20th centuries; and in markets that appeal to Russia and the newly super-rich Asian countries. The 16th and 17th century Italian, French and Flemings; the 18th and 19th-century British; and the pre-Impressionist French have been forgotten in this inundation of liquidity into the art market.”
Appreciating Beverly Sills, Complicated Human Being
“She was the telegenic ‘diva next door,’ a friendly redhead from Brooklyn whose friends called her Bubbles; she was an aggressive Manhattan snob who never let it be forgotten that she did hold grudges. She was the warmest and most brilliant American coloratura soprano of her time; she was a high-culture power broker and adept political infighter. Those who knew her slightly liked her enormously; those who knew her better were sometimes a little afraid of her.”
Why So Few Black Writers In America’s Fiction Ranks?
“The business is full of fiction writers like me. With one difference: I’m black, born and raised in the United States,” Martha Southgate writes. “At the parties and conferences I attend, and in the book reviews I read, I rarely encounter other African-American ‘literary’ writers, particularly in my age bracket. There just don’t seem to be that many of us out there, and that’s something I’ve come to wonder about a great deal.”
On View In Hong Kong, China’s Most Famous Painting
“Politics and art don’t always mix well, but the combination has yielded a rare chance for Hong Kong residents and visitors to see what is arguably China’s most famous painting. … (T)he Chinese government has sent 32 artworks here for an exhibition to mark the 10th anniversary of Britain’s return of Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997. Among them is Zhang Zeduan’s ‘Along the River During the Qingming Festival,’ a scroll painted in the early 12th century.”
Music For Opera Or Theatre, With No Deadline In Sight
“Eighteen months after the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater announced an innovative commissioning project, few notes have been written. The composers have yet to sign contracts, officials said, and some have not even settled on their subject matter. But with the busy Met season over, the effort is gathering steam.”
Where The Big Symphony Bucks Are: L.A.
“Chicago Symphony Orchestra President Deborah R. Card earned a salary of $423,300 for 2004-05. But she was far from being the highest-paid symphony orchestra executive director that season, according to figures reported to the IRS and posted last week by Drew McManus on his Adaptistration blog (artsjournal.com/adaptistration). … The symphony orchestra CEO who received the fattest compensation package by far was Card’s colleague Deborah Borda, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who drew a whopping $1,325,542.”
Happy Fourth. Now Choose The Great American Novel.
“With the glorious Fourth looming dead ahead, it’s an excellent time to play the home version of this game: What’s your pick for Great American Novel? Not the best novel written by an American. Rather, the best novel written by an American that most clearly reflects the spirit, character and destiny of America, both its good and bad sides, its mistakes and its triumphs. It’s more than a game, of course.”