Miraculously, the enormous instrument suffered no structural damage from the April 15, 2019 fire at the medieval Paris cathedral. But the 8,000 pipes, five keyboards, and intricate mechanisms were covered and filled with toxic lead dust from the destroyed roof and spire. Disassembly will take until the end of this year and the cleaning will take more than three years; after the organ is all back together, it will take six months to tune and voice it. – Yahoo! (AP)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Another Selfie-Greedy Tourist Breaks Another Artwork
“This time, the victim was a historic plaster model by the Italian artist Antonio Canova (1757–1822). On July 31, a misguided Austrian tourist snapped the toes off the Neoclassical sculpture Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, housed at [the town of] Possagno’s Museo Antonio Canova in northeast Italy, while attempting to sit on its lap for a photo.” – Artnet
Unemployment In UK Theatre Up By Two-Thirds In Just A Few Weeks
“Job losses at theatres across the UK have jumped from 3,000 to 5,000 in less than a month, according to figures from the Bectu trade union. The job losses include redundancies of permanent employees and layoffs of casual staff.” – The Guardian
Well, England Didn’t Re-Start Indoor Performances On August 1 After All
“Indoor English venues were scheduled to open on 1 August with social distancing measures in place for audiences and performers – emulating the pilot run performed at The London Palladium last week.” But, with the novel coronavirus raging on, at noon on July 31, Boris Johnson told the nation, “Our assessment is that we should squeeze the brake pedal.” (The sensible Scots are waiting until October to reopen their theatres and concert halls.) – WhatsOnStage
In Which A New York Times And Guardian Theater Critic Takes Online Theater Classes
Alexis Soloski: “As an undergraduate 20 years ago, I had majored in theater and back then, our training was exclusively and incontrovertibly face to face. Good acting happened in the moment, in the room, in the space between bodies and breath, action and intention. You couldn’t teach that online! … Or could you? For two humbling and sometimes humiliating weeks, I tried.” – The New York Times
How Books Became Cheap: An Illustrated Timeline Of Publishing Technology
From woodblock printing (3rd century) to movable type (11th century — sorry, Gutenberg) to stereotyping (in the original sense; ca. 1700) to paperbacks (ca. 1845) to hot-metal typesetting (ca. 1884). – Lapham’s Quarterly
Not 20 Years After World War II, Modern Design Reintroduced Tokyo To The World
Jason Farago: “Tokyo 2020, its name unchanged, will now take place in July 2021 if it takes place at all. Yet all around the Japanese capital is the legacy of another Olympics: the 1964 Summer Games, which crowned Tokyo’s 20-year transformation from a firebombed ruin to an ultramodern megalopolis.” – The New York Times
America Needs A Truth And Reconciliation Commission — And It Should Be Televised
Wesley Morris: “What would an American version be? Court, theater, a hearing, a telethon, therapy, TV, church, Ken Burns, Anna Deavere Smith? Each perhaps — and more. Who would make it? I don’t know…. The production, however, is merely the second hurdle to clear. The first would be convincing executives that it’s worth doing in the first place. Here’s what to say about that: The entertainment industry itself has more than a century of harm to atone for and ameliorate. Any company that believes the solution to ‘systemic racism’ is The Help shouldn’t mind a surrender of its airwaves.” – The New York Times
What’s The Most Popular Book In Russian Prisons? Not ‘Crime And ‘Punishment’
No, Dostoevsky’s novel is only the second-most popular title among inmates there; Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is in the top spot, with Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo at number three. The data was released by Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service as part of a nationwide government program to encourage reading called “Books Are Your Friends.” – The Moscow Times
Salzburg Festival Will Happen This Year, And Here’s How They’ll Do It
“A sprawling, 44-day anniversary program has been mostly postponed until next year. It has been replaced with a reduced, 30-day schedule, through Aug. 30, of concerts, plays and two (instead of seven) staged operas.” Artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser says “we have measures for cultural institutions — which are 200 percent necessary — that respect the health of the people working and the audience.” And those measures, it turns out, were designed partly by a baritone-otolaryngologist. – The New York Times