The verdict is that the musical’s creators used, without permission, substantial portions of an unpublished autobiography by Tommy DeVito, a founding member of the group The Four Seasons. The jury held that 10% of the show’s success is attributed to the unauthorized material – which could lead to a big cash award to DeVito’s widow.
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Met Gives Up On Getting A New Opera Out Of Osvaldo Golijov
After the wild success of his Pasión según San Marco, Golijov was one of the first composers Peter Gelb commissioned when he became the company’s general manager. Alas, Golijov seems to have a years-long case of composer’s block; this is by no means the first time he hasn’t been able to complete a major commission.
5,000-Year-Old City Unearthed In Egypt
The first reports on this find in English, which came out just as the Thanksgiving holiday was starting, said that the ruins archaeologists found near Abydos in southern Egypt were 7,000 years old. That seems to have been a mistranslation from the initial news release in Arabic. Even so, this is one of the earliest settlements yet found in the country.
‘The Pérez Art Museum Miami Just Got A Lot More Pérez – $15 Million Worth’
“The longtime arts supporter for whom the 3-year-old public museum is named, Jorge Pérez, has pledged a multimillion-dollar gift to the museum over the next 10 years with specific instructions. The goal: to acquire the works of Cuban and Latin American artists and bolster the museum’s endowment.”
Pioneering Countertenor Russell Oberlin Dead At 88
He was the first male alto to make a solo career in the U.S.; in the 1950s and ’60s he was at the forefront of the early music revival, singing everything from 12th-century English music through Bach and Handel (not to mention Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream). And he didn’t use falsetto; alto was his natural range.
Artists, Afraid Of What Trump Administration Will Bring, Direct Their Pleas To Ivanka
“She has become known in the art world as a progressive figure and as someone who seems to care much more about culture than her father does.” Yet the group, even as it goes so far as to march in front of her apartment building, doesn’t expect much direct effect from their efforts.
Ethan Stiefel Is Making A Ballet About The Space Program
Washington Ballet director Julie Kent commissioned him to create a work for the JFK centennial celebrations at the Kennedy Center – but, as he says, “I didn’t want to do JFK: The Ballet.” (Think of the fights over who’d get to dance Jackie and Marilyn.) He came up with the idea for what to do instead (where else?) on one of his motorcycle odysseys.
The Never-Ending Story: Indian Publishing Finds Its Mother Lode For Popular Fiction, Right Where It’s Always Been
“In the age of [James] Patterson, [Harry] Potter and Game of Thrones, Indian authors have brought their own special flavours to the table: mass-market fiction based on reinterpretations of the two great Hindu epic narratives, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.” Readers are devouring it, and it’s becoming very big business.
How Did So Many Children Become Convinced They Remembered Abuse That Never Actually Occurred?
Remember the Satanic-ritual-abuse-in-day-care panic of the 1980s and ’90s? Here’s a look at how the false memories of the young victims-that-weren’t got implanted and took hold – and how some of them handled it when, years later, they came to understand that what they thought they remembered hadn’t really happened.
Another Word Of The Year For 2016 – This One’s Based On Actual Searches For Its Definition
Dictionary.com noticed big spikes in searches for this word after the Brexit vote and following a speech by President Obama in June expressing concern about Donald Trump’s rhetoric. (There was an even bigger spike last year from South Africa following attacks on foreign workers.)