“Composer Gordon Kerry and librettist Louis Nowra describe Midnight Son as ‘An opera inspired by a true story’. That story is infamous: the murky, tragic tale of Maria Korp, her suburban Don Giovanni of a husband, Joe, and his murder-intent mistress, Tania Herman. Worse cases occur in opera, but perhaps not with quite the same disturbingly still-warm immediacy.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Much Money Is Really Being Spent In China’s Art Market? That’s Not Entirely Clear
“Was the 2011 joint turnover of the Chinese auction houses $154.2bn, $148.5bn, $88.1bn – or much less?”
Scotland’s Smaller Theatre Companies Beginning To Panic Over Planned Funding Changes
Creative Scotland, the country’s arts funding body, is discontinuing two-year supporting grants in favor of per-project awards. “Companies and individual practitioners are questioning whether they will be able to continue under the new regime, while there are warnings that individual artists will leave Scotland.”
Showing Contemporary Art In An Old French Convent
Supermarket magnate Michel-Edouard Leclerc “says that he hopes to transform the French public’s perception of contemporary art by opening a new gallery in a former 17th-century convent in Brittany this summer.”
Meet The One Man With Two Guv’nors
“Part of the secret of [James] Corden’s comic gift is that he combines innocence so naturally with mischief. Although he’s 33, his face is that of an adolescent boy who has just discovered beer, Internet porn and some new flavor of potato chip.”
Melbourne’s Top Art Museum Still Won’t Let People Sketch There – And Said People Are Angry
“A groundswell of anger about [the National Gallery of Victoria’s] restrictions on visitors sketching, painting or even taking notes has the gallery scrambling to amend and defend its guidelines. And a group of eminent local artists has joined a campaign to persuade those in charge to throw open its doors freely to those who want to paint before its great works.”
Major Change In Australian Arts Funding Proposal: Make Big Companies Compete For Grants
“Opening the major performing arts companies – including the state theatre companies, Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet – to competition for funding and peer review will no doubt prove most contentious since it raises the possibility of a company losing ongoing funding.”
R. Crumb On The Art World’s Embrace Of His Comics
“People tell me this Museum of Modern Art in Paris is a really big deal, and that it’s very prestigious to have a show there. I guess I should be impressed. I don’t know.”
This Company Wants To Change Italian Dance-Theater, But Italy Bums Them Out
“Young Italian movement group Dewey Dell are dedicated to forging a new form of theatre integrating music, choreography and lighting, but are so depressed by the Italian economy they are saddened when considering the future.
Virtual Reality Games Help Treat Soldiers’ PTSD
“[A recent] clinical trial compar[es] virtual reality with standard exposure therapy – which helps patients relearn their responses to stressful situations by focusing on the traumatic event in a controlled environment.” The effects of virtual reality treatment appear to last longer than those of talk therapy.