“What all this [hype] is really about is trying to sidestep the reality that books are pretty useless to us. They don’t keep us warm (unless you finally fling that unputdownable freak in the fire), they don’t feed us, they wreck our environment by costing trees, and sometimes they’re plain poisonous.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Unknown Shostakovich Opera Discovered
“Large fragments of a satirical opera, Orango, which Shostakovich composed in 1932 – a project of which almost no one was aware – have been found in Moscow. The English musicologist Gerard McBurney is in the process of preparing a performable score of this [futurist] fable.”
No Cuts Planned For Montreal Symphony
“Madeleine Careau, the orchestra’s chief executive, said the total number of concerts in 2009-2010, including those of a tour not yet announced, would be only two to four fewer than the tally this season. Musicians remain contracted for 46 weeks and no administration staffers have been laid off.”
Yale Sues To Retain Ownership Of Van Gogh Painting
“The Ivy League university sued Tuesday in federal court in Connecticut to assert its ownership rights over The Night Café. It also seeks to block a descendant of the original owner from claiming it.” That potential claimant says he is the great-grandson of Russian aristocrat Ivan Morozov, from whom the Bolsheviks confiscated the painting.
Metropolitan Opera Bass Ezio Flagello, 78
“Mr. Flagello, a son of Italian immigrants in New York City, sang at major opera houses like La Scala in Milan, the Vienna State Opera, the San Francisco Opera and the Houston Grand Opera. But it was the Met that he made perhaps his most distinguished mark.”
How Badly Does Sydney Opera House Need Renovating?
“The Sydney Opera House is in such disrepair it could be forced to close shows if it does not receive the renovation funds announced by the Premier last week but dismissed by the Prime Minister. ‘If it takes us to a point where the theatre is shut, so be it,’ the chief executive, Richard Evans, said yesterday. ‘The theatre will either be shut in a planned way or an unplanned way’.”
Phoenix Symphony Embroiled In Legal Tangles Over Personnel
“These legal challenges involve lawsuits, complaints to federal agencies, charges of wrongful termination, allegations of retaliation, and the charge that the symphony’s top, veteran players are being forced to take demotions or leave the symphony so they can be replaced with younger, more compliant players.”
America’s Sistine Chapel?
Christopher Knight: “When ‘Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective’ opened last November at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MOCA) in the old mill town of North Adams, the reviews were rapturous. Having just returned from there, it’s easy to see why. This may be the most perfect union of contemporary art and architecture in the United States. It’s our Sistine.”
Bill Clinton And Tony Blair To Get Frost/Nixon Treatment
Peter Morgan, the screenwriter of The Last King of Scotland, The Queen and Frost/Nixon, has written and will direct “The Special Relationship, an HBO film which focuses on the rapport between [Tony] Blair and Bill Clinton.” Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore will portray the Clintons, with Michael Sheen as the former PM.
Silk Road Project And NYC Dept. Of Education Launch Joint Program
“Working closely with educators, [Yo-Yo Ma’s] Silk Road Project plans to craft an interdisciplinary curriculum based on the study of the eponymous ancient East-West trade route where ideas, cultures and goods freely mingled. The American Museum of Natural History and the Manhattan School of Music will also participate in the program.”