During the 1930s, tens of thousands of Americans emigrated to the USSR, driven by the Depression and promises of plentiful jobs. As Stalin’s purges became more severe and sweeping, many of those Americans were sent to starve and freeze in labor camps. And among the Westerners who abetted this situation were Roosevelt’s Ambassador to Moscow and his heiress wife.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Italian Opera Houses On The Brink
With three of Italy’s 14 major opera houses in receivership and budgets badly stretched at the rest, the upcoming cuts in the nation’s cultural budget are causing serious concern. “There is almost no private support of the arts in Italy – there are no tax incentives to drive that – and the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warned months ago that every theater, museum and archeological site had become a luxury.”
‘Tortillas Of The Stone Age’
“Fire-cracked rock piles found across North America received little scientific attention for decades, but two new studies reveal… [that for] thousands of years, they were used [by Native Americans] to cook a favorite food staple: smoky, sweet camas bulbs.”
Las Vegas Phil Eliminates Executive Director Job
At the same time that the orchestra’s board president stepped down this week, executive director Peter Aaronson was let go – because the orchestra couldn’t afford to pay him. “It was not just that my salary [$125K] was overpriced, we had no cash flow to keep the doors open.” Aaronson will not be replaced.
Nobel Secretary Who Dissed American Lit To Step Down
Horace Engdahl, who made headlines in the fall for saying that the US “is too isolated, too insular” to compete for the Nobel Prize for literature, will step down as the prize committee’s permanent secretary next June. He says that his decision predates the controversy.
The Sound Of Dvorak On The Altiplano
Conductor David Handel has been attracting news coverage in the U.S. for his success at turning the National Symphony Orchestra of Bolivia from a ragtag pops band into a real classical ensemble. A recent public radio feature includes a brief interview with Handel and clips of the NSOB in performance.
No Spring Tour For Ballet BC
While the Vancouver dance company has managed to avoid bankruptcy and is trying to save its local spring season, it has cancelled an April tour of its ballet version of A Streetcar Named Desire to Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Thunder Bay. “‘We just can’t afford it,’ said Ballet BC president Graeme Barrit.”
San Francisco Opera Just Breaks Even
“The San Francisco Opera finished its 2007-08 fiscal year with a tiny surplus of $141,377 on an annual operating budget of $72,531,193… ‘We got out of there with our pants on,’ said General Director David Gockley… ‘We were able to cut $1.2 million in expenses, and ticket sales for the fall were only about $100,000 below projections.'”
Eartha Kitt, 81
“Eartha Kitt, who purred and pounced her way across Broadway stages, recording studios and movie and television screens in a show-business career that lasted more than six decades, died on Thursday. She was 81 and lived in Connecticut.”
Harold Pinter, 78
“Harold Pinter, the British playwright whose gifts for finding the ominous in the everyday and the noise within silence made him the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation, died on Wednesday. He was 78 and lived in London. The cause was cancer, his wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, said on Thursday.”