“Arts Council England has revealed it will now decide what to fund based principally on how ‘relevant’ it is to audiences – and it will ‘no longer be enough’ to produce high-quality work alone. This was one of 11 points … [that] will be the driving factors for the funding body’s next 10-year strategy.” – The Stage
Author: Matthew Westphal
State Funding For Culture Slashed In São Paulo By New Reality-Star-Turned-Governor
“Nineteen federally-funded museums, cultural institutions and events in São Paulo could be impacted by steep budget cuts proposed by the state’s governor João Doria, a millionaire who appeared on the Brazilian version of The Apprentice before he took office in January this year.” – The Art Newspaper
Biopic Of India’s Prime Minister To Be Released On Election Day After Commission Declines To Intervene
“Opposition parties, including the Indian National Congress, had petitioned the Election Commission to delay the film’s release until after the polls close on May 19, on the grounds that it was propaganda for the incumbent prime minister and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Producers announced that the film” — titled simply PM Narendra Modi — “will release simultaneously in 38 countries.” – Variety
Nashville Symphony Hires First African-American Principal In 50 Years
Titus Underwood has been acting principal oboe for more than a year and has just been awarded the position permanently. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, he was previously associate principal oboe of the Utah Symphony. – Nashville Public Radio
Nelson Algren’s Strange Midnight Dignity
In his introduction to NEVER A LOVELY SO REAL: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren, Colin Asher begins with “the first thing you should know.” – Jan Herman
Mind’s eye
It struck me a couple of months ago that Mrs. T’s recent travails had made her even more deserving than usual of a just-because-I-love-you present. It took a bit of thinking and even more looking, but I finally succeeded in tracking down a copy of an etching, John Marin’s The Lobster Fisherman, that filled the bill to perfection. – Terry Teachout
The New Jazz Heroes
The Jazz Journalists Association has announced its slate of 2019 Jazz Heroes, people who have made significant contributions to the health, well-being and exposure of jazz in their cities and towns. – Doug Ramsey
Beyond ‘The Ring’ And The Machine: High-Tech Opera At The Met And Elsewhere
William Kentridge’s stagings of The Nose and Lulu were, and next season’s Wozzeck will be, packed tight with video imagery. (Yet they’re surprisingly easy for the stage technicians.) The whale boats in Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick couldn’t have existed without 21st-century technology. The animation in Barrie Kosky’s widely-traveled production of The Magic Flute is so intricate that some singers have to be strapped into place. David Patrick Stearns looks into the modern-day wizardry on the opera stage. – WQXR (New York City)
425 Years Of ‘Titus Andronicus’ In Popular Culture
“The image of a mother made to eat her children was hard to shake, and a couple of decades after its 1594 premiere, artists had already begun to appropriate — O.K., fine, cannibalize — its plot for uses comic, tragic and savagely satirical. Its blood has spattered everything from bootleg Dutch tragedies to Japanese anime to Game of Thrones. Directors have staged it with almost no gore and with nothing but gore. It has been modernized, musicalized, performed by puppets and adapted to Kabuki. Stephen K. Bannon sent it into space.” – The New York Times
An Oral History Of The Most Cursed Film Production Ever To Actually Get Finished
Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote “has to be one of the unluckiest passion projects in history: In a three-decade stretch, Gilliam, now 78, endured several financing stops and starts, a rotating cast of committed and uncommitted cast members, and a brutal flash flood that wiped out an entire set. … In interviews, those who had stayed with Gilliam on this ride could be described as the director’s own Sancho Panzas: equal parts loyal and astounded that Gilliam kept pressing on, even under the most challenging circumstances.” – The New York Times