“Stage director Willy Decker is to be the new director of the Ruhr Triennale starting in 2009. He succeeds Jürgen Flimm, now director of the Salzburg Festival… Founded in 2002 by Gerard Mortier, the Ruhr Triennale offers adventurous music, theater and dance programs in unused industrial spaces in the Ruhr Valley.”
Author: sbergman
Is There A Tenor In The Hou… Oh, Yeah, There’s One.
When tenor Ben Heppner took ill midway through an oratorio in Vancouver over the weekend, the entire Vancouver Symphony performance was in jeopardy. But incredibly, another well-known tenor, Peter Butterfield, was in the audience, and was immediately conscripted to finish the show, even though he hadn’t sung the piece in 20 years.
Something Old, Something New
The Philadelphia Theatre Company moves into a new home this week. “The architecture of the new theater – the first major arts venue to open on South Broad Street since the Kimmel Center in 2001 – was a conscious act of preserving what everyone liked about the old space, the Plays and Players Theatre, built in 1912.”
RIAA Can Dish It Out, But Hates To Take It
“The music-industry lobbying-and-litigation arm is protesting a federal magistrate’s recommendation that it cough up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for an Oregon woman. Tanya Andersen, 42, says she racked up the expenses defending against an RIAA infringement lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence… The RIAA is arguing in court documents that the association shouldn’t have to pay defense counsel fees, because Andersen is probably guilty anyway.”
Baryshnikov’s 37 Arts In Deep Trouble
37 Arts, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s off-Broadway theater, dance studio and foundation headquarters, is being foreclosed on. The company that built the studio claims that 37 Arts is $4m in debt, and still owes $10m to the builders. The theater, which was intended to be the moneymaking part of the building, has struggled to attract audiences, due in part to its remote location.
Museum Planning Begins In The OC
“A very preliminary and completely unofficial model depicting a new high-rise home for the Orange County Museum of Art made an appearance Thursday… This year, city officials approved five high-rise residential developments in the district — among them an 80-unit, 300-foot-tall condo tower rising above a museum that would occupy the lower three or four floors.” Still, the building’s deisgn and the museum’s role in the process are not yet fleshed out, nor is the matter of who will pay for it all.
Judge: Simon Museum Can Keep Cranach Paintings
“A Los Angeles federal judge has dismissed a case that jeopardized the Norton Simon Museum’s ownership of a nearly 500-year-old pair of paintings of Adam and Eve by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder. The action halts dueling lawsuits filed by the museum and Marei von Saher of Connecticut, the heir of a Jewish art dealer who lost the artworks to the Nazis in World War II.”
Museums Learn To Mimic Hollywood
“In the era of movies with elaborate special effects and video games with graphics that cause players to marvel at the feeling of being inside the game, its no wonder museums are scrambling to keep up. For many, the answer to a more sophisticated audience and one with, perhaps, a shorter attention span is interactivity and immersion. Science and childrens museums have long trafficked in hands-on, sensory experiences. Now, with improved technology, the experiential exhibit is reaching new heights and turning up in a variety of venues.”
Coppola Bites Several Hands That Fed Him
“Film director Francis Ford Coppola has hit out at acting greats Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson, saying the trio lacked ‘passion’. The five-time Oscar-winner told GQ magazine they ‘all live off the fat of the land” and did not have ambition.'” All three actors starred in successful Coppola films.
Playing It Safe? Not At The Joffrey, Please.
The Joffrey Ballet’s new director took his first bows this week, and while Ashley Wheater may have a long and successful tenure ahead, Sid Smith was disturbed that he chose to introduce himself to Chicago’s innovative and risk-taking company by staging one of the oldest and safest ballets available. “Resident ballet troupes can always use a Giselle, and now the Joffrey has a perfectly respectable version. But one hopes Wheater, when forging ahead, will lean more toward the electricity generated by the likes of last season’s Cinderella, rekindling the flair and imagination that make Joffrey selections unpredictable and special.”