“A previously unknown work by 17th-century painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger has been discovered in an elderly woman’s possessions, a Dutch art television program announced yesterday… The painting, dated to approximately 1620, also bears Brueghel’s signature on the tree trunk.”
Author: sbergman
Legendary DC Bookseller To Close
Olsson’s Books and Records is a well-known name to lovers of words and music in Washington, D.C. – an independent chain with nine locations at its peak. “But the loss of music sales to big-box retailers and the Internet severely cut into its business, and the company had downsized over the past six years.” This week, Olsson’s shut the doors of its remaining stores for good.
The Kaiser Way
By nearly any measure, Kennedy Center chief Michael Kaiser has to be considered one of the great success stories of the American performing arts world, known for retiring deficits without slashing artistic budgets beyond recognition. But is his success translatable for other struggling arts groups? Kaiser is betting that it is, with a new 183-page “manual” for arts managers.
Does High Fashion Become Offensive In Tough Times?
“The fashion industry, not to be confused with the garment trade, is in the unfortunate position of manufacturing merchandise that many would argue is wholly unnecessary and, when a $10,000 blazer is strutted down a runway by a teenager, is morally offensive… There is a level of cynicism surrounding the fashion industry that has reached unprecedented levels.”
Poet/Editor Hayden Carruth, 87
“Hayden Carruth, whose spare, precise, impassioned verse took myriad forms and stamped him as one of the most wide-ranging and intellectually ambitious poets of his generation, died Monday at his home… Although known primarily as a critic, reviewer and editor, Mr. Carruth produced some 30 books of poetry that addressed, in charged, taut language, subjects like madness, loneliness, death and the fragility of the natural world.”
Ostian Ruins Refurbished, Opened To The Public
“The ruins of Ostia, an ancient Roman port, have never captured the public imagination in the same way as those of Pompeii, perhaps because Ostia met with a less cataclysmic fate… [But] officials hope that the decade-long restoration of four dwellings lavishly decorated with frescoes will focus new attention on this once-bustling port about 15 miles west of Rome.”
Reminding The World Of The Value Of Dance
“Clarity of intention aside, the [Lyon Dance Biennial] is one of the most ambitious and important dance festivals in the world, and its largeness of scale and intention is splendid to see at a time of ever-shrinking financing for the arts.”
How To Play To Your Base
This year’s installment of the New York Musical Theater Festival seems to be all about two major themes: “Nobody wants to be in 2008 New York. [And] everybody is gay… Even Bonnie and Clyde: A Folk Tale has a gay subplot, with J. Edgar Hoover singing and dancing and eventually showing his supposed true colors.”
Did A Stage Extension Mar Symphony’s Season Opener?
The Oregon Symphony opened its 2008-09 season with Beethoven’s 9th, and critic David Stabler was notably unimpressed with the quality of the performance. So, it seems, were a number of patrons, and even orchestra staffers. Was a stage extension the source of the problem? “Saturday’s balances were so skewed,” Stabler writes, “even the symphony staff is wondering if the extension is to blame.” One orchestra violist blogged about what went wrong in the Beethoven.
An Orchestra So Good You’ll Faint
Esa-Pekka Salonen recently took the reins of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and is taking his new band on the road to some other UK halls. But things could have gone better in the Yorkshire town of Leeds, where “the atmosphere inside Leeds Town Hall was so stiflingly hot” that two audience members passed out during the performance and required medical attention.