“For its latest revival of Tosca, opening Saturday, Los Angeles Opera has obtained a rare stage artifact — the jewelry worn by Maria Callas in 1956 for her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giacomo Puccini’s tragic heroine… The three-piece set, which consists of a tiara, earrings and a fanned-out necklace, is worth approximately $85,000.”
Author: sbergman
Garrels Leaving Hammer For SFMOMA
“Gary Garrels, the highly sought-after curator who has helped raise the profile of the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and beyond, is jumping ship. The Hammer snagged Garrels, 56, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York three years ago. But now he is moving to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as senior curator of painting and sculpture.”
Eschenbach’s Philadelphia Swan Song
“Christoph Eschenbach’s all-Schubert final subscription concert as Philadelphia Orchestra music director was neither daring nor fail-safe. But it was certainly a reminder of what an individualistic musical thinker the community is losing, and of how resourceful he can be… at channeling the orchestra’s best qualities into something well beyond the luxury of its sound.”
Kids Finding It Harder To Buy Ultra-Violent Video Games
“According to the results of a new ‘mystery shopper’ campaign by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, kids under 17 years of age were turned away 80 per cent of the time when trying to purchase or rent a mature-rated video game… The 80 per cent turn-down rate represents a 38 per cent improvement [from] 2006, and 433 per cent better than the turn-down rate measured in 2000, the year the study was launched.”
The Importance Of Being Billy
Casting the stage version of Billy Eliot has been one of the most complicated things Broadway has even done. Somehow, though, producers have managed to find three little boys who can sing, dance, act, and confidently carry a multi-million dollar show, night after night after night. Until their voices change or they get too tall, that is…
The Enduring Power Of An Old Form
The oratorio, a form to which high-profile contemporary composers have been returning in increasing numbers, is a bit hard to pin down. It’s an ostensibly sacred model imposed on an increasingly secular world. But “the religious oratorio model also offers a frame for one of classical music’s clear functions… At a time of national tragedy, for instance, music snaps clearly into focus.”
The Bizzare Cultural Mish-Mash Of Cannes
“So this is the Cannes International Film Festival: an elegant pregnant lady in low-cut evening gown strolling through a Riviera Coney Island as French hicks gnaw on their baguettes, begging for freebie tickets for the latest in Hungarian cinema. The high-low thing? Somehow it just works.”
Vänskä Turns Bridge Collapse Into Music
Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä isn’t known for a second career as a composer, the way his fellow Finn Esa-Pekka Salonen is. But Vänskä has been dabbling in composition for a few years now, and his latest work, which gets its premiere this weekend, was inspired directly by the tragic collapse of the interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis last summer.
African Art Museum Losing Director
“Citing the recent change in the top leadership at the Smithsonian Institution, Sharon F. Patton announced yesterday that she is leaving as director of the National Museum of African Art at year’s end. Patton, 64, an art historian who taught at Oberlin College and the University of Michigan, came to the museum in 2003.”
NJ State Museum Finally Reopens
“The New Jersey State Museum’s main building reopens here on Saturday after four years of renovation, but appeals for celebration are premature. Closed since 2004 for work that expanded in scope, ran two years late and cost $15 million — with at least $12 million more still being sought from private donations — the museum’s main building seems to embody anticipation more than realization.”