“The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has revealed outline plans to redesign its theatre complex at Stratford-upon-Avon. Plans include a ‘thrust’ stage for the main Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a 33m (108ft) tower marking a new entrance, a public square and a riverside walkway. Work is due to start in spring 2007 costing £100m, with £85m now raised.”
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Hiroyuki Iwaki, 73
“Japanese conductor Hiroyuki Iwaki, who led the Melbourne Symphony for over three decades, died [Tuesday] at 73… In Europe Iwaki conducted the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra.” A legend in Japan, Iwaki also held a lifetime appointment as chief conductor of Tokyo’s NHK Symphony.
The Philanthropist And The Publisher (One And the Same)
“For about 20 years, Sigrid Rausig has been a quietly formidable philanthropist. Her gifts – nearly £70m so far – have often gone towards human rights projects in the third world, where a small amount can be a significant windfall. But recently she has been branching out. Last spring, she launched Portobello Books, which aims to publish “activist non-fiction” as well as some fiction. Then, in the autumn, she bought Granta – both the magazine and publishing house. While Granta’s significance may have waned in recent years it remains a literary kingmaker. This makes Rausing, its new owner, a major player in British cultural life.”
Bernstein On The Bay?
Classical music aficionados have long bemoaned the lack of a modern version of Leonard Bernstein, a musical ambassador capable of producing top-quality concerts that are also attractive to mass audiences. But the truth is, San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas has been laying claim to the Bernstein legacy for years. His latest brainchild – a 5-year, $23 million multimedia project designed to bring symphonic music back into the forefront of the public mind – is already rolling, and MTT is taking a very hands-on role to ensure its success.
Your iPod In Verse
“Listening to poetry on your iPod may not be everyone’s idea of entertainment, but a new website called iPoems (which has nothing to do with iTunes or its owner, Apple) is setting out to persuade audiences that downloadable poems read by their authors are the next big thing – and worth 50p per poem.”
Milwaukee Fund Flush With Cash
Milwaukee’s United Performing Arts Fund, which raises money for 17 area arts groups, set an in-house record with its annual campaign, collecting $10.26 million for the year. “More than 6,000 people donated to UPAF for the first time during the campaign, which ran from March 2 to Tuesday, and one in four existing donors increased his or her support.”
Red Ink In Houston
Houston Grand Opera is expected to report a $2.5 million deficit at summer’s end. The red ink is a result of slumping ticket sales and donations, and comes despite cuts the company has made in education and outreach programs in recent years. A major capital campaign is planned for next year to help the opera stabilize its finances.
Please Hold Your Opinions
The Canadian Opera Company is thrilled with their new home at Toronto’s just-opening Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, but the company is also trying to temper expectations of the acoustic before audiences get their first listen later this week. “After decades of pushing out enough sound to fill the unresponsive Hummingbird Centre, he said, the musicians of the COC’s resident orchestra are going to need time to discover how much is enough in the new building, which hosts its first public concert tonight… When it comes to the acoustics of music theatres, it seems, nothing is easy.”
US Museums Buying, European Museums Falling Behind
US museums are buying at this year’s ArtBasel. But “even the largest, state-funded European museums are expressing fears that they are being left behind in the current boom. Most do not enjoy such a rich tradition of philanthropy or such generous tax breaks as US museums, while across Europe governments are squeezing cultural budgets.”
Comparing Toronto’s Opera House To the World
How does Toronto’s new opera house stack up against the world’s great opera houses? Architect Jack Diamond’s new Toronto theatre has “an almost dour grey-brick exterior, which belies the warmth of the hall’s interior, an effect created by ambient lights, a cozy horseshoe-shaped auditorium — small for an opera hall — and rich wood paneling. To make the opera-going experience less elitist than European halls built by and for aristocrats, Diamond has opened the main lobbies to the passing eye, with nothing but glass between show-goers and outsiders gaping from the street.”