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Of African Dictators & Experimental Electronica

Did the world really need an opera about Libyan dictator Muammar Gadafy? Perhaps not, but English National Opera is preparing to stage one anyway. “The opera is a huge gamble for [ENO] – not just because of its incendiary subject matter, but also because of the experimental nature of the music. It’s not often the venerable opera house plays host to an alternative electronica collective like Asian Dub Foundation, who specialise in breakbeat, dub, bangla and ragga. More challengingly, the opera will feature Egyptian and Libyan musicians alongside the ENO orchestra”

Hawthorne: Gehry’s Plans For LA Need Work

Frank Gehry’s plans for a $1.8 billion downtown development in Los Angeles are impressive, yes, but Christopher Hawthorne says that the first draft’s “attitude toward the city is laid bare in these models, and, stripped of architectural flourish, they reveal a project a good deal less public-minded than many of us had hoped… Particularly on its lower levels, the design is clogged with retail space — 250,000 square feet of it in total above a labyrinth of underground parking. As a result, the project is shaping up as something of a commercial cul-de-sac: a place that’s designed, like a casino or a mall, to make getting in easier than getting out or walking through.”

If You Build It, They Still May Not Come

The challenge of creating a dynamic and thriving downtown center in Los Angeles is not limited to the pursuit of high-profile architecture and pedestrian-friendly plazas. “The developers must lure back the kind of high-end retailers who began abandoning downtown Los Angeles 50 years ago… Throughout downtown, developers are finding it is a lot easier to lure well-heeled condo buyers to the urban core than businesses. In what some see as an ominous sign, some of the historic bank buildings converted into lofts have filled their upper floors with new residents but have failed to find retail tenants for the street-level spaces.”

NY Phil Wants A Summer Venue

“The New York Philharmonic is stepping up efforts to create an outdoor concert venue for summer concerts… Public relations consultant Howard Rubenstein is working on behalf of the orchestra to enlist New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s support for a new venue within the city limits… The Philharmonic currently plays summer concerts in Central Park and other parks around the metropolitan area, but the city has no permanent outdoor music venue along the lines of suburban Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, Cleveland’s Blossom Festival, or Los Angeles’s Hollywood Bowl.”

Knussen Wins $100K Prize

Oliver Knussen has been awarded Northwestern University’s biennial $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition. “Knussen was praised by the anonymous, three-member selection committee for his ‘uniquely focused, vibrantly varied music and his total embrace—as a profoundly influential composer, conductor, and educator—of today’s musical culture.’ One of Knussen’s works will be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the 2007-08 season; he will also visit Chicago for a residency at Northwestern’s School of Music.”

Scottish Opera’s Year Of Reckoning

Scottish Opera is performing again after its forced 1-year hiatus (imposed when the Scottish government refused to fund the company until an accumulated debt was paid off,) but the company has clearly been decimated. “The spiral of decline into which Scottish Opera has fallen in recent years has reached the make-or-break stage. Funding may have been guaranteed till mid-2008, but the next 12 months will decide whether the company continues as a main-stage entity or shrivels into a touring outfit. Scotland’s political class would tolerate the latter, and even encourage it.”

Rachel Corrie Gets A Reading In Toronto

“The script of My Name is Rachel Corrie, a controversial play about the 23-year-old American activist who died in Gaza during a political demonstration in 2003, received a private reading without incident at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus Sunday night… While the play ran successfully in London for many months, a proposed production at the New York Theatre Workshop was cancelled shortly before its opening, because of fears that it would exacerbate ‘an edgy situation’ within the Jewish community. This cancellation sparked a worldwide controversy, with heated voices being raised on both sides. In light of that reaction, the Toronto organizers decided to make Sunday night’s reading by invitation only.”

The Man Who Might Save Canadian Film

The new head of Telefilm Canada is taking on more than a simple CEO’s job. On his shoulders rest the hopes and dreams of Canada’s entire filmmaking community, and if that seems hyperbolic, you probably aren’t acquainted with the struggles of filmmakers north of the border. “As Telefilm’s newly minted go-to guy for approving and funding English-language features, [Michael Jenkinson] replaces an antiquated (and generally loathed) national decision committee which had been responsible for spreading around roughly $80-million a year.”