This year, an unlikely (and tenuous) alliance arose in Minnesota between the state’s large population of hunters and fisherman, and those who value the state’s longstanding commitment to the arts. The reason for the partnership was to promote a sales tax hike at the state legislature, with proceeds dedicated to the arts and the conservation of the great outdoors. But as the vote count tightens (the legislature is not terribly enamored of new taxes at the moment,) many on the conservationist side are suggesting that the presence of the “arts and culture crowd” is hurting the bill’s chance of passage.
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Ohio Ballet Cancels Season, Lashes Out At Newspaper
The cash-strapped Ohio Ballet has canceled what remained of its 2005-06 season and is asking its subscribers not to ask for refunds for the two sets of performances that will not take place. The company’s artistic director, who has lent the ballet $40,000 this season in an effort to stabilize a dire fiscal situation, is also complaining about what he calls biased coverage in Cleveland’s only daily newspaper.
Domingo Double-Booked?
The Bavarian State Opera has announced its 2006-07 season. Ordinarily, that’s not the kind of item that would make headlines in America, but a few sharp-eyed journalists have noticed that the company has booked Placido Domingo to sing the lead in Parsifal next spring, on the same dates that the Washington National Opera has engaged him to sing the lead in Die Walküre. No one has yet explained how the mistake occurred, or which company will actually have Domingo on its stage when all is said and done.
Are Music Schools Selling A Fantasy?
Occasional pronouncements of doom from the press aside, young musicians appear to be more enthusiastic than ever about pursuing a career in classical music. “An estimated 2,700 music performance majors graduate from American centers of higher learning every year. The usual number of jobs available: 160 or fewer.” That’s great news for the top U.S. orchestras, of course, which are more or less guaranteed a steady flow of high-quality applicants. But with so few jobs available, should music schools be more up front with their students about the odds against them?
As Kids Stream In, Galleries Look To Child-Proofing
“Up until a few years ago, the presence of children in art galleries and performance spaces wouldn’t have been an issue — because there weren’t any. They weren’t prohibited per se, but they were simply seldom seen. The message was that art was for adults. But today’s parents bring their children everywhere, and as more art lovers, collectors and artists themselves have kids, it has become perfectly normal to see little ones at openings.” The influx of kids has gallery officials in a quandary – they’re torn between delight that small fry are being exposed to culture, and abject terror that they’ll break, smear, or deface something.
The Damnably Popular Scourge Of The Jazz World
What is it about “smooth jazz” that so infuriates fans and practitioners of more traditional jazz forms? Is it the easy-listening thing? The lack of challenging harmonies and groundbreaking solos? Or could it be that jazzers resent the idea that someone else has figured out a way to make jazz palatable, even popular, with a wider public that has no use for Joshua Redman or Wynton Marsalis?
Because Dan Brown Really Needed More Money
Not that anyone was biting their nails waiting for this news, but The DaVinci Code is a hit as a paperback, too. Dan Brown’s insanely popular and occasionally controversial novel has sold half a million copies in its first week in paperback, and the initial print run has been increased from 5 million to 6 million.
Groundbreaking Ballet Teacher Dies At 92
Doris W. Jones, who found the doors shut to her when she tried to learn ballet as an aspiring black dancer but who went on to open them for succeeding generations, running ballet schools for black youngsters and training a roster of notable dancers and choreographers, died on March 21 in Washington. She was 92.
Five Klimts Meet Their Rightful Owner
“For most of the last 60 years, Maria Altmann did not know that the celebrated Klimt paintings hanging in the Austrian Gallery in Vienna actually belonged to her. And when she learned that they most likely did, she also knew that recovering them was probably an impossible quest. But in an unexpected turn of events, the endless ripples of World War II history have washed up on the shore of a California museum, where this week the 90-year-old Mrs. Altmann came face to face with the sumptuous gold and sinuous lines of Gustav Klimt’s portrait of her aunt.”
Rockwell Original Discovered (If Only We’d Known It Was Missing)
For years, art experts have noted that the original copy of Norman Rockwell’s painting, “Breaking Home Ties,” appears to be lighter in color than the prints that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1954. The discrepancy has long been blamed on an overly aggressive cleaning of the work. But now, the truth has come out: cartoonist Don Trachte, who owned the painting for years, apparently made a sophisticated copy in the 1970s and hid the original in a secret compartment in his Vermont home, in an effort to avoid losing the Rockwell in a bitter divorce. It wasn’t until last month that Trachte’s sons discovered the genuine article, right where their father had left it.