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Castrati – Freakish Phenoms?

“The castrati – or evirati, as they were politely called – are perhaps the most freakish phenomenon in Western musical history. Eunuchs had been a common feature of the courts of the Islamic world long before they appeared in 17th-century Italy, which seems to be the only Western country where castration was widely performed – the operation was illegal, but parents of the victims just mumbled about unfortunate encounters with wild boars, and prosecutions were rare.”

Convention: A Narrowing Of Orchestral Repertoire

“A certain culture has grown around the presentation of orchestral music. Because something in the programme requires the full might of a symphony orchestra, it has tended to dictate the scale of everything else on the programme. Because of the inherent and intrinsic tendency of symphony orchestras to programme concerts featuring pretty exclusively their total playing resources, the repertoire (and audiences) have, over a very long stretch of time, been thus starved of seriously interesting music that requires fewer musicians to perform, and has therefore become sidelined and neglected.”

Subway Series – London And Shanghai

Shanghai and London are exchanging subway poetry. “Under the deal, which took years to thrash out, the London Underground – which has displayed poems for 20 years – is displaying lines from some of China’s great wordsmiths: Li Bai, Du Pu and Po Chu-i. Next month the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, will launch a similar programme in Shanghai with Wordsworth’s Daffodils, Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, Jamie’s The Blue Boat and Bullock’s Butterfly.”

What Are Museums For, Anyway?

“To those of us reared on the fogeyish assumption that a museum’s collection is sacrosanct – that the British Museum will always have its Elgin Marbles and the Pitt Rivers its shrunken tribal heads – the idea of ancient vases being mauled and chipped by mobs of primary schoolchildren or Roman coin hoards being flogged off to fund the acquisition of a more socially relevant collection of graffiti art is indeed a pretty shocking one. But for the new breed of museum professional, this line of thinking is very much the fashionable orthodoxy.”

A Peruvian Monument That Might Not Be What It Seems

“No one disputes that the structure, called the Inca Uyo, is hundreds of years old. Everyone further agrees that the site, in the middle of a grassy enclosure where soccer matches and bullfights were once held, has been a moneymaker for this small town on the Andean high plains, near Lake Titicaca. But what seems all but certain is that the ruin, with 86 of the carved stones inside it, is not the ancient fertility temple that many here like to say it is.”

PEN To Tap Chernow As New Leader

The PEN American Center is expected to name Ron Chernow, the best-selling biographer of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, as its next president. “Chernow will succeed the novelist Salman Rushdie, who has served as the group’s leader for two years. Mr. Rushdie, who is credited with having helped to reshape the PEN American Center’s role in defending freedom of expression and open cultural exchange after Sept. 11, proposed Mr. Chernow as his successor.”

Peter Shaffer At 80

Playwright Peter Shaffer is 80. “Shaffer hasn’t had a play open at the National for 21 years. But during the 1960s and 1970s he was responsible for four of the theatre’s biggest successes: The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Black Comedy, Equus and Amadeus. Hits were his department. It is said that during the dark days of the early ’80s, revenue from his plays kept the National in business.”