A major find of 19 watercolors is about to be broken up and sold at auction. “The watercolors — illustrations created in 1805 by the poet and artist William Blake for a 1743 poem — are being heralded by scholars as the most important Blake discovery in a century,” and experts are upset at the prospect of the sale.
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Will The New Met Finally Crush The New Puritanism?
Mark Swed says that the Metropolitan Opera’s embrace of change under new director Peter Gelb comes just in time to counteract the creeping conservatism sweeping much of the rest of America’s classical music scene. “The inclinations of big money normally are not adventurous, and the companies reflect that. But there is also a climate of fear of offending an increasingly puritanical public. Although political and moral issues are an essential part of much great opera, these are touchy, politically divided times, and few arts administrators seem willing to take chances.”
Showing Opera To 8-Year-Olds Now A Firable Offense
A Colorado teacher is on the verge of being fired because she showed her class of elementary schoolchildren a few minutes of the opera, Faust. “Some parents said their children were traumatized by the appearance of a leering devil in the video as well as such objectionable elements as a man appearing to be killed by a sword in silhouette and an allusion to suicide.” The teacher has been on paid leave since late January, and says she intends to sue the school district if she is dismissed.
Warning: Talking To This Author Can Be Hazardous To Your Reputation
When author John Berendt laid the city of Savannah, Georgia bare in his bestselling book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, many of the town’s residents were aghast at what they saw as an invasion of civic privacy and a betrayal of their good will. Now, months after Berendt’s latest tome (an examination of the burning of Venice’s La Fenice opera house,) the complaints are starting up all over again – this time, in Italian.
Embrace The Chaos
If the global argument over the Danish cartoons that so offended Muslims tells us anything, it is that we can no longer afford to be quite so surprised by the global reach of information, and further, that censoring the flow of content is not a solution to the worldwide culture clash. “The truth is, the internet cannot be both globally acceptable and a force for democracy… Spraying the world with a fire hose of information may not be the answer, but it’s closer to the right result than filtering the internet down to a trickle.”
Another DaVinci Dustup
A prominent Catholic group portrayed in The DaVinci Code as a power-hungry collection of conspirators is urging that Sony Pictures remove passages of the book that are “insulting to Catholics” from its upcoming film version. Opus Dei, which is based in Rome, stopped short of calling for a boycott of the film, saying instead that “changes to the film would be appreciated by Catholics.”
Are We Going About Arts Funding All Wrong?
A new report from a San Francisco arts task force is suggesting that the city completely rethink the way it funds culture within its borders, and find ways of linking the arts to everyday life through neighborhood connections. “There’s also a clear undercurrent in the report: The city’s most vibrant, community-based arts organizations don’t get their fair share of the money, which goes to big, flashy operations like the symphony and opera. The entire plan has the feeling of a manifesto for more democratic oversight of arts money and more grassroots participation in the funding process. That, of course, flies in the face not only of city policy but also of arts-funding policy in general.”
Not Just Another Orchestra Crisis
There’s a different kind of orchestra crisis going on in Northern Ireland, where the Ulster Youth Orchestra was revealed last week to be in nearly complete disarray. The UK Arts Council stepped in when it was discovered that “bills had not been paid, the phone was disconnected and staff were no longer employed in [the UYO’s] office.” Now, a former vice-chancellor of a major British university has been placed in charge of overhauling the organization, and implementing an emergency plan agreed to by the orchestra and the council.
The Presidential Soprano?
Two years ago the Lithuanian government was trying to impeach the country’s president. “Soprano Violeta Urmana was asked to stand as a presidential candidate i”I said, ‘Are you kidding? I don’t belong to a party, either social democrat or liberal.’ ‘Oh, that’s better,’ they said. ‘But what about my singing?’ ‘You can sing, probably one or two times a year.’ My husband couldn’t sleep at night – he thought I shouldn’t do it – but just for one day, I was thinking, ‘Oh, for Lithuania, maybe I should.'”
What Are The Arts Worth To A City?
Salt Lake City is at a crossroads as it prepares to make a decision on whether the city should fund a new downtown cultural district, which would involve building two new theatres in the hope of drawing more people (and their money) into the urban core. A consultant’s report confirmed what some supporters of the plan believe, that a cultural district could generate between $12 and $22 million annually in ticket sales alone. However, the same report states flatly that far from being a money-maker, the district would be unlikely ever to turn a profit, and would probably require constant subsidy to stay afloat.