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Why “Phantom” Holds The Record

What is it about “Phantom” that made it the longest-running show on Broadway? Emma Brockes: “I think it’s about the importance of not judging people by appearances, although the moral is undermined a bit when the phantom goes on a killing spree after being dumped. Still, the tunes are catchy and it thrills audiences without making them uncomfortable. This is the secret of its success.”

50 Years Of New Theatre

“This year, the Royal Court Theatre celebrates 50 years as Britain’s leading national company dedicated to new work by innovative writers. Its most important achievement has been to put on new plays by new writers about vital contemporary issues – and to make them matter to people who don’t normally go to the theatre.”

PBS Prez Quits To Run Museum

PBS president Pat Mitchell is leaving the network to head up the Museum of Television & Radio. “Mitchell has been PBS president since March 2000. She was the first woman as well as the first producer and journalist to hold the position. Before that, she spent eight years as executive in charge of original productions for Ted Turner’s cable networks, where her documentaries and specials received 37 Emmy Awards and five Peabody Awards.”

Who Will Save British Arts?

Where is the private donor who will step up and save an institution such as the English National Opera? Norman Lebrecht says that person doesn’t exist: “The crises in British arts are not coincidental nor, as is often alleged, a consequence of underfunding. As predictable as daisies on a lawn, they are seeded in a formula that dates back to 1945 when Maynard Keynes secured public cash for the arts in exchange for a supervisory mechanism administered by the great and the good.”

A Hard Look – Can We Really Afford A Concert Hall?

The city of Elgin, Illinois has hired consultants to take a hard look at whether the city actually needs and can support a new concert hall. “What it boils down to is this: What does a concert hall really mean to the city and at what cost, and can the money be raised? A task force of Elgin officials has explored the possibility of building a performing-arts center with a potential price tag of $60 million.”

Library Reunites Mozart Manuscript

The British Library has reconnected a Mozart manuscript that was torn apart by the composer’s widow. “The single sheet of music was produced by Mozart when he was 17. One one side of the manuscript are two piano cadenzas and on the other a minuet for string quartet. But in 1835, 44 years after her husband’s death, Constanze carefully cut up the manuscript so that the two cadenzas ended up on separate sheets – bar one note that she lopped off the upper piece by mistake.”

2005’s Top Concert Draws

Who did we buy tickets to hear last year? “Top honors go for the second time to the Rolling Stones, who posted a combined gross of almost $168 million, the vast majority of which came at the concert box office. U2 wasn’t far behind with $150 million, and then Kenny Chesney at $109 million, the only other acts to top $100 million.”

The Wind-Tunnel Tuba Concerto

“James Crowder was a Boeing engineer whose primary work concerned flow visualization — making it possible to see the movement of air over solid surfaces — that required the use of the 1939 wind tunnel. For this, he achieved international recognition. He was also a tuba player and interested, not surprisingly, in the air flow inside the instrument. After his death in 2002, his widow, Sandra, an ardent connoisseur of music, wanted a vehicle to commemorate her husband.” So she commissioned Samuel Jones…