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Sydney Festival Cuts Ticket Prices

The Sydney Festival has slashed its average ticket price by 25% and set aside a certain number of tickets to be sold for $25, regardless of the pricing of other tickets for the event. This year’s edition of Australia’s largest summer festival, which begins in early January, will feature Elvis Costello performing with the Sydney Symphony, French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, and a new staging of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. So far, the ticket discount appears to be paying dividends: sales are 60% ahead of last year.

Is It Time To Retire “The Literary Canon”?

Scott McLemee thinks so: The term “canon” rests on an analogy between an established set of cultural masterpieces, on the one hand, and the authoritative body of scriptures, on the other hand. And the problem with this comparison is that, deep down, it is almost impossible to take seriously. “Canon” is not so much a concept as a dead metaphor — or rather, perhaps, a stillborn one.

Ballet Victoria Takes On Canada’s Dance World

“Ballet Victoria made its official debut two years ago February with a new hip-hop inspired rendition of Peter Pan. That inaugural production, which featured the Esquimalt Singers and Dancers as a gang of young pirate recruits, was warmly received by the community and toured around Vancouver Island. It also helped the company raise the money it needed to establish a permanent dance centre, which was opened with much fanfare last summer by honorary patron Karen Kain.”

A Year Hollywood Would Rather Forget

“Almost everywhere you looked, uncertainty reigned. Attendance and box-office receipts were down more than 5%. Disney’s movie studio recorded a quarterly loss of $313 million. DreamWorks threw in the towel on its short-lived dream. Harvey and Bob Weinstein left Miramax. MGM was folded into Sony. Tom Cruise seemed to self-destruct. Julia Roberts took an extended maternity leave.”

Conscience Of the Getty

Ronald L. Olson is charged by the Getty Trust with investigating how the organization does business. “In all likelihood, the essence of our investigation is going to be made public at some point. As I see this assignment that the special committee has, it’s all about enhancing, reaffirming, some would say rebuilding, the integrity of the Getty. And how do you do that? Very often, sunlight is an important part of it.”

The Woman Who Turned Around American Ballet Theatre

Since her appointment in April 2004, Rachel Moore, a former dancer, now 41, has taken firm hold of an unwieldy, creaky organization that is also a great one, constantly beset by financial problems, yet somehow managing to produce the spectacular productions and dancers for which it is famous. Since Ms. Moore took over, Ballet Theater’s endowment has risen from $8 million to $15 million; its City Center season this fall showed box office gains of 30 percent over the previous year; and for the first time in six years, an operating deficit has disappeared and a modest surplus is projected when audit results are released next week.

How Technology Is going To Change Hollywood

Google’s test project to make San Francisco wireless for free promises to change the entertainment industry. “Reportedly, Google has already lined up unused fiber-optic cable that spans the country. Such a free Wi-Fi network would mean that the Hollywood studios would no longer need to rely on cable operators—or even telephone companies—to have a two-way pipeline into homes. They could directly rent any movie to consumers and bill their credit card (like everything else is billed on the Internet) without paying a cut to cable operators or local televisions stations.”