“No first night at La Scala is ever without its dramas, demonstrations and exaggerations, even now, when Italian opera is in historic decline. This year is likely to be no exception, since the first night of the 2005-6 season, a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo, is thought to be the first time an Englishman has had the honour of conducting on this grandest night of the Milanese year.”
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Publishing Industry In A Slump
“A look back at the fall publishing season, when publishers typically release their biggest books hoping to cash in on the holidays, reveals that the publishing industry is still struggling. The Association of American Publishers reported last month that sales of adult hardcover books, sluggish for several years, have fallen by 2 percent so far this year. Similarly, the American Booksellers Association, a trade group representing bookstores, said that overall bookstore sales in the first nine months of 2005 declined 2 percent from a year ago.”
London’s Affirmative Action Plan For Curators
Less than 6% of London curators are from ethnic minorities, compared with 29% of the city’s population. So a new initiative plans on placing five minority trainees at the city’s major museums.
Is Print-On-Demand The Salvation Of University Presses?
“The new digital technology eliminates the need for printing plates, which are so costly to create that many copies of a book need to be produced to justify the expense. Now publishers can go more directly from a computer file to the printed page — a technological process not so different from using a high-quality copy machine. The data can also be stored digitally indefinitely, allowing for quick reprints down the road. The same systems, however, allow anyone to publish, using so-called vanity presses that have sprung up to print books with little or no editorial review, a trend that worries some academic publishers.”
Umberto Eco: The New Gods
“Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century. They insisted that they were describing the universe in rigorously materialistic terms – yet at night they attended seances and tried to summon up the spirits of the dead. Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious – to such an extent that it sometimes seems to me that to be a rigorous unbeliever today, you have to be a philosopher. Or perhaps a priest.”
Book Club To The World
Iranian-born writer and English professor Azar Nafisi dreams of an international book club, enabled by the internet. “Just imagine, she muses, the potential for global enlightenment if millions of people came together as a community of readers to discuss the words and ideas of international authors, both living and dead, who can provoke the shock and recognition that how alike we are is far more than our differences.”
Basel Miami By The Numbers
Art Basel Miami was a hit. This year’s show features a record 195 exhibiting galleries, and drew about 36,000 visitors…
San Francisco Symphony $2 Million In The Red
The San Francisco Symphony posts a $2.25 million for its 2004-05 fiscal year on an operating budget of $56.1 million. The orchestra had projected a $2.4 million shortfall.
Carnegie Hall, City Center Team Up
New York’s Carnegie Hall and City Center are forming a partnership “that will lead to a $150 million fund-raising effort to renovate City Center, and give Carnegie Hall’s increasingly ambitious programmers access to a dance and theater space.”
Sophie’s Choice To Debut In DC
“Washington National Opera will present the North American premiere of Nicholas Maw’s “Sophie’s Choice,” based on the best-selling novel by William Styron, as part of the company’s 2006-07 season.”