Out of prison and writing. “The disgraced Conservative politician has chosen Australia to launch his first novel since his release from prison in 2003, and he declared his comeback at a literary lunch in a plush hotel overlooking Sydney harbour in front of 410 avid fans.”
Blog
Hamlet’s Role In The Revolution
In Romania in the early 80s censorship in the theatre had stiffened and all plays had to be approved by the Councillor of Culture and Social Education. However, the suggestion of a play by Shakespeare went unchallenged: like Beethoven and Tolstoy, Shakespeare was a Universal Artist – to dispute this would be to expose the apparatchiks, always keen to defend their amour-propre, to charges of stupidity.They were enraptured. Line after line was greeted with the applause of recognition: this was their story. Hamlet’s oppression by Claudius mirrored theirs by Ceausescu, and if Hamlet vacillated, accused himself of cowardice, cursed himself for his inaction, it only reflected their own frailty and submissiveness. Allegory and metaphor are part of any theatre syntax but at that time in Romania they were its essential core.”
Why Naxos Rules The World
“Klaus Heymann runs a lean global empire that in some countries has gobbled up half the retail market for classical CDs in numbers of discs sold. The catalogue for his Naxos label now lists about 3,000 recordings, many of unusual repertoire, all still available at prices well below those charged by classical labels at EMI, Sony/BMG and Universal. Naxos also seems to have outrun its rivals on the Internet. Last month, Naxos’s entire recorded output of 75,000 tracks went on sale on eMusic, a U.S. subscription service that claims to shift 2.4 million downloads per month.”
English National Opera’s Doldrums
“Those looking for proof of Robert Conquest’s maxim that any major institution always seems to be run by secret agents employed by its enemies need only examine ENO’s recent history. What next for the house? Well, come back after your interval G and T for more in this unmistakable vein of grand guignol. All this is very well and good, but it’s obviously impacting on the artistic achievements of the house. For a long time now, it’s been incredibly patchy.”
Uncovering Britain’s Art
Only one in every five paintings in public art collections is on display. One man is assembling catalogues in an attempt to bring the art to light. “The catalogues are both wonderful social histories and crammed full of small-scale artistic discoveries. You find yourself building little stories up about both painters and subjects; armchair travelling around places you might normally only drive through. It is like flicking through Pevsner’s counties without the small print; as English as the shipping forecast or Marmite.”
Peru Makes Claim On Yale Artifacts
Peru is threatening to sue Yale University, demanding return of artifacts from Machu Picchu. “Peru has notified [Yale’s president] Richard Levin that a lawsuit is prepared if its rights to the archaeological pieces are not recognised,” the Peruvian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Reinvented Baryshnikov
“It would be difficult to find a better exemplar of career reinvention than Mikhail Baryshnikov. Of course, he started with a few little advantages, like being one of the most idolized ballet dancers of all time, like being seductively handsome, like having multiple talents and the fame to capitalize on them. He has starred on film and on Broadway and on television. He has choreographed and been artistic director of American Ballet Theater, and founded and starred in his own White Oak Dance Project. But most of his efforts so far have been extensions of his dance career, rather than a transition from it. Now he is overseeing something else, the much-bruited, still almost stealthy Baryshnikov Arts Center.”
Sundance – Swamped By Movies
The Sundance Festival has chosen 64 movies for this season’s event. “The festival has become so famous it is practically synonymous with independent film. In a rare discussion of the festival’s inner workings, the programmers said they were suffering not only from the sheer volume of images cascading into their heads, but the pressure of discriminating among them. Five people combed through 1,004 American and 936 international features (up from last year’s 761 and 843, respectively) and 760 American and 448 international documentaries (up from 624 and 385). Then there were the shorts: 4,311 of them (3,887 last year).”
Fiction Sales Plummet?
“International demand for English-language literary fiction has gone seriously south. Although hard numbers for the fall season won’t be available until January, the anecdotal evidence is not encouraging. Agents and retailers are complaining that sales for new fiction are soft, that orders for reprints and back-listed books are down, and that publishing houses from Berlin to Boston are becoming choosier about what novels they buy, when they are willing to buy them, and what they are willing to pay.”
Hugo Boss Finalists
The Guggenheim Foundation announces six finalists for this year’s Hugo Boss Prize. “This year’s finalists are an international sampling of today’s trendiest artists. The group is heavily tipped toward performance art; none of the finalists are painters.”