The much-maligned Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York, which presents a popular summer slate of shows featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York City Ballet, has balanced its budget for fiscal 2005 several months after a large part of its board and executive team turned over in the wake of a fiscal-mismanagement scandal. Special gifts amounting to $700,000 were arranged by the new team over the past few months to put the center in the black. (For the record, that’s $700,000 more in major gifts than the previous administration managed to raise in the last three years.) However, SPAC isn’t out of the woods yet: the center says it will need to raise an additional $10 million to bring its endowment back up to healthy levels.
Blog
A Home For Poets?
“Canterbury could be home to a vibrant community of poets sharing their thoughts over a cup of coffee or glass of wine before leading a workshop or giving readings of their work to the public. The idea of a permanent building for poets and their work which would have an all-year-round programme of performances and workshops, is based on the French idea of ‘maisons de poésie’: ‘houses of poetry’ that exist throughout France and have spread across the French-speaking world, from Quebec to Morocco. The facilities within each maison vary, but generally encompass a performance space, a publishing or printing house, a library and information resource for poets and researchers and a cafe or bar. Some also boast residential accommodation to put up visiting poets or house a poet-in-residence.”
Is Terfel The Next Pavarotti?
Who’s the next Pavarotti? How about Bryn Terfel? “A baritone to succeed Pavarotti? It is not beyond reason. Terfel has more than sold half a million UK copies of his last classi-pop album. Terfel matches Pavarotti in his sincere lack of taste. Like Pavarotti, Terfel runs a summer festival, an August weekend at his Welsh estate, Faenol, where he guilelessly mingles with the likes of Van Morrison and Alison Moyet…”
da Vinci Code Lawsuit Gets Trial Date
Two writers have sued da Vinci Code author Dan Brown. “A trial will begin on 27 February in London to hear the claim that Brown stole Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh’s idea that Jesus had a child. They are suing Random House, claiming the bestseller lifts from their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.”
Miami PAC Selling Off Name
The over-budget behind-schedule Miami Performing Arts Center is negotiating to sell naming rights to the Center for $20 million. “Representatives are in negotiations with a corporation and two individuals interested in buying naming rights for the downtown facility that’s due to be completed Aug. 4 and open two months later.”
Remembering Ballet’s Color Barrier
Raven Wilkinson, who joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1955, was “not the first black ballet dancer to be given a regular post; that honor belongs to Janet Collins, hired by the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in 1951. Nor is she the most famous of such pioneers. Arthur Mitchell originated important roles in several seminal Balanchine ballets in the 1950s and ’60s, then founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem. But Wilkinson was the first black ballet dancer to tour the nation – not only to towns in the east, west and north but also to St. Louis, Macon and Savannah, Ga., Charleston, S.C., and Hattiesburg, Miss.”
Cultural Treaty – America Against The World
Last week 148 countries voted to approve a UNESCO Treaty on Cultural Diversity. The U.S. and Israel were the only no votes. “One major problem for the United States in the 21st century will surely be our lack of ability to grapple with the proliferation of international instruments and regimes, like the Treaty of Cultural Diversity. These treaties are key tools for those who want to constrain American influence in the world. In UNESCO, the United States was at a huge disadvantage, as was our hard-working Ambassador Louise Oliver, who fought heroically to change the result.”
Record Number Of Movies Compete For Foreign Oscar
A record 58 movies have been entered in contention for the Oscars. Iraq, Costa Rica and Fiji have movies under consideration for the first time.
Acropolis Museum Underway
“The long-awaited and much-delayed Acropolis Museum will be ready by the end of next year, the government said yesterday, while insisting that it would keep up its efforts toward the return of the Elgin Marbles so they can be housed in the new building. Construction of the museum, a few hundred meters from the Acropolis, was meant to have been finished in time for last year’s Athens Olympics.”
Customs Agents Take Opera Ireland Sets In Cocaine Bust
Opera Ireland is hoping its audiences are as high on its production of La Traviata as customs officials in Dover who seized a shipment of cocaine worth £500,000 in one of three trucks delivering sets and costumes for an Opera Ireland production. “Rehearsals were due to begin in Dublin this week on the co-production with Germany’s Theatre Aachen.”