The Takacs Quartet, considered one of the world’s best chamber ensembles, has launched its first season without longtime violist Roger Tapping, who left the group this past summer. So how is the Takacs sound faring with new violist Geraldine Walther, late of the San Francisco Symphony? Very well, thank you. “With less than a month’s worth of performances under her belt, Walther — with her warm, honeyed tone, her clarity and confidence — is already a fit with the group, which sounded remarkably, delicately in balance… There was an incredible airiness to Sunday’s performance, with its refined, tremulous atmospherics: It evoked sunlight passing through fog. You could ‘see’ each refracted ray.”
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Can A Fresh Face Save ENB From Itself?
“All dance companies go through ups and downs, but English National Ballet seems to have spent more time at the bottom of the seesaw than fate or fortune should decree… So if you saw the job of artistic director advertised would you want it? Well, apparently many people did. This is, after all, a big company with an outstanding history, 64 dancers, a full orchestra, £5.5 million in Arts Council funding and the potential to bring quality ballet to audiences around Britain. Enter Wayne Eagling, former Royal Ballet star and the man handed the job of putting English National Ballet back on track.”
Berlusconi Cuts To Devastate Italian Culture
Italy’s right-wing government has announced plans to slash arts funding by a whopping €260 million ($312.8 million) per year. The cuts, which are being loudly opposed by Italy’s cultural leaders, would fall hardest on the Venice Film Festival, and would also have serious consequences for La Scala and the Venice Biennale, among others. “Workers’ organisations and actors’ unions in the Italian film industry have called for a strike, to be held on Friday, and they are urging theatres to follow suit.”
Wallace & Gromit Warehouse Goes Up In Smoke
A warehouse fire at Britain’s acclaimed Aardman Studios (the people behind “Wallace & Gromit”) has resulted in the loss of a significant collection of original drawings, sets, and archives relating to some of the UK’s most beloved animated characters. “The firm stored most of its past works in the warehouse and the biggest loss was the original Wallace and Gromit storyboards by creator Nick Park.”
But Do They Get Residuals?
San Francisco’s homeless population has been enjoying a bit of a windfall lately, along with a bit of Hollywood fame and fortune, courtesy of the crew shooting Will Smith’s latest movie. The filmmakers have employed some 200 homeless as paid extras in the film, offering them the official L.A. rate in exchange for an easy afternoon’s work.
Microchips Are A Bigger Tourist Draw Than Cesar Chavez?
Tourist attractions targeted at ethnic minorities have become an important factor in the cultural health of many urban centers, especially in those with large immigrant populations. But in San Jose, the center of Silicon Valley, “there is nothing to alert… visitors that they’re in the childhood home of Cesar Chavez, the epicenter of a worldwide protest by black Olympic athletes, or a place with one of the nation’s highest concentrations of Vietnamese-Americans.” Instead, all efforts seem to be focused on drawing attention to the area’s famously tech-heavy economy.
Hopefully The Art Will Be Better Than The Cars
“The French government wants to turn a disused Renault car factory on an island in the River Seine west of Paris into a major European centre for artists, featuring workshops, homes and galleries, the prime minister said yesterday… The site was to have hosted a prestigious museum to house the collection of one of France’s richest men, Francois Pinault, until he pulled out in May, blaming red tape.”
Making Amends In Sydney
The Sydney Opera House is widely considered to be one of the more stunning feats of architecture ever conceived, but more than three decades after its completion, its creator has yet to see the inside in person. “It’s almost 40 years since [architect Jorn] Utzon turned his back on the Opera House, vowing never to set foot in Australia again. In 1966 he was eased off the project, and he was conspicuously absent from the building’s gala opening in 1973… [But] for the past decade, Utzon has been involved (by phone and fax) in a six-part, A$70m venue improvement programme for the Opera House.” The compromises forced on the project by the Australian government in the 1960s have been reversed, and for the first time, the Opera House will soon be exactly as Utzon first intended.
Rubens To Head Home?
“The most stupendous overmantel in Europe, a sensuous masterpiece by Rubens showing the sleeping Samson sprawled across the lap of his beautiful but treacherous Delilah, may soon be displayed in the room for which it was originally painted. The 17th century painting now lives in London at the National Gallery, which is gathering up loans of Rubens paintings for a major exhibition opening at the end of this month. However, the gallery is considering loaning it back next year to the Rockox House Museum in Antwerp, home of Rubens’s friend Nicolaas Rockox.”
A Heartbreaking Salary For Staggering Jobs
Dave Eggers has been a polarizing figure from the moment his first book hit the bestseller lists, using his fame as a vehicle to disseminate periodic manifestos on myriad controversial topics, some literary, some not. Now, Eggers is taking up the cause of the shamefully underpaid American schoolteacher. His new ‘oral history book’ on the subject “makes a compelling case for investment in education to be put in the pockets of the teachers. Pay them, it argues, and their wealth shall trickle down into the community, the economy and the future. It is hard to disagree.”