“When Broadway hands out the 59th annual Tony Awards tonight at Radio City Music Hall, one contingent will be conspicuously absent: the British. Well, OK, that’s not entirely true.” There are British actors nominated in several categories, but all are considered long shots to win. In fact, Broadway has taken a distinctly American turn this year, and Brits are finding themselves shut out of the top roles for the first time in decades.
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Politics Before Progress
London has finally embarked on a redesign of its beleagured South Bank Arts Centre. But no sooner had progress started to be made than an ugly battle between the Centre’s chief executive and the local government overseers spilled over into the press. Now, it seems as if everyone in the city is choosing up sides, and the controversy is badly overshadowing what should be a collaborative project.
Rembrandt Soup For The Gullible Soul
These days, it seems as if self-help books can turn anything on Earth into an inspirational get-up-and-go speech. “And now the popularization of artists and museums has yielded something else to feel ambivalent about: the first art-focused self-help book, ‘How Rembrandt Reveals Your Beautiful, Imperfect Self: Life Lessons From the Master.’ [Roger] Housden’s book is largely focused on Rembrandt’s renowned self-portraits, in which he charted the changes in his visage from cocky youthful promise to destitute old age. The gist is that despite Rembrandt’s all-too-human flaws, he at least had the courage to repeatedly face himself in the mirror – and we can learn from this example.” Hey! You in the back! Quit rolling your eyes! Housden is actually (we think) serious.
Bringing Back Horowitz, Digitally
“Old recordings of great performers are often marred by scratches and surface noise, or by sound badly filtered through primitive microphones. [But a new technology] is offering the same music with the immediacy of live performance and the acoustical advantages of a contemporary piano.” The innovator is Dr. John Q. Walker, and he breathed new life into the Disklavier, which has so far mainly been used to allow live performances to be simultaneously reproduced far away on an automated piano. Walker’s latest project is the digitization of recordings by old masters of the instrument, which can then be newly “performed” by the specially equipped pianos.
Marilyn’s $78,000 Rose
A painting by Marilyn Monroe has sold at auction for $78,000. “The 1962 painting of a red rose was initially inscribed to President Kennedy, but she never gave it to him.” The winning bidder runs a Rhode Island gallery.
What Is A Carnegie Hall Concert?
“Many casual ticket buyers assume, logically enough, that all classical concerts at Carnegie Hall are in fact Carnegie Hall classical concerts. Not so simple. In fact, two completely different species of events take place inside the same building, even though, as in nature, one species sometimes mimics the other to gain advantage in a competitive cultural ecosystem.”
The L.A. You Don’t Know
Mention ‘culture’ and ‘Los Angeles’ in the same sentence, and you’ll likely hear a few snickers. After all, this is Hollywood’s town, a city of car-crazy transplants with no real interest in the high arts, right? Wrong, says Donald Rosenberg. The myth of a cultureless L.A. probably wasn’t ever true, and it certainly isn’t true now. America’s second-largest city is buzzing with culture, and is fast becoming one of the country’s centers of artistic innovation.
Choosing Music Over Tact
Striking orchestras put conductors in a difficult position – the guy on the podium has a lot more in common with the musicians than the managers, but as the face of the organization, he can’t really afford to take sides. Traditionally, conductors stay out of labor disputes altogether, lest they burn bridges on either side. So when the striking musicians in Montreal placed a call to conductor William Henry Curry and asked him to lead them in a free concert to build community support for their cause, Curry had to think long and hard. But he accepted, even though he knew full well that his participation would likely cost him any chance of an official guest conducting invitation in the future.
It’s Nice That You Like Us, But Honestly, We Don’t Care That Much
Minneapolis/St. Paul is America’s 15th-largest metropolitan area, with virtually none of the national buzz and star-driven glitz that hews to cities like Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. So how is it that the Twin Cities theatre scene has been racking up so many national awards and accolades in recent years? Part of the answer can be found in Minnesota’s nearly unmatched public and private support for the arts, but there’s more to it than that. In fact, much of the Twin Cities’ theatrical success may lie in the local scene’s almost total lack of interest in sucking up to New York.
Vilar’s Tragic Fall
“Maybe he will ultimately be cleared of all charges, but for now [Alberto] Vilar appears to be perp-walking straight into that grand and storied American pantheon of Alleged Super Rich Frauds. The back story is always the same — the start-with-nothing origins, the struggle to conspicuous wealth, the strenuous social-climbing and then the spectacular run of damning headlines as creditors and feds close in… Vilar’s unique twist on this stock character is a love for classical music and opera that veered toward the obsessive, and a thirst for public recognition that only opera houses around the world could slake…. If prosecutors are correct, he was Robin Hood for the ‘La Boheme’ set, stealing from the rich to give to the Met.”