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Met Broadcasts With Commercials?

For all those years that Texaco sponsored weekly broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, the broadcasts were run free of interrupting commercials. But the Met can no longer afford to compensate commercial stations for the commercial time. “With the reduction of fees to commercial stations, the cost of the broadcasts will be $5.6 million instead of the usual $7 million. To help the stations make up the lost subsidies, the Met will create 7 to 10 places for advertisements during intermissions , depending on the length of the opera.”

In Art: 100 Naked Women And Some Scuffling To Get Close

An Vanessa Beecroft art happening at a museum in Berlin featuring 100 naked women caused a commotion at its opening. “Scuffles broke out late last Friday as people tried to jump over the barriers to get closer to the women, aged between 18 and 65, wearing see-through stockings and greased with baby oil, who arranged themselves according to the instructions of US artist Vanessa Beecroft.”

Denver Hall Needs $40 Million Fix

An acoustical fix for Denver’s Boettcher Hall is going to cost more than $40 million. Last year the director of Denver’s Division of Theatres and Arenas, estimated the project’s price tag at $25 million to $40 million. But he now says he believes that “when the firm completes the second half of its study later this spring, it will recommend gutting Boettcher and essentially building a new, reconfigured concert hall within its existing walls.”

Beecroft And The Case For Nude Women

Vanessa Beecroft’s performance in Berlin with 100 naked women is her biggest show ever. Certainly, there is plenty about Beecroft’s work that is voyeuristic. The most interesting aspect of the new work is “its almost calculating cruelty: this evening’s public performance lasts for three hours. Apart from the odd stretch and yawn, the women are instructed to remain as still and silent as possible. Towards the end they can lie down. Yesterday, at the preview, attended by dozens of journalists and TV crews, several of the “girls” as Beecroft calls them sat down exhausted. Most looked distinctly bored.”

The Problem With Martha Graham

“She is, indisputably, one of the key choreographers in the history of Western dance. However, more often than not, the work of the last third of Graham’s long career was inflated and vague, almost to the point of self-parody, and thus hardly worth conserving in the active repertory. So the viable Graham canon is limited and, though the power of the company rests with the great old works, neither the troupe’s audiences nor its dancers will accept having their experience confined solely to these pieces.”

A Boston Billion-Dollar Arts Boom

Boston is in the midst of spending more than $1 billion on new arts facilities. “The projects are varied, ranging from a contemporary art museum on the waterfront and downtown theaters to a pair of cultural centers slated for open space created by the Big Dig. ‘It’s staggering. Boston has always had a lively cultural scene, but I think we’re seeing the kind of arts renaissance catching up with the tremendous revitalization Boston’s undergone over the last 25 years’.”

Art As A Way Of Understanding The Universe (Literally)

Can art help us understand natural physical phenomena? A competition at the Massachusetts Institute of technology suggests it can. “The Weird Fields contest, part of the undergraduate course ‘Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism,’ — encourages students to use a special computer program that converts mathematical formulas into visual representations of electromagnetic fields. The resulting swirls, loops, circles and squares, while not necessarily corresponding exactly to those occurring in nature, offer a creative way to understand some of the most abstract concepts in physics.”

Is Scottish Government Intent On Killing Arts Council?

Is a current review of Scottish arts policy currently underway just a front for killing off the Scottish Arts Council? A Government memo would suggest that it might be. “The secret memo confirms the suspicions of cultural policy insiders who believe the Executive has always had an agenda to scrap the arts organisation, which has been widely tipped for abolition in the forthcoming shake-up.”

The Advertising Jingle Is Dead (Long Live The “Audio Logo”)

“Advertisers have become more sophisticated in their choice of music to convey mood and appeal to consumers. Tunes are still being used to sell soap and establish brand identity, but they are far subtler than the voices we used to hear (cue Barry Manilow) singing, ‘You deserve a break today, so get up and get away to McDonaaaaald’s!’ The jingle as we know it – an often inane, repetitive melody that drills itself into your head – has been declared almost dead.”