Finding someone with the skills to replace Beverly Sills as chair of the Metropolitan Opera will be a challenge, but a surmountable one. Finding someone to replace her as “the public face of opera and the performing arts” for a country increasingly saturated by pop culture and uninterested in more intellectual pursuits may well be impossible.
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Independent At All Costs
When Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center opens its striking new addition to the public next month, it will likely be a big deal in the Twin Cities. But anyone looking for the locally popular Walker to capitalize on the attention by hosting huge touring shows shows and trying to draw massive crowds would be missing the point. “Welcome to the contrarian world of the Walker, a place that prefers artful provocation to blockbuster entertainment, privileges the obscure and experimental over the tried-and-true, and cultivates a willful insouciance about the forces that govern most big museum establishment… [The museum’s] insistence on creative independence has meant turning down a chance at tens of millions of dollars in state support, despite a financial crisis that has crippled the Walker’s endowment and led to painful staff cuts.”
That State Money Sure Would Have Helped, Though
Speaking of the Walker Art Center, its renovation is considerably over budget, even with $5 million in unforeseen costs deferred to future years…
Buren & Guggenheim, Together At Last
More than 30 years ago, New York’s Guggenheim Museum acquiesced to the complaints of a number of artists involved in the museum’s sixth International exhibition, and removed a massive piece of installation art, which was supposedly blocking views of other works, from its center well. “An acrimonious debate about the work’s removal continued long after the event had passed, leaving lasting antipathies between artists and leading to the departure of a curator, Douglas Crimp.” This week, Daniel Buren, the artist responsible for the offending work, returns to the Guggenheim with his own show, and the centerpiece is a massive tower of mirrors that dwarf the piece the museum once felt compelled to reject.
Imax Operators Defer To Religious Zealots
“Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention [evolution] – or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth – fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures. The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say – perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of a few can have a big impact on a film’s bottom line – or a producer’s decision to make a documentary in the first place. People who follow trends at commercial and institutional Imax theaters say that in recent years, religious controversy has adversely affected the distribution of a number of films.”
New Contract in Utah, But Controversy Remains
The musicians and management of the beleagured Utah Symphony & Opera have reached tentative agreement on a new contract, after spending the better part of the season in “play-and-talk” mode. The new contract is unlikely, however, to quiet the controversy surrounding the organization’s business model, which has been under fire since the results of an independent study questioning the wisdom of merging Salt Lake City’s symphony and opera company were made public a few weeks ago.
Axelrod Awaits Sentencing, Could Get Three Years
New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod, who pled guilty to tax evasion and has been accused of defrauding the New Jersey Symphony in the $17 million sale of a collection of supposedly rare string instruments, will be sentenced for his crimes on Monday, and faces a possible 3-year prison sentence. The 77-year-old Axelrod fled the U.S. shortly after being indicted, and was eventually captured in Germany.
Um, What Kind Of Penalties, Exactly?
One of Scotland’s leading political parties is “calling for the effective abolition of the Scottish Arts Council and the creation of a Scottish Academy instead… They argue that companies such as Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, should be funded directly by the Scottish Executive… The direct funding method, as used for the National Galleries, National Museum and National Library of Scotland, would be contract-based. The bodies would agree on a programme, modes of delivery, and would incur ‘penalties for not delivering’.”
When The Money Doesn’t Match The Talent
From an artistic standpoint, most observers agree that Scottish Ballet has never been in better shape, and a return to the international festival circuit is in the offing. But fiscally, the company is in the same sinking boat as nearly every other Scottish performing arts organization, and ballet administrators are getting frustrated with the Scottish Executive’s seeming unwillingess to make the arts a priority.
Did Muti Dig His Own Grave In Milan?
Riccardo Muti is more than a larger-than-life character in the world of Italian opera. He is also a shrewd politician, and while he may have gotten himself into a world of trouble with his latest attempts to consolidate power around himself at La Scala, it would be a mistake to count him out just yet. Still, there is little question that Muti is losing this battle: “Talent or no talent, most people in the house have had enough of a regime where, as one described it, ‘Supplicants gather outside his door like the Marschallin’s levée.'”