The crisis at La Scala has escalated out of control, and Italy is fascinated. “The crisis has gripped Italy the way steroids in baseball have the United States and stunned many with its speedy onset, coming just three months after the giddy celebration of a three-year renovation of the 18th-century house. The crisis stemmed from the dismissal last month of the general manager, Carlo Fontana, whose relations with Mr. Muti were rocky.”
Blog
Picasso The Writer – Now In English
Picasso was a prolific writer, and once joked he would be remembered as a “Spanish poet who dabbled in painting, drawing, and sculpture.” Now his writing has been published in English. “Picasso’s literary output has been little more than a footnote to public awareness of his artistic contribution, but ‘it’s the work of an accomplished poet. It was not trivial work. It’s part of the history of experimental poetry in the 20th century’.”
Looking For A Better TV News Model
Audiences for America’s evening newscasts has been declining for some time. It’s not difficult to see why. Maybe it’s time to try something different. “Nightly network news no longer needs to emphasize the day’s breaking news. The Internet and audience that has fled there graze on mainstream media, blogs, and other information nuggets throughout the day.” For a better model? How about CBS Sunday Morning – a thinking person’s news program…
Barnes And Noble Reports Bad Quarter
Though sales were up in its stores, Barnes & Noble has reported a decline in profits for the last quarter of 2004. “For the three months ended Jan. 29, the retailer earned $115.6 million, or $1.56 per share, compared with $130.2 million, or $1.65 per share in the year-ago period. The New York-based company also warned that profits for the first quarter and for all of 2005 will be lower than analysts expected.”
Mein Kampf Climbs Bestseller List In Turkey
Hitler’s infamous book has unexpectedly been selling up a storm in Turkey. “The book was first published here in 1939, when Axis and Allied countries were competing for Turkey’s soul as they tried to woo it away from the neutrality it would maintain until the very end of World War II. But since January, the book has sold more than 50,000 copies and is number four on the best-seller list drawn up by the DetR bookstore chain.”
Sotheby’s Profitable Again
“The group was aided by the sale in May of Picasso’s 1905 work Garcon a la Pipe for $104m, making it the most expensive artwork auctioned. The company posted profits of $88m for 2004 on sales of $497m. That compares with a loss of $21m for the previous period.”
Critic Attack Scottish Opera’s Return-From-The-Dead Choice
Scottish Opera is to resume producing at the Edinburgh Festival with a production of John Adams’ “The Death of Klinghoffer” But already, critics are attacking the company for its choice: “It is breaking into its “year of darkness” with an opera of such disputed taste that it will only confirm to critics that it is either out of control or in the grip of an incomprehensible death wish.”
Singapore – A Guggenheim In A Casino?
A major US casino has produced plans to build a new casino In Singapore that would include a branch of the Guggenheim. “Sources say that the planned development would cost more than US$2 billion, making it one of the most expensive casino projects in the region.” The project would be built by Las Vegas Sands, which “owns the Venetian hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip. And the Venetian hosts the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, a venue for the presentation of exhibitions based on the collections of the Guggenheim and Hermitage museums.”
Creative Strategies – UK Arts Funding Cuts Little Guy
The UK Arts Council strategy of taking care of major arts groups while cutting smaller ones “made the best of a bad job. But they have cut the people who can’t shout. They have cut community arts and young artists who might turn out to be tomorrow’s major artists. And it is really tragic to have cut back on Creative Partnerships, which is targeted at the most deprived young people.”
BBC To Cut 1,500
The BBC will cut 1,500 jobs, on top of cuts already announced. “Details of the latest cuts were leaked to the BBC’s Labour Affairs Correspondent Stephen Cape, by a senior well-placed source. The source said that every BBC department would be affected by the job losses, including news, sport, children’s programmes and new media.”