The San Francisco Opera has named David Gockley, the longtime head of Houston Grand Opera, as its sixth general director. He will succeed Pamela Rosenberg in January, six months earlier than planned.
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Bringing Opera Out Of The House
San Francisco Opera’s new director has some big challenges to solve. But David Gockley is looking outside the box: “In Houston, we’ve done a lot of outdoor performances and performed in smaller suburban theaters. One of the first things I want to do here is take an inventory of all the performance spaces in the Bay Area, both outdoor and indoor. I want to try to come up with a formula that would access those audiences and give them a taste that would make them want to come downtown, because this is where it really happens.”
Orchestra Victoria Finds Success Is Free
Melbourne’s Orchestra Victoria performs in the State Theatre. But its real griowth has been for free concerts outside the theatre. “This year, it expects to increase its audiences at free concerts in regional centres by 10,000, to more than 70,000, a jump of more than 16 per cent. Orchestra Victoria is expanding its pioneering scheme of free concerts supported by charities and philanthropic bodies in regional centres and suburban Melbourne. Now into its fourth year, the community program raised $1.4 million last year from Melbourne-based organisations.
Haas: Maestro Of The Radio
Karl Haas’s syndicated program, “Adventures in Good Music,” for many years attracted the largest audience of any classical music radio program in the world and was carried by hundreds of stations in the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Panama and on Armed Forces Radio. “Karl Haas had the unique knack of being able to convey his love and knowledge of classical music to an audience that, for the most part, wasn’t all that familiar with it. But instead of bringing the music down to them, he brought them up to the music. He was like Leonard Bernstein in that respect.”
Chicago’s Millennium Park – No Photos Allowed
“Chicago spent $270 million on its Millennium Park, placing a big public sculpture by Anish Kapoor in the middle of it… Woe betide any member of the public who tries to photograph this sculpture, though: it’s a copyrighted sculpture and Chicago is spending even more money policing Chicagoans who try to photograph it and make a record of what their tax-dollars bought.”
Moscow Biennale – Art Of Protest
“The buzz of the first Moscow Biennale is not the dozens of critically acclaimed international artists represented, some of whom swooped down for the opening last week. While the organisers said they saw record crowds of 2,000 visitors a day on the first weekend, the Lenin Museum had the calm, slow atmosphere of a library by midweek. Rather the beating heart of the festival is Russia’s protest art, which is experiencing a boisterous resurgence in Moscow.”
Bush Proposes No Arts Funding Cuts
With 154 federal agencies in line for budget cuts in George Bush’s proposed new budget, the arts did pretty well, as Bush held funding steady…
Disposable DVD’s Get New Traction
The EZ-D is a disposable DVD, and while Disney has abandoned it, others are giving it a try. “The EZ-D was marketed to consumers as a way to avoid late fees from movie rental shops. Once opened, the EZ-D can be played unlimited times in 48 hours. Then a chemical compound on the disc combines with oxygen, rendering the DVD opaque and unreadable after two days. Movie fans can throw away the expired disk or pack it off to a special recycling facility to be recycled.”
Seattle Rep’s New Era
Seattle Repertory Theatre’s hiring of David Esbjornson as its new artistic director signals a new era for the company. And that new era will be marked by…
China’s New Dance
Reflecting a society in flux, professional modern dance has spread beyond Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai to attract budding choreographers in universities in other provinces. True to the essence of modern dance anywhere, it is no longer limited to one kind of movement idiom or aesthetic.