“A French thief already convicted in Switzerland for stealing dozens of valuable artworks has gone on trial in Strasbourg, eastern France. Stephane Breitwieser, 33, has admitted stealing 239 artworks – including priceless masterpieces – in seven European countries in 1995-2001. He claims a love of art motivated him. He was given a four-year jail sentence in Switzerland in February 2003. He was extradited last year to face charges for 20 works stolen in France.”
Blog
Levy Wins Whitbread Fiction Prize; Book of the Year On Deck
Novelist Andrea Levy has won the 2004 Whitbread award for Novel of the Year for her latest work, Small Island. The award makes Levy the immediate frontrunner for the overall Whitbread Prize, which comes with a £25,000 award. The overall winner will be announced January 25.
So What Was All That Whining About?
Despite all the music industry’s moaning about the coming apocalypse of illegal downloading, CD sales in the U.S. rose by 2.3% in 2004, and continue to dominate the music-buying marketplace, accounting for 98% of all music sales. UK sales were up 3%, and set an all-time record for albums sold. Legal downloading from sites such as Apple’s iTunes, meanwhile, also skyrocketed in 2004, ending the year with an average of 6.7 million tracks downloaded each week, up from 300,000 per week in 2003.
Takacs Quartet Steals SF Violist
The Takacs Quartet has named a replacement for departing violist Roger Tapping, and the San Francisco Symphony can’t have been terribly happy to hear about it. The SFS’s beloved principal violist, Geraldine Walther, was tapped by the Takacs, and will leave the Bay Area later this year. Walther is widely considered to be one of the top orchestral and solo violists in the U.S., and will be joining a quartet which has had a great run of success in recent years.
More Pay Cuts Loom in Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is seeking a pay cut from its pit musicians for the third time in three years, in a desperate effort to balance a budget which has been swimming in red ink in recent years. The situation was exacerbated by disappointing ticket sales for the company’s 2004 Nutcracker performances, after which PBT asked the musicians to reopen their contract, which officially expires in summer 2005.
How The Rockettes Stole Christmas
This was the first year in Boston for the touring Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and now that the holiday dust has cleared, local arts groups are reporting that everyone’s fears about the touring Rockettes were entirely justified. “Business was down at the Boston Pops, Handel and Haydn Society, Revels, and Boston Ballet… The Boston Symphony Orchestra, the corporate entity that oversees the Pops, canceled three Holiday Pops concerts because of slow ticket sales,” and the ballet, which was booted from its traditional home to make way for Radio City, reported disappointing ticket sales for its revamped and Nutcracker. Meanwhile, the Rockettes sold 200,000 in less than a month.
Playing To The Crowd
Chicago’s Lyric Opera is tightening its belt a bit this season, and is going to extraordinary lengths to keep its subscribers and donors happy. Part of that effort can be seen in the company’s choice of programs for next season: plenty of old warhorses, not a single American opera in the bunch, and a new staging of “Rigoletto” to replace the last new staging of “Rigoletto” Lyric mounted in 2000, which prompted dozens of furious letters from subscribers due to its, um, “frank sexuality.”
SLSO Concerts Canceled
With no end to the musician work stoppage in sight, the St. Louis Symphony has canceled this weekend’s concerts with music director-designate David Robertson. Meanwhile, the musicians have issued a call to other orchestras for financial assistance, and spent yesterday walking a picket line in front of Powell Symphony Hall.
Anatomy of a Work Stoppage
At the heart of the dispute between the St. Louis Symphony’s managers and musicians are the dueling issues of fiscal sanity and competent oversight. The SLSO flirted with bankruptcy in 2000, a financial crisis brought on by years of dipping into its endowment and mismanaging the money on hand. In the years since that low point, the organization has raised $130 million, bolstered its endowment, and paid off a lot of debt. The musicians, who accepted major salary cuts to allow the SLSO to get back on its feet, now believe that they’ve earned the right to get back some of what they lost. The management insists that it isn’t yet financially stable enough to take that step.
Finding Wright Buyer A Chore
Great to own a Frank Lloyd Wright house, eh? But “some owners of one-of-a-kind houses conceived by the iconic architect are discovering it’s not easy selling them in an era when cathedral ceilings and easy commutes are on the wish lists of many prospective purchasers. But the sellers are also concerned about finding the right Wright buyers – ones who will cherish, not demolish, his creations.”