As viewed from Canada, America’s new morality crusade is not only pathetic and wrongheaded but maddening. “Religious right. Moral majority. Family values. Pick a catchphrase and behold the stupefying ascent of the shrill and pathetic, the petty and disconnected, the scolding band of castigators hellbent on telling others what they can watch and hear and even think… Who are these snivelling whiners? These self-righteous, holier-than-thou grumblers who have programmed ‘FCC’ into their speed dial?”
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NY City Opera Has New Chief
New York’s City Opera has elevated its development director to the post of executive director. Jane Gullong’s ascension displaces Sherwin Goldman, who will remain with the company and dedicate himself full-time to the daunting task of finding the company a new home. City Opera had hoped to be the anchoring arts tenant of the new Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, but its application was turned down. The company is denying rumors that Goldman was forced out of the top job by the board.
Broadway Stagehands Reach A Deal
“After an all-night negotiating session, Broadway’s stagehands and producers reached an agreement early yesterday on a new three-year contract. The deal is the latest between producers and the theater industry’s three major unions, effectively assuring labor peace on Broadway at least through the spring of 2007.”
You Only Think You Don’t Like Classical Music
Enrique Fernandez is the new classical music critic of the Miami Herald. This is a tricky job, since South Florida lost its symphony orchestra a year ago, its classical radio station this year, and shows very little interest in the form at all. And after all, when serious music is rejected by the community, isn’t that reason enough to just let it die a quiet death? Not a chance, says the critic: “What [we love] best in [our] native traditions is, indeed, classical. Classical in its strict rules, like the rumba of the Afro-Cubans from the province of Matanzas, polyrhythms of a Bachian or Mozartian complexity. Or classical because it was infused with European classicism, like the woodwinds and strings of the danzón — a genre that would lead to the mambo and the cha-cha-chá.”
Blow Out The Candles & Kiss Your Career Goodbye
Age is a cruel mistress in the dance world, and for Martine Lemy, principal ballerina of Canada’s National Ballet, a fortieth birthday spells the end of a career. “Just when she is feeling at her most healthy, both physically and emotionally, she is giving up her principal-dancer contract and leaving the company at the end of this season.” The issue isn’t whether she can still dance – she can – but for how long she can dance. Lemy had already taken herself out of the company’s longest productions due to decreasing stamina, “which makes her a financial liability to a cash-poor company.” She offered to come back for less money, but the company declined the offer.
America’s Biggest Philanthropists
Arts groups may have a tough time prying much money out of the government these days, but 2004 has been a record year for private giving, with enormous single gifts dominating the philanthropic landscape. The biggest donors of the year were Bill & Melinda Gates, who pumped a whopping $3 billion into their own foundation, and while most of the truly outsized gifts went to universities and foundations, arts groups got their share of the largesse as well.
Chicago Troupe Loses Five
“Five veteran performers — nearly one fourth of the troupe — are leaving Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and will not be on hand for Hubbard’s spring engagement. They are among the company’s best and brightest, and they’re leaving for a variety of reasons, some of them moving into other fields… The changes represent the most dramatic shift in troupe personnel since the arrival of Jim Vincent as artistic director in 2000.”
A Shining Ring, But Most Will Never See It
The Adelaide Ring is beginning its second weeklong run of Wagner’s four massive operas, and by all accounts, this is a Ring for the ages, both musically and visually. So how can it be possible that no audiovisual record is being made of its existence? Yes, a complete CD set is planned, but opera (particularly Wagner) is more than just notes, and needs the impact of its staging to be fully appreciated. The sad truth seems to be that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s director of television has no use for opera, and has declined all offers to broadcast or even record it.
Viacom Bows To The FCC Altar
The media giant Viacom, which owns CBS, UPN, and Infinity Radio, among other properties, has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle a raft of “indecency” charges brought by the newly prickly Federal Communications Commission. “The consent decree with the Federal Communications Commission resolves, among other things, complaints about shock jock Howard Stern and the radio team of Greg ‘Opie’ Hughes and Anthony Cumia.” More significant than the fine, which won’t hurt Viacom much at all, are the non-monetary elements of the consent decree, under which Viacom has agreed to install delay equipment in its radio stations, and to immediately suspend any employee the FCC accuses of indecency in the future.
Pirate-Abetting Will Now Cost You $150,000 Per Movie
A Hollywood actor has been fined $300,000 in a court case brought by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences after two “screeners” (preview copies of Oscar-nominated films sent to voters) he was given by the Academy turned up on the Internet. The lawsuit was filed last year by Warner Bros. against actor Carmine Caridi, whose distribution of the tapes initially led to the Academy’s short-lived ban on screeners.