“[Britain’s] National Gallery will open its new £21m front door on Sunday and hope that the splendour of the black marble staircase and the excellence of the coffee in the new cafe provokes a gush of public generosity. Although more building work starts next month, the gallery still has to raise £3m of the cost.” Having appealed to the government for assistance in purchasing a priceless Raphael miniature last year, the fundraising for the remainder of the gallery’s renovations will need to be done in the private sector, no small task in a nation which does not have America’s tradition of private philanthropy.
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Those Who Can’t Play, Listen
Actor Stephen Fry was never much good with a musical instrument in his youth. “At school, one of my greatest regrets was my inability to produce any two notes, in order, that could be said to resemble a tune. One note? Fine, I could produce one note with the best of them, possibly not a very nice note, admittedly, but nevertheless, a note all the same. It was only when I had to produce two or more notes, in succession, in tune, that I had any problems.” Still, Fry’s inability to play music never inhibited his love of the classical form, and his new book on the subject of listening to the stuff is a true labor of love.
The Swimsuit Issue’s Fiercest Defenders: Librarians
“Librarians consider themselves defenders of the First Amendment. On philosophical grounds, they are loath to restrict access to material.” So Banned Book Week, which begins Saturday, is a platform for some of their most elemental beliefs.
For Cleveland Arts School, A New Era
In the early 1960s, decades before the link between arts education and academic success was established, Cleveland educators turned a settlement house into an arts school. Now the Rainey Institute aims for another transformation, this time to expand its reach.
Ambitious Minds Shape Daring Canadian Opera
“It was just over a decade ago at the Edinburgh Festival that the Canadian Opera Company mounted a radically new production of ‘Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung’ that has since emblemized the next life of the COC. And as the $181-million Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts continues to rise as Canada’s first purpose-built opera house at that prime (Toronto) corner, some part of its foundation can be said to have been laid by the international breakthrough the company achieved overseas.”
Nagano To Leave L.A. Opera
“Kent Nagano has announced that he will step down as Los Angeles Opera music director in June 2006, when his current contract expires, and the same year in which he will assume music directorships of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and of the Montreal Symphony.”
MoMA To Charge $20 Admission
“When the Museum of Modern Art reopens its expanded midtown Manhattan home at 11 W. 53rd St. in November, an adult admission will cost $20, 66 percent more than the previous $12 fee. Industry experts say that’s an unprecedented level for an urban museum and the highest tab in New York City.”
Anti-Semitism In A Prague Choir?
“Charges of anti-Semitism have rocked Prague’s cultural elite following allegations that the head of the philharmonic choir has pursued a vendetta against a tenor with Jewish roots. But it is far from clear whether the nature of the conflict between the choir director, Petr Danek, and the tenor, Michal Forst, is based more on personal animosity than on actual anti-Semitic slurs and behavior.”
A Second Postponement For Bellevue Museum
Still short of funding after being closed for a year, Washington state’s Bellevue Arts Museum won’t be reopening in October after all. “The unveiling of the revamped museum has been pushed back to spring 2005, as museum leaders work to raise an estimated $2.8 million for remodeling and operations.”
The Hollywood Cliche, Opera-Style
On Saturday, when Finnish soprano Karita Mattila was too ill to sing the role of Donna Anna in the Lyric Opera’s “Don Giovanni,” her 28-year-old understudy, Erin Wall, gave a performance opposite Bryn Terfel that has vaulted her into an elite circle of young opera singers.