Keith Bernstein set out to write an opera about torture at Guantánamo, but he had no idea the images he imagined for his plot would hit so close to home. “The whole scenario of the opera has flooded the world since it was written to a degree that we could not have predicted. Or perhaps we all knew subconsciously that Abu Ghraib was inevitable, and it just took a librettist of sufficient prescience to imagine it.”
Blog
UK Libraries Get A Bandaid
The British government allocates £2 million more for public libraries. But critics aren’t happy. “The money will do nothing to restore the value of book budgets or improve drab buildings, two factors often seen as being central to libraries’ falling popularity over the past 20 years. One report forecasts they will cease to exist in a further 20 if trends continue.”
Summer Pop Concert Circuit Suffering From Soft Sales
Lollapalooza isn’t the only summer pop music tour that has had difficulty generating ticket sales. Other big-name tours are selling poorly. “The summer concert business is going to be lackluster. A lot of high-profile tours are doing poorly.”
“Action-Musical” Pulls In An Ethnic Audience
A Toronto production of the “Terracotta Warriors”, a $3.5-million “action-musical,” is packing the theatre with ethnic Chinese patrons. “The production is “part of a new push by theatre producers to target niche ethnic markets in cities (Toronto, London, New York) where culturally diverse populations abound but theatrical representations of them remain scarce. Ethnic marketing is not a new concept itself but its application to theatre is. To put it bluntly: Blacks are a desired and untapped demographic. So are the Chinese and the South Asians.”
US Military Base Damages Babylon
The US military has set up a military base right in the middle of the ancient site of Babylon – an extensive archaeological site. Originally sent to protect the site, the base has done “permanent” damage to a valuable piece of cultural heritage.
Clinton Book Sets Non-Fiction Sales Record
“Clinton’s My Life sold more than 400,000 copies in the United States in its first day of release, the most ever for a nonfiction book and double the believed previous record holder, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Living History.”
Holocaust Victims Group Sues Germany
A group is suing Germany for $18 billion, claiming that the country is “making money by keeping artworks stolen from Holocaust victims. The legal action, by the Association of Holocaust Victims for Restitution of Artworks and Masterpieces (AHVRAM), is a first step against several countries.”
Which Shakespeare Is Shakespeare?
The De Vere Society is marking the 400th anniversary of the death of Elizabethan nobleman Edward de Vere. Who was de Vere? The group claims he was the “real” Shakespeare, and claims all sorts of evidence. But other Shakespeare experts dismiss the claims: “They have quite a large following. Like every organisation of this kind, they ignore the basic evidence and construct conspiracy theories.”
Hall: West End Requires US Actors?
Director Peter Hall says that plays are now so difficult to produce in London’s West End, that producers are afraid to mount new plays without a big-name US star to goose the box office. He said “plays, rather than musicals, were proving increasingly uneconomic for West End theatres. But he denied the theatres were in terminal decline, saying early summer was traditionally a difficult time.”
US Congress Proposes Expansion Of Copyright Liability
“Top US Senate leaders from both parties have launched an assault on online music and video file-sharing services, introducing legislation that makes anyone who ‘induces’ illegal copying just as liable for breaking copyright law as someone who makes the copies.” This significantly expands copyright liability beyond the actual copyright violators.