You won’t see anything like that Superbowl nastiness on this weekend’s Oscars telecast. ” ‘We want the show to reflect not a stuffiness, but a dignity appropriate for film’s highest honour. We want it to be a family affair that can be appreciated by the widest possible audience.’ ABC is charging a record $1.5-million (U.S.) for a 30-second Oscar ad, and has been sold out since September. CBS took in $2.3-million for a half-minute of ad time on the Super Bowl.”
Blog
NY City Ballet Invited Back To Saratoga
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center recently canceled New York City Ballet’s 36-year annual residency. Now Saratoga wants to invite the company back – but not until 2007. Saratoga reportedly “lost about $900,000 each of the last two seasons even with ticket income of about $1.25 million. The SPAC board had considered inviting the ballet back in the future even before voting to cancel its annual residency.”
British Art In Iran
The first exhition of British art to show in Iran in 25 years is opening. The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition includes works by many big names of UK art including Damien Hirst, Henry Moore and Gilbert and George. “They’re very familiar to all this work – but in a second-hand way all from photographs and even from the internet.”
Virtual Egypt Online
A new $2.5 million website puts a “virtual Egypt” online. “By going to the website – http://www.eternalegypt.org – a person sitting at a computer will be able to do such things as visit the Temple of Luxor or watch how the seated statue of Ramses II has changed over historical periods (once it was sheltered at the front of a temple, now it sits naked to the elements).”
So Is That It For The Sitcom?
Yes, yes, we’ve heard it all before – that the sitcom is an endangered species. But with ratings down, no new hits, and a few high-profile franchises ready to wind up, some are beginning to worry about the sitcom as a genre. “Hit sitcoms are so lucrative to studios, which sell reruns to local stations, that they help compensate for the expensive process of developing new shows. Moreover, television has suffered a paucity of smash comedies for several years as viewers drift away for unscripted fare such as “American Idol,” “Survivor” and “The Apprentice.”
Disney Hall Heats Up The Neighbors
Los Angeles’ Disney Hall is a big success, but some of its neighbors aren’t so happy. It seems that at certain times of the day sun reflects off the metal-clad building and into nearby apartments, thereby blinding occupants and heating up their homes by as much as 15 degrees. “You would have to literally close the drapes and you’d still feel warmth in the house. You would have the air conditioning on all the time.”
In RoadTrip: A View Of Music Critics From Inside The Orchestra
Sam Bergman on tour with the Minnesota Orchestra: We’re getting more press on this tour than we ever have. But it reminds us how little relationship we have with critics when we’re not on tour. “The upshot of this dumbing down of the arts press is that most orchestra musicians have little to no contact with their local cultural reporters, and the vast majority could probably not pick the critic who reviews their concerts out of a police lineup. Only maybe half of musicians bother to read the reviews, anyway, since so often, most papers will spare only a few paragraphs for such elitist claptrap, and even a well-constructed column is always in danger of being brutalized for space by some overzealous editor who has to make room for the latest installment of the five-part series on Janet Jackson’s Super Boob.”
The Rehabilitation Of The Bolshoi
The Bolshoi Ballet is one of the world’s great, storied companies. But it has had some rough years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. “The current company is only emerging from years of internal crisis which ended in the firing of Yuri Grigorovitch who dominated everyone and everything for thirty years. It was also around this time that the Bolshoi lost several of its big stars, including Irek Mukhamedov, who joined the Royal Ballet in 1990. The great dancer Vladimir Vasiliev, better remembered for his interpretation of Spartacus than for reshaping the direction of the lacklustre troupe, took on a thankless task, to be replaced three years ago by the celebrated teacher, Boris Akimov.”
A Perfect Order
New York City Ballet’s production of Sleeping Beauty is an example of the structures and hierarchies of classical ballet. “Classical ballet itself, in its training methodology and in the operation of the institutions that make it possible at its highest level of evolution, depends upon hierarchy—upon systematic development and the ordering of greater and lesser into a strong, self-confident whole. Today’s audiences finds the neophytes—the bevy of diminutive Garland Dance girls in their floppy pink skirts—irresistibly cute, and indeed they are. I just wish the same viewers would take a moment to think about what these very young children represent—how poignant their commitment to their goal is in a world that now scorns the restrictions necessary to hierarchal order, how fragile and unpredictable the artistic future of each child is, and how necessary they all are to the continuity of their art form.”
Springer Wins Olivier
Jerry Springer, the Opera has won four Olivier Awards in London. “Based on Jerry Springer’s notorious television talk show, the production has music by Richard Thomas (news) and book and lyrics by Thomas and Stewart Lee.”