Justin Davidson is duly impressed with the L.A. Philharmonic’s new Gehry-designed digs: “It is a building made of visual metaphors: It blooms among the architectural crabgrass of downtown L.A… The hall is a come-on to the city on the part of a high-art establishment that feels miniaturized by the pop-culture machine. Like a maestro going to the supermarket, Disney Hall balances glamour with populism. It is a complex space, yet a straightforwardly spectacular one, too. It flaunts its impeccable sheen, yet invites visitors to touch. People have done so, and unless the maintenance crew proves overzealous, one of the more unexpected features will be the shadow of hands on steel.”
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Crime & Punishment & Bungling & Retribution
Canadian author Stephen Williams claims that he is being persecuted by Ontario authorities for the act of having written a couple of books about infamous Canadian serial killers and the botched police investigation which allowed them to go uncaptured for so long, and which will allow one of them to shortly be released from prison. The authorities insist that the 97 charges which they have laid against Williams are legit, in reaction to his accidental posting of two banned victims’ names on his web site. Lynn Coady says that it’s about time that the public got outraged on the author’s behalf.
Updike On Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes is back, three years after a crippling car accident in Australia. “The dreadful accident in Western Australia has not extinguished Hughes’s old habits of incidental invective and capsule tirade. I have seen his prose characterized as of the Muscle Beach school, which, transposed to the higher cultural tone of Sydney’s Bondi Beach, seems fair enough. He has done the workouts to get himself into shape, and, if he turned a few handstands and kicked sand at a few ninety-pound weaklings, his pleasure in his own strength and suppleness of mind and pen was infectious.” And thus a new book on Goya…
Butting Heads In Birmingham
Peter Thomas, the concertmaster of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has resigned from his position, and will leave the highly-regarded orchestra in March 2004, reportedly as a result of ongoing artistic conflicts with CBSO music director Sakari Oramo. “Regular CBSO concertgoers will have noticed the two men have not appeared on stage together for months… Ironically, Mr Thomas flew to Europe in 1997 with former chief executive Edward Smith to persuade an initially hesitant Mr Oramo to replace Sir Simon Rattle in Birmingham.”
Stunning Appointment: Järvi to New Jersey
In what is being widely viewed as a major coup for a second-tier American orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has announced that Neeme Järvi will be its next music director, officially beginning in 2005. Järvi will take over immediately as the orchestra’s principal conductor, ending a 2-1/2 year search to replace the departed Zdenek Macal in Newark. Järvi has been the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for 14 years, and has been credited with transforming the DSO into one of the top ensembles in the U.S. The announcement is seen as a badly needed shot in the arm for the NJSO, which has been running severe deficits and which recently lost its well-regarded executive director to Pittsburgh.
Is Vienna Stalking Cleveland’s MD?
Seiji Ozawa is under contract as music director of the Vienna State Opera through 2007, so it isn’t surprising that VSO officials are being coy about rumors that they are actively pursuing Franz Welser-Möst to replace him. Welser-Möst, the young music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, was first mentioned as an object of Viennese desire more than a year ago, but the talk of his wooing has revved up since he stepped in for an ailing Christian Thielemann last month, and led a well-received production of Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde. Complicating the rumors is the fact that Welser-Möst’s contract in Cleveland was recently extended through 2012.
Disposable DVDs Ready For The Landfill?
Call it ecological consciousness, consumer disinterest, or lousy marketing: whatever the reason, the “disposable DVD” phenomenon is withering on the vine. The discs, which can be rented and viewed like a normal DVD for two days before they become unusable, are billed as an item of convenience for the movie renting public. But apparently, even American couch potatoes aren’t quite that lazy, because almost no one is renting the self-destructing discs.
Excepting The Oscars Isn’t Enough
“Britain’s top film awards could be heading for catastrophe next year if Hollywood does not resolve a row over voting, says organiser Bafta. No preview DVDs of new films can be sent to voters of any awards except the Oscars, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has ruled. They say there is too much chance that the advance copies could be pirated. But others say it will harm the award chances of small independent films, and Bafta wants the ban overturned.”
No Money Problem Here!
The UK’s National Theatre is disputing a report in the Sunday Telegraph which claimed that directors at the National were being asked to stage plays for one-tenth the normal budget, and that the cuts were directly attributable to the cut-rate ticket prices which the theater instituted last summer, and plans to continue for the next three years. According to the theater, the low-priced tickets are being completely underwritten by a £1 million grant, which has had no effect on the creative budget. The National does acknowledge a distinct change to its recent design aesthetic, one that is “more minimal, creating a space where metaphor flies.” Coincidentally, the minimalist stages are also cheaper.
Art Saved From The Damned Yanks (So?)
An exhibition of “saved” art in London is a tedious self-congratulatory affair, writes Jonathan Jones. “Quite what art needs to be saved from is not made clear but, as this exhibition documents a century of the National Art Collections Fund, whose mission is to purchase for British galleries “treasures” that would otherwise be sold abroad, I think we all know that the villain of the piece smokes a big cigar, wears a Stetson and waves a bunch of dollars about. Thank God, we are supposed to say, that Titian’s Venus Anadyomene never ended up in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Te argument is plain enough.”