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Libeskind Pulls Out Of ‘Ring’ Production

Covent Garden thought it had scored a coup when it hired architect Daniel Libeskind to design sets for a new production of Wagner’s Ring. “But a Covent Garden spokesman said yesterday that he and director Keith Warner had been “unable to agree on the imagery”, for the operas whose design always provokes passionate – and sometimes vitriolic – debate among Wagner buffs.” So Libeskind has pulled out of the project.

Tiny Radio Stations Take On FCC

“Across the country, low-power FM radio stations are banding together to denounce a mounting crackdown by the FCC. Supporters claim that FCC Chairman Michael Powell, whose recent efforts to further deregulate the radio industry have met with resistance in the courts and in Congress and have been something of a PR disaster, is retaliating by ‘having his people go out and pick on the little guys’.”

V&A Museum Launches Glossy Mag

The Victoria & Albert Museum launches a new glossy magazine for museum members. “It’s an ambitious and risky project. As a general-interest art magazine, containing a lavish 82 pages of editorial complemented by only 30 pages of up-market advertising, it appears far superior to anything on the commercial market. The dummy issue I saw looked pacey, imaginative and stylish, with plenty of strong words as well as beautiful pictures.”

Children’s Books – Now Big Business

“Children’s literature has become such a powerful, dense mass that its gravity is sucking in everyone in sight. Madonna, whose last published work, Sex, involved explicit photographs, stream of consciousness pornography and rape fantasies, has followed it up with English Roses, a tale of four little girls jealous of their beautiful classmate, Binah. Peter Ackroyd, author of biographies of Sir Thomas More and William Blake, has embarked on explaining the world to ten year-olds in a series of children’s educational books for the publisher Dorling Kindersley, while the latest “blow-in” to the genre is Philip Kerr, the Scots thriller writer and author of A Philosophical Investigation and The Shot.”

NPR Ombud Chides Terry Gross

NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin says that interviewer Terry Gross was unfair to Bill O’Reilly last week. O’Reilly walked out of the interview part way through, objecting to Gross’s questions. “I believe listeners were not well served by this interview. It may have illustrated the ‘cultural wars,’ [but it] only served to confirm the belief, held by some, in NPR’s liberal bias.” By the time the interview was halfway through, it felt as though Gross was indeed ‘carrying Al Franken’s water.’ … It was not about O’Reilly’s ideas or attitudes or even his book. It was about O’Reilly as media phenomenon. That’s a legitimate subject, but in this case it was unfair to O’Reilly.”

Recording Industry On The Trail Of 204 More Music File-Traders

The recording industry has warned 204 more people that they will be prosecuted for file-sharing. “The RIAA’s second round of lawsuits started with a sternly worded letter giving the individuals 10 days to contact the RIAA to discuss a settlement and avoid being formally sued. Under copyright law, the defendants could face damages that range from $750 to $150,000 for each illegal song.”

Godden – The Making Of A Choreographer

After an “unconventional” decade experimenting with stage images, choreographer Mark Godden proved he could tell a story with his ‘Dracula.” After a long association with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, he has “developed into that rarest and most desirable of dancesmiths: one of the fabled few who can create successful, full-length story ballets that put bums in seats.”

Dallas’ Theatre Boom

“More ambitious new theaters have popped up here in the last two years than in any comparable period in memory. Nobody seems to have told their founders that the 21st century is supposed to be hostile to all live theater except frothy Broadway musicals, and even those get little respect…”