It may be bad form to speak ill of the dead, but at least one writer says that filmmaker Elia Kazan deserves no posthumous forgiveness for his famous decision to “name names” in the Congressional witchhunts of the 1950s. Kazan was a great filmmaker, writes Geoff Pevere, but he chose to preserve the safety of his own situation by deliberately ruining the lives and careers of eight other individuals, and for that single, selfish, short-sighted act, he should forever be remembered not as an artist, but as a rat.
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SFMOMA Picks Up Some Expensive Snapshots
“The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has added 100 works by 45 artists to its already sweeping photography collection. The pictures, valued at more than $6 million, come as promised and fractional gifts from museum trustee Carla Emil and her husband, Rich Silverstein, co-founder of the Bay Area advertising firm Goodby, Silverstein and Partners.”
Springer Opera Not Packing ‘Em In
The new opera based on the life and career of talk show host Jerry Springer may be getting critical raves, but West End theatergoers don’t seem to be convinced. “Critics on both continents raved about it. It broke box-office records at the National. New York theater owners offered their best houses for the inevitable Broadway production, and producers, managers and press agents scrambled to get a piece of the action. Then, on July 1, when tickets for a much-ballyhooed transfer to a West End commercial theater went on sale, this white hot show suddenly turned cold.”
An Old-School Orchestra Prez Exits Stage Left
David Hyslop has been in the orchestra management business for 40 years. He has worked for orchestras from Elmira, New York, to Portland, Oregon, and has been the top man at two major American orchestras. This weekend, he steps down after 12 years at the helm of the Minnesota Orchestra, confident that the orchestra industry will weather the ongoing economic storm, but admitting to a few questions about the sustainability of the current economic model. “The key thing — and the challenge — is that the 52-week season, whether it’s here or in any other market our size, wasn’t driven by market demand but by labor.”
Giller Names Its Final Five
Canada’s Giller Prize picks this year’s shortlist. “The jury read 97 submissions before making their selection. They picked Atwood for her futuristic Oryx And Crake (also on the Man Booker list) and Vassanji for The In-Between World Of Vikram Lall set in Kenya after it won independence. Also shortlisted is Ann-Marie MacDonald’s second novel The Way The Crow Flies, about murder and Cold War politics; The Island Walkers, a first novel by John Bemrose about workers organizing a union in an Ontario mill town; and Kilter: 55 Fictions by John Gould, a writer of extremely short stories who is director of the Victoria School Of Writing in Victoria, B.C.”
John Who?
Most of the Giller shortlist was predictable, stuffed with the usual Canadian literary heavyweights. But the inclusion of virtually unknown author John Gould caught many people by surprise, including John Gould. “Gould’s second collection of short stories, was published by Turnstone Press of Manitoba in June, and the only major Canadian paper to review it so far was The Winnipeg Free Press, which said it offered a ‘multitude of pleasures.'”
B&N To Expand Spanish Section
“The market for books in Spanish, already among of the most promising in the publishing industry, is about to get a lot bigger. Barnes & Noble Inc., is adding thousands of new books to its Spanish-language sections… Books in all categories will be added, from self-help to literary fiction. And Barnesandnoble.com has started Libros en Espanol, an online service that includes author interviews, a best-seller list — topped by the Spanish edition of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoirs — and a guide to Barnes & Noble stores that sell works in Spanish.”
More Trouble In San Jose
The musicians of Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley have filed a grievance against their management, which had planned to replace them with a recorded version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring in an upcoming performance. The company insists that the substitution was necessary to keep the organization from spiralling further into debt. “Pending the completion of an audit, the ballet’s deficit for the fiscal year that ended June 30 was just under $1.27 million.”
Composer Kagel Hospitalized
“The German-Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel has been hospitalised in the western German city of Duisburg after a taking ill ahead of a concert he was due to conduct, the Düsseldorf Opera, where he works, said Wednesday.” Kagel is a respected composer of cutting-edge electronic music, and is credited with doing much to bridge the gap between traditional “classical” music and electronica. He also has a sense of humor, having once composed a work for chamber orchestra, titled Finale, in which the conductor is instructed to fake a heart attack and “die” on the stage.
Making The Music The Star
For small, regional orchestras, the challenge of drawing a significant audience to concerts is considerable, and many resort to booking “superstar” performers like Itzhak Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma in order to sell tickets. The trouble with that strategy, of course, is that such soloists command exorbitant fees, which tend to wipe out most of the profit gained from the full hall. But not every orchestra is trapped in the star cycle. “The simple idea of giving the music itself top billing has kept the Las Vegas Philharmonic in the black for its first four seasons, without having to prop up its main-stage offerings with pops concerts or big-name guest artists.”