It’s been an up-and-down year for New York’s Roundabout Theater Company. Tonys were won and critics heaped praise on nearly everything Roundabout put on a stage this season, but the company ran a $2 million deficit that is likely to result in layoffs and wage freezes. Performances were packed for the revival of Nine currently running on Broadway, but such things seemed unimportant after artistic director Todd Haimes, who has been at the helm of the company for two decades, learned he had a rare form of cancer midway through the year.
Blog
BBC (Finally) Reinvigorates Its Architecture Policy
“For years BBC buildings have been like BBC coffee. Both carry the same beigegrey miasma of depression which makes it a miracle that any programme of quality ever emits from the corporation’s portals. The defining monument is the broadcast centre in west London known as White City One, a building with all the charisma of a plastic cup out of a drinks dispenser.” But a turnaround appears to be in the works, with plans to erect several dazzling new buildings in the near future, with the main jewel being “a music centre, also in White City, currently budgeted at £54 million and the subject of an architectural competition.”
BBC Phil Extends Conductor’s Contract
Gianandrea Noseda won’t be leaving the podium of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra anytime soon. The orchestra signed the young Italian to a 3-year extension (through 2008) after only a year on the job, and the announcement met with cheers from the musicians of the Manchester-based ensemble. Noseda succeeded the French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, who many initially feared would be virtually irreplacable.
Putting Business Before Books?
“Peter Olson, the C.E.O. of Random House, has no use for the sentimental yearnings of the book-publishing elite. They whipped him when he crudely fired Ann Godoff, but he’s in a different publishing business than they are, the only one he thinks can survive… In January, when Olson fired Godoff, editor in chief and publisher of the Random House Adult Trade Group division, many in the insular publishing world felt that Olson’s love of books was trumped by his crude business tactics… By firing Godoff, by stating plainly that he was in the book business, Olson was not so much revolutionizing the industry as giving vent to what it has long and carefully repressed. Book publishing has always been a mix of high and low, but the business side of the industry has been de-emphasized.”
Um, So, Thumbs Down, Then?
Britain’s National Portrait Gallery has been getting an architectural overhaul lately, and the results do not appear to have pleased Richard Dorment. “Architects hate art. If you let them loose near a museum or gallery, you have to watch their every move, because they will do their best to leave their own galumphing paw prints all over the place, and in the process stamp on the works of art. For several months now I’ve been hearing angry denunciations of the National Portrait Gallery’s renovation of its once glorious Regency Galleries, but only last week, when I saw them for myself, did I register the full horror of what has happened there.”
Maybe They Were Painted With Wide-Angle Brushes
Those beautiful Impressionist realist landscapes that make you wish you lived in a place where, with once glance, you could look down on farms and streams, mountains and villages, may not be quite as realistic as they appear. The vast majority of such canvases, which are almost always painted as if the viewer (and the painter) are looking down from the heavens at the glorious lands below, actually tend to be impossible views, at least, if the artist is meant to be standing in one place as he paints. A new exhibition in Salford examines the varied reasons for such mild deceptions, which range from God complexes to public relations gimmickry to simple humor.
The Little Label That Could
When Robert von Bahr started recording classical music 30 years ago for his own label, BIS, he hauled his own equipment, begged record stores to carry his products, and generally did all the things that plucky little doomed labels do to try to stave off their inevitable demise. But the doom part never happened, and today, BIS is one of the most respected labels in the world of classical music. It has an astonishing array of high-quality artists and repertoire in its catalog, a commitment to new music and little-known composers, and a reputation as the leading purveyor of the music of Jean Sibelius, thanks in large part to an ongoing partnership with Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, considered to be the leading living interpreter of that composer’s work.
Is The Mercury Prize Passé?
“The Mercury Music Prize is on the way to becoming the wounded beast of music awards ceremonies. Its raison d’etre is to reflect the best in British music, not just that which sells, but perhaps it has not yet recovered from Alan McGee’s lambasting of the 2000 shortlist as a bunch of ‘bedwetters’… But a bigger problem for the Mercury is the public’s dwindling trust in it as a recommendation of what to buy. It seems ages since a Mercury victory could propel a relatively unknown artist to national success, but the panel has only itself to blame for rewarding a series of worthy but unlistenable albums.”
A Billionaire’s Vegas Dream
“Billionaire Steve Wynn seems like one of those characters who could only exist in Las Vegas. Now 60, he has played as great a part in the creation of modern Las Vegas as anyone – and is now poised, with his latest, most spectacular venture, to leave his name permanently on the city’s skyline… A couple of months ago, he spent more than $25m in the space of 24 hours, buying works by Cézanne and Renoir at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York – but in Las Vegas he is casino magnate, philanthropist, city father and enigma all rolled into one.” Wynn’s latest venture is a multi-billion dollar resort hotel, in which he will place his legendary art collection, and open two theaters featuring performances by the likes of Cirque Du Soleil.
Musical Or Opera? Does It Matter?
Terry Teachout is intrigued by a recent New York Times Magazine piece which referred to a new off-Broadway show as a “serious chamber musical.” That sounds an awful lot like a description of an opera, doesn’t it? While the distinction may be purely semantic, it’s important, nonetheless, says Teachout in his ArtsJournal blog, and composers are not well served when they try to pass off their serious work as typical Broadway ear candy.