The San Francisco Symphony is off to Europe on tour. Robert Commanday wonders why? “A decade or two ago, the received rationale was that such tours were necessary for the promotion of record sales. Whatever truth there was in that — and no convincing evidence was ever offered — that reason certainly doesn’t hold today in today’s marginalized record market. It was also argued that the orchestra as collective instrument benefitted from the repeated performances. Again, that might have been true 20 or 30 years ago, but the current level of today’s orchestral ensemble is not going to be significantly heightened by touring.”
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Detroit’s Remember-We’re-Here Tour
Instead of traveling abroad, the Detroit Symphony is spending $900,000 to tour the state of Michigan. “While international touring is about building prestige and flexing the orchestra’s artistic muscles, the 2-week swing through Michigan has another agenda: reminding audiences statewide that they, too, have a stake in the DSO.”
“Handmaid’s Tale” American Premiere In Minnesota
Minnesota Opera is staging the American premiere of Poul Ruders’ “A Handmaid’s Tale (based on the Margaret Atwood book). Company officials have already cast “The Handmaid’s Tale” as a “financial bath. They couldn’t attract a corporate sponsor, and while the opera comes from a popular book, it’s not from a beloved one. ‘Maybe it was just a backlash of the times, with the war and all, but make no mistake, we created something extremely volatile and controversial. You have illicit sex, perversion, betrayal, hope and love and such heartbreaking loss. But if audiences are going to be trapped for three hours, you have to grab and entertain them, and this does that quite well’.”
Brooklyn Museum Closing This Summer To Save Money
The Brooklyn Museum is closing for two weeks this summer to save money. “Closing the Brooklyn Museum from Aug. 4 through Aug. 19 will save $250,000, said Robert S. Rubin, chairman of the museum. The nearly 300 union and nonunion employees will rotate shifts for the two weeks so that everyone will be on furlough for at least a week, he said.”
Will Movie Goers Buy Online?
Buying movie tickets online has been slow to take off. “While online sales tripled over the last few years, they comprised just 2 percent to 4 percent of roughly $9 billion in movie-theater ticket revenue last year, or about $300 million. That will probably rise to $400 million this year. Buying [movie] tickets in advance is not something Americans do. It’s an entrenched consumer behavior to not plan that far in advance when you’re thinking about movies.”
Editor Attacks BBC Arts Coverage
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger blasts the BBC for the state of its arts coverage. He said “the BBC had experienced a ‘terrible failure of nerve’ in its commitment to the arts and he laid the blame on the corporation’s board of governors.”
Why Should Pop Culture Diminish High Art?
Does writing about Britney Spears in the newspaper diminish appreciation of “high” arts? “It is evident that many people working in – and treasuring – the serious arts still feel embattled. It seems to them as if there is a widespread philistinism around: a remorseless drive in favour of the predominant commercially successful mass culture.”
Site Specific In LA
“Here and there around the United States, you may occasionally find the odd modern dance in a derelict hotel, a theater production on a city bus, or a concert on a public park carousel. But in Los Angeles these things happen regularly – if not quite predictably – thanks to a handful of committed practitioners who have built careers around the making of site-specific theater, dance and music.”
Ballet’s Hot New Star
When the Royal Ballet’s Alina Cojocaru stepped into a role at the last minute two years ago, she came back a star. Now she’s the “darling of choreographers, critics and audiences here. She was quickly promoted from the corps to principal dancer, and the Royal Ballet gave her so many major roles that she has hardly had time off.”
Dancing The Road To Recovery
“Six years ago, Marc Brew survived a car accident in South Africa that killed his girlfriend, her brother and a friend. It left him a quadriplegic, although he has since regained the use of his arms, and spelled the end of his dancing career – or so he thought. After extensive rehabilitation in Australia, he began dancing in his wheelchair and formed his own dance company, DanceAbility. He moves elegantly: sitting backwards and forwards, swaying and moving himself out of his chair and onto the floor.”