The financially-strapped Adelaise Festival has thrown itself on the mercy of the state government asking “for debts of about $1.2 million to be forgiven, and seeking additional cash, which it would match with corporate investment or other festival sponsorship. The total budget is likely to be close to $5 million, short of the $8 million spent by Peter Sellars last year. Without it, [the festival says] it will be impossible to provide the level of programming needed to shore up the festival’s reputation – tarnished by community dismay at Sellars’s determinedly radical event.”
Blog
Can Miami Afford Its New $265 million Performing Arts Complex?
Miami is building a new $265-million Performing Arts Center with a 2,200-seat symphony hall, a 2,480-seat ballet opera house and a 200-seat studio theater. Plans to fill the hall are grandly ambitious, envisioning a flowering of arts and culture that will benefit the region for years to come. “But can we afford it? With the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the PAC’s crucial five resident companies, already threatening bankruptcy, a disturbing question is raised: Even after the center’s construction is paid for, can South Florida come up with the money to run it?”
Does Globalism Equal American Dominance?
“Fears that globalization is imposing a deadening cultural uniformity are as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Mickey Mouse. Europeans and Latin Americans, left-wingers and right, rich and poor — all of them dread that local cultures and national identities are dissolving into a crass all-American consumerism. That cultural imperialism is said to impose American values as well as products, promote the commercial at the expense of the authentic, and substitute shallow gratification for deeper satisfaction. If critics of globalization were less obsessed with ‘Coca-colonization,’ they might notice a rich feast of cultural mixing that belies fears about Americanized uniformity.”
Is LA The New Oz?
“Where once emigre artists coming to America headed for New York, now they seem to be landing in Los Angeles. “You can’t prove it through government stats (the bureaucracies don’t track artist émigrés), but the city’s curators, gallery owners and the artists themselves are convinced that a new wave of foreign-born ‘beginner’ types is showing up in L.A. for art’s sake. New York has remained the marketing center for visual arts, but L.A. has taken over as the production center.”
Dallas Opera Chooses New General Director
The Dallas Opera has chosen Karen Stone – an English native now Intendant (general director) of the combined opera and theater operations of Graz, Austria – as its new general director.
Canadian Author Jailed For Publishing
“An author who posted details of one of Canada’s most notorious murder-rape cases on a Web site has been arrested for violating a court-ordered publication ban.”
Smithsonian Beefs Up Security
“For decades, the Smithsonian Institution museums had quick and easy access for visitors. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, security concerns increased for all of Washington’s attractions. The National Air and Space Museum served as the Smithsonian’s test site for visitor inspections, adopting hand searches of pocketbooks and backpacks and, eventually, installing metal detectors and X-ray machines. The addition of walk-through metal detectors at the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History was completed in the past two weeks. The two museums do not have X-ray machines, but may add them at some point. Bags are searched only if the metal detectors indicate a problem.”
Where Operas Come To Be Born
New York City Opera’s annual opera workshop is the place new operas come to to be seen – a kind of coming-out party. “Portions of 10 new American operas be presented, including one by Lou Harrison, who died in February. This year’s other composers range from the young and unknown (Patrick Soluri, 28) to the decorated (the Pulitzer Prize winner Bernard Rands). All events are free and open to the public, offering a rare opportunity to catch a glimpse of the country’s operatic future. From a performer’s perspective there is nothing else quite like it in the country. Opera scouts and industry insiders have been present in past years, and there are stories of works being picked up at the Vox and slated for full production.”
Cost Of MoMA Construction Going Up
“The cost of the Museum of Modern Art’s new complex is going up. “Since the museum broke ground in May 2001 the expansion has grown significantly in both scope and expense. To date there have been $31 million worth of changes to the original plans, along with unbudgeted expenses totaling $21 million. That brings the total cost to $858 million from the original figure of $806 million. And with 18 months to go before the Modern is to open its doors once again on West 53rd Street in Manhattan, museum officials still need to raise more than $200 million to pay for the project.”
Violent Lyrics Linked To Violent Behavior
A new study conducted by researchers in Iowa and Texas, finds “a link between listening to violent song lyrics and feelings of aggression and hostility, bolstering arguments that such content can lead to violent behavior – a finding that belies the notion that violent music provides a cathartic release for anger and negative feelings.”