Rio de Janeiro officials are hoping that a splashy new Guggenheim museum there will help the city. “Local officials are hailing the proposed museum project as part of a grand new vision of Rio, the South American capital of sun and samba that in the future also could be considered an art lover’s tourist destination. But even as the project inches closer to final approval, the new Guggenheim branch’s critics are growing in numbers, threatening to derail the city’s plans. They say the museum should be subordinated to more pressing social needs such as roads, schools and health care…”
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J Paul Getty II, 70
Billionaire John Paul Getty II has died. “He donated millions to various galleries and institutes but rarely sought publicity for the money he gave away. Among the beneficiaries was the National Gallery in London, which received £50m in 1985 to support its bid to buy national treasures.”
Unifying Through The King James
The King James Bible, first published in 1611, isn’t just a book, of course. But it isn’t just a bible, either, reports a new book on the making of the King James. It “was composed in an English that had never been spoken in the street. This was the language of deliberate godliness, yet grounded in easy words and simple things: able to swoop in one verse from the sublimity of the eternal to the clumsiness of a fisherman jumping from a boat. There was a political purpose in this. James I, baptised a Catholic but brought up by Scottish Presbyterians, dreamed of bridging in this Bible his kingdom’s religious divides.”
Musicologist’s Death – The Schumann Theory?
Did Boston University musicology professor John Daverio try to end his life in the same way as one of his great heroes, Robert Schumann? Daverio’s body surfaced in the Charles Monday night after he had been missing since March 16. Daverio wrote the 1997 biography ‘Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age’, which of course mentions the brilliant, disturbed composer’s attempt to commit suicide at age 44 by throwing himself into the Rhine…”
Updike And The Gardner
John Updike has written a poem about the 1990 theft of paintings from Boston’s Gardner Museum. Updike felt a personal connection to the theft, he said: “It happened on my birthday night, so that I felt slightly at fault in this matter.” (He has not been charged.) “It’s remained in me. My wife and I do go to the museums now and then. I have always especially loved Vermeer. And so all this especially made it meaningful to me.”
Music Education, Interactive Style
The Philharmonic of New Jersey’s “Discovery Concert Series of interactive music-appreciation events is attempting to extricate classical performances from the miasma of modern life, where it plays second fiddle to everything from linguine to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since it began last year, the concert series has proven to be a huge success, selling out months in advance. Concerts take place in Newark at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and are aired on local and, increasingly, national PBS stations. The concerts are interactive in the style of a college class in music theory and have covered pieces by Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and Claude Debussy.”
The Passions Of JP Getty
“At heart, JP Getty II was a scholar manque. His greatest passion was his collection of rare books, which included a number of priceless medieval manuscripts; and only recently he paid Oriel College, Oxford, £3.5 million for a First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays. He absorbed himself not only in the texts and their provenance, but also in the practical art of fine book-binding. He was a cinema buff and an authority on the work of Howard Hawks and Charlie Chaplin; his video library was vast. He also had a wide knowledge of music. At the other end of the scale, Getty was an inveterate watcher of television soap operas, with a particular affection for the Australian series Neighbours.”
Brazilian Passion Play Divides A Community
Fifty years ago a passion play was first staged in a remote Brazilian village. “Now titled ‘The Passion of Christ in New Jerusalem,’ it has become the best-known religious entertainment in Brazil, the largest Roman Catholic country. The play, being performed nightly through Saturday, has grown into a lavish million-dollar spectacle that annually draws as many as 70,000 people to what is described as the biggest open-air theater in the world. It is so successful that it has even inspired a rival, dissident pageant.” But last year the founder died, and attempts to modernize and show-biz it up are ignited big controversy.
What Happened To The Serious Arts On PBS?
“While film and video makers still have a presence on PBS, albeit usually in the late night slot, contemporary performing arts appear to have been replaced by baby boomer-oriented MOR rock, a recent renewal of interest in early doo-wop, R&B and soul, light classical fare (including all the multitudinous variations on the Three Tenors), a very curious and unexpected surge in pop music directed at a rather older viewing demographic like some kind of updated version of the Lawrence Welk (e.g. Roger Whittaker), and all manner of new age-y, glitzy, and otherwise flimsy, mainstreamed versions of world music and dance. Enough of Yanni, Fleetwood Mac, Riverdance, Sarah Brightman, and Andrew Lloyd Webber! Give me some new music and contemporary performing arts of substance and meaning!”
Ancient Athens Theatre Had Terrible Views
Scientists have sonstructed computer models of Athens’ Odeon Theatre, built 2,500 years ago in the time of Pericles. “They have reconstructed the world’s first indoor theatre in three-dimensional virtual reality, only to find that 40% of the audience would have had an obstructed view. They say it would have been worse ‘than being stuck behind a 6ft 10in bodybuilder at a modern cinema multiplex’. Athens in the 5th century BC was the home of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and other playwrights of the golden age. The Odeon was next door to the open-air theatre of Dionysus, near the Acropolis.”