After two years, Sotheby’s has caught up with rival Christie’s in art sales. “Annual turnover figures published this month show that in the year ending 31 December 2002, Sotheby’s sold $1.77 billion (£1.11 billion) worth of art, while Christie’s announced sales of $1.9 billion (£1.3 billion). But the Christie’s figure included private treaty sales of $120 million, so for auction sales the two companies are about even.”
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Music And Meaning – These Notes Mean Something
As good a movie as Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” is, it fails in representing the music, writes David Patrick Stearns. “How could anybody emerge from five horrific years of hard labor and starvation in World War II Warsaw with such clean, crisp, emotionally unclouded renditions of Chopin?” The answer? They couldn’t, and the real-life Wladyslaw Szpilman, whose memoir was the basis of the film, was profoundly changed, and with it his performances. “Such performances gain impact because the music’s lack of specificity allows it to be invaded by meaning in unpremeditated ways. Popular music, in contrast, has a verbal element that can serve as a political rallying point, but one that can render the music obsolete.”
How “The Pianist” Lit Up The Oscars
How did a film that only grossed $20 million come away with big Oscar wins? “As usual in Hollywood, marketing and politics played just as big a role in this success story as the evident quality of the film.”
During War – Music As Retreat Or Reaction
How are musicians dealing with the war? “After the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, Leonard Bernstein declared, `This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than before’.” Many musicians burrow into their music either to respond to or get away from the world.
A Cultural Complex For The WTC Site
Plans are coming together for a “Museum of Freedom” to be built as part of a cultural complex at the site of the World Trade Center. “The museum would be part of a two-building cultural complex as conceived by Daniel Libeskind, whose design for the 16-acre site was chosen earlier this year. The second building would house a performing arts center, which would probably become the home for the New York City Opera. In addition to its repertory, the opera company would stage musical theater at the hall that it may want to take on the road.”
Closing Notice For “Urban Cowboy”…Uh, Forget that – We’re Staying Open…
The musical ‘Urban Cowboy’ opened Thursday to bad reviews. On Frida, producers decided to close the show Saturday. Then changed their minds on Saturday. “For the better part of Broadway’s history, shows regularly closed after one or two performances. In recent times, however, it has been highly unusual for a Broadway musical to close in one weekend, no matter how damning the reviews. Even shows with scathing notices, like this season’s $12 million flop, ‘Dance of the Vampires,’ can eke out a few weeks and have enough cushion money to run television advertisements to fight reviews.”
A Revolution In Stage Design For The 21st Century
New 3-D computer technology is about to revolutionize the live stage. With it, designers can create sets that would be impossible to afford otherwise. “Britain’s most wanted stage designer reckons his use of 3-D computer animation will transform theatre for the 21st century, and his claims cannot be doubted by anyone who saw his set for Tom Stoppard’s epic Russian trilogy The Coast of Utopia at the National Theatre.”
Dishonoring Martha Graham’s Memory
Now that the Martha Grahma litigation has been resolved, the MG company is back dancing. But it’s a pale imposter that does its founder a disservice. “Financial crises and litigation over the ownership of Graham’s name and repertory had left her company dangling, and its comeback proved that her ghost could be a destructive force, invoking past greatness in a way that made present achievement look both paltry and old-fashioned. Much of the dramatic power in her choreography had eroded to an alarming extent, and as a result, the whole future of the Graham legacy appeared questionable.”
Where Are The Arts On TV?
What happened to the arts on TV? “Even in this niche-rich era of digital cable and the baby satellite dish, television doesn’t have a lot of room for plays, dance or serious music, let alone literature or the visual arts. PBS schedules less classical music, jazz, theater and dance than it did a quarter century ago. ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ is the only regularly scheduled program in the whole of network TV that gives the fine arts the time of day. A&E, which was ARTS and then the Arts & Entertainment Network, is keener on E than A these days.” So what’s the reason?
The Broadway Balanchine
Though his contributions are now mostly forgotten, George Balanchine created some vivid pieces for Broadway. “Starting with one of his earliest musicals, Rodgers and Hart’s ‘On Your Toes’ (1936), he attained a level of choreographic sophistication rarely before seen on Broadway, and all the dances were integral to the plot, a concept virtually unheard of at the time.”