Has director Wim Wenders hit bottom? Last week he was fired by his own production company. And “looking back over the past decade and then some, the director’s exile from his own business operation seems less an aberration and more the latest bad news in what – the ‘Buena Vista’ movie aside – has been a relentless decline as a cinematic force.”
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“Saving” Art In Britain – Is This A New Definition Of Save?
Yet another important painting in Britain is apparently “in danger” of being sold abroad. And another campaign is mounted to raise money to “save” it. “This rhetorical flourish is becoming commonplace in Britain. Our public galleries are so strapped for cash that barely a week goes by without an appeal being launched to ‘save’ some work for the nation, or some top aesthete bending the knee before Lottery paymasters for lolly to keep something beautiful from leaving this country. This rhetoric may be to an extent justified by the parlous state of public funding for the arts, but it does raise suspicions that the principles underlying these claims are sometimes questionable.”
Pasternak’s House In Jeopardy
“One of Russian literature’s most famous houses, where the writer Boris Pasternak lived and composed his best work, including Dr Zhivago, will soon be ‘ruined’ by the construction of an estate of holiday homes opposite it, according to his relatives.”
Has English National Opera Chronically Lost Money?
Management of the English National Opera have claimed that the company has lost millions of pounds over the past decade – “on average, £1m to £2m for nearly 10 years.” The losses have been the company’s justification for wanting layoffs and financial assistance from the government. But “analysis of the accounts show that between 1994 and 2000 the company was in surplus in every year but one, before falling back into the red. Last year, its worst since 1997 when it had to be bailed out with £9.2m from the Arts Council, it lost less than £600,000.”
Keeping Women Off The Stage?
At the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a city which prides itself on being home to several great theater companies, women make up over 50% of the audience. So why does the city’s leading theater troupe present so few plays written or produced by women? Is it misogyny? Tradition? Simple oversight? Other area theaters have expanded their offerings over the years to include more works by women, with much success, so why hasn’t the big dog in town followed suit? “On some level the Guthrie’s record is so gaudily bad as to be almost a mystery.”
The Revolution Will Be Webcast
Last week, one of the Dixie Chicks casually mentioned that she was rather ashamed of President Bush sharing her home state, and a furor erupted that has the Chicks’ music being pulled from radio stations nationwide. With that kind of wild-eyed nationalism infecting the U.S., it’s no wonder that protest songs are hardly in vogue among big stars at the moment. But they do exist – on the web. “From hip hop artists Chuck D and the Beastie Boys to veteran singer/songwriters such as John Mellencamp and Billy Bragg, a general distaste for political fare on commercial radio has lead them to the Web, where songs they’ve written to protest the looming war with Iraq are readily available for free.”
Portrait of a Patron
It’s not that most wealthy supporters of classical music don’t like new and challenging works. It’s just that, well, we all love our Beethoven, don’t we, and so many of these young composers nowadays just insist on writing the most horrid, unlistenable stuff, and who wants to throw their money away on that? Kathryn Gould is an exception to the rule. An amateur musician and devoted lover of new music, she is pumping large amounts of her money into an effort to create a ‘renaissance of new music’ in Northern California. Her efforts will result in multiple high-profile performances of new works by orchestras around the Bay Area, at a time when most organizations are cutting back on commissioning.
Why Can’t Opera People Leave Broadway Alone?
What is it with opera stars that they aren’t satisfied with their own extensive repertoire, and feel the need to try to belt out Broadway showtunes in their over-the-top, ridiculously stylized voices? David Patrick Stearns doesn’t like it one bit, not even when the offender is as critically acclaimed a performer as Renee Fleming. “So what if operatic vocal amplitude overwhelms the words, rhythm, and any number of other things? It sounds so pretty!”
Baz’s Boheme Bubble May Be Bursting
Baz Luhrmann’s critically acclaimed staging of La Boheme may be in some unexpected trouble on Broadway. “Last week’s gross receipts rang in at $590,000, just a fraction above the break-even of $550,000. According to Variety, “Boheme” grosses have been plunging tens of thousands of dollars every week since a high of $830,000 in February.” Michael Riedel blames the show’s lack of popularity on the unwillingness of Broadway fans to take a chance on anything more mind-stretching than John Waters’s Hairspray.
Giving Back To The City
“The Toronto International Film Festival Group announced yesterday that it had pumped $67-million into the economy in 2002, more than double the nearly $30-million the organization generated in 1993, the date of its last study of economic impact. In addition, the September film festival, widely considered second only to Cannes on the global stage, was responsible for $22.2-million in documented sales of four films, based on reports in trade papers such as Variety. However, the festival office says that sales figure is conservative, because a total of 41 films were sold, although not all prices are known.”