Last year Greece passed a law banning online games. The idea was to fight internet gambling. But the ban is problematic – some prominent Greeks have been caught playing, and the European Union says the ban “casts its net too wide, the EU says, ensnaring innocent Internet café owners and computer game companies.” Why the ban? “Parliament took this decision spontaneously, and under unbearable pressure to wipe out the ‘cancer’ of gambling. As a result they voted one of the most excessive, unprepared and extreme laws ever enacted in Europe.”
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Opera On First And Ten
Keith Miller played football for the Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos. But his love of opera has outlasted his football career. “Last fall, he won a full-tuition scholarship to the Academy of Vocal Arts, the prestigious, highly selective, post-graduate incubator for future opera stars. ‘You watch a veteran football player like Jerry Rice make a catch, and he moves with such fluid grace and beauty. Hours and hours of practice and preparation make it look completely effortless. Same thing on the opera stage. A singer opens his mouth and out comes a sound that makes time stand still’.”
An Expensive “Journey’
A new production of Eugene ‘Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into ight” is going to charge $100 a ticket when it opens in May on Broadway. “The hefty price tag – which does not include a $1.25 per ticket “restoration fee” – is usually reserved for big-budget Broadway musicals such as ‘The Producers’, ‘Hairspray’ and ‘Movin’ Out’. A $100 ticket is rare for a straight play. “The Iceman Cometh,” also by O’Neill, and starring Kevin Spacey, charged a $100 top price in 1999.”
The Piano Team
The University of Indiana has long been known for its first-rate music school. Now it’s being known for its “piano team. In 1991 pianist Alexander Toradze – the Tbilisi-born, Moscow-trained piano virtuoso – was appointed as professor and began building a studio of young student and professional pianists from all over the world. “The model for his program in Indiana, Toradze explains, was the ‘class recitals’ he heard as a student at a music school for gifted children in his native Tbilisi and later during his studies at the Moscow Conservatory.”
Officials Order Islamic-Themed Art Removed
Officials in the English town of Walsall have ordered two artworks that reference Islamic themes to be removed from an exhibition. “The digitally manipulated images show a veiled Statue of Liberty clutching the Koran and the Houses of Parliament converted into a mosque. The authority issued a statement saying that, during a period of “heightened sensitivity”, and following the events of September 11, the artworks could be viewed as “reinforcing controversy, fear and prejudice”.
Where Are The New Protest Songs?
“Over a million Americans have already taken to the streets to protest President Bush’s insane war on Iraq, so there’s clearly an audience for musical dissent. It’s not like there’s a lack of other pressing issues to write about, either, with our civil liberties getting rolled back in the name of preserving freedom, and Bush and John Ashcroft attempting to return America to the God-fearing values of the ’50s — the 1650s, that is.”
Where’s Billy? Poet Laureate Speaks
As poets have weighed in against or for an American war in Iraq, one voice has been conspicuously quiet – current poet laureate Billy Collins. So LA Times reporter Tim Rutten emailed Collins and asked. Collins replied: “I have tried to keep the West Wing and the East Wing of the White House as separate as possible because I support what Mrs. Bush has done for the causes of literacy and reading. But as this country is being pushed into a violent confrontation, I find it increasingly difficult to maintain that separation.”
Online Competition Sinks Rand McNally
Competition from online map services has helped sink the most prominent roadmap publisher. Rand McNally has filed for bankruptcy, hoping to reorganize in a way better able to compete with the online competition. The company was the first – in 1917 – to produce a road map using numbered highways.
The Case Of The Disappearing Diva
Soprano Sumi Jo’s reviews in Opera Australia’s “Lucia” were good. She seemed happy, according to her New York agent. So why did she suddenly bolt from Australia before her final performance, without even telling the opera company’s management? “The hotel staff told us about a change in her reservation; that’s the first we heard of it. She didn’t let us or her personal management know, but we gather she left for Rome on doctor’s orders.”
Famous Clarinet Factory Destroyed In Fire
One of the world’s best clarinet factories went up in flames this week. “The dawn blaze at the Leblanc factory in La Couture Boussey, in the Normandy region of France, incinerated 1,400 clarinets, along with the entire stock of spare clarinet fingering keys. The French factory, which has 37 employees, was founded under the name Ets. D. Noblet in 1750 when the flourishing of instrumental music at the court of King Louis XV created a demand for musical instruments.”