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Four Years After It Nearly Closed, San Diego Opera Is Thriving

“Back in 2014, San Diego Opera survived a near-shutdown when a handful of renegade board members and donors from around the world saved the company from extinction. … Four years post-rescue, San Diego Opera has stabilized. The company finished its 2017-2018 season in the black, the office is fully staffed, its edgy 2-year-old Detour series is a hit, and ticket sales for next season are significantly higher.”

The Surreal Life Of Gala Dalí

It’s not just that she was the wife of the most famous Surrealist artist. Gala (née Elena Ivanovna Diakonova) was at the very center of the early Surrealist movement, having friendships, love affairs, or personal conflicts with many of its key members. Then there was the castle in Spain that Salvador Dalí bought for her – and the rules she placed on his presence there.

Paris Gets Its First Digital Art Museum, And It’s Très Trippy

At L’Atelier des Lumières, “artists’ works are transformed as images of their paintings are projected (using 140 laser video projectors) on to (and across) 10-metre-high walls over the vast 3,300 square metre surface area of the renovated 19th-century building. These images provide an immersive and panoramic show throughout the space, to a sound track of music by Wagner, Chopin, Beethoven and others, using an innovative ‘motion design’ sound system.”

Carnegie Library Archivist Accused Of Stealing $8 Million Worth Of Rare Books Over Two Decades

“According to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, the library’s former archivist and an antique bookseller allegedly conspired to steal and sell over $8 million worth of rare books from the [Pittsburgh] library, including [Isaac Newton’s] Principia, valued at $900,000. The archivist, Greg Priore, and the bookseller, John Schulman, were arrested on Friday for the crime.”

Boston Is Still Very Much A Pre-Broadway Tryout Town – That’s The Problem

Responding to the Boston Globe article about the city’s attempt to reclaim its place as the preeminent place to test Broadway-bound shows, Bill Marx argues that the tryout business never left Boston at all: it just moved to the area’s nonprofit companies, especially American Repertory Theater under Diane Paulus. “Major regional theaters … were initially established to produce a non-commercial response to the safe fare of Broadway. … Isn’t this a betrayal of the theaters’ mission?”

Composer Refuses State-Funded Commission Because She Was Offered 20% Less Than Male Composers (Alas, It’s Not That Simple)

Siobhán Cleary won a commission, funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, from two choral organizations; when she saw that the men who had received the same grant in previous years had been offered more money, she turned the work down. Problem is, Cleary “has actually opened a can of worms that goes well beyond the issue of gender inequality. One of the core problems with the council’s music commission scheme is that it is set up in a way that simply cannot deal with the principle of equal pay for equal work.” Michael Dervan reports.

Artists Demand Their Work Be Removed From Show After Museum Hosts Arms Company Event

“The Design Museum in London is facing a firestorm of criticism for hosting a private reception for Italian aerospace company Leonardo on July 17 in conjunction with the Farnborough International Airshow. The Campaign Against Arms Trade has called the airshow an arms fair, and has published an open letter from artists who are demanding the museum remove their work from display by the end of the month.” The museum shouldn’t be too surprised: the show in question is “Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics, 2008–2018” and includes posters for the likes of Occupy Wall Street and Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Revolution”.