“If you’ve got somebody as distinguished and inventive and good as [director] Marianne Elliott, and she says, ‘I would love to do Company with a female central character.’ … What is there to lose? It can only make the play either interesting or, if you dislike it … dislikable … but still. I’m fumfering here, but the point is: That’s what keeps the theaters alive. So I’m always open.”
Blog
They’re Still Making Violins In Stradivari’s Hometown
“In under three minutes, you’ll meet three violin makers who love what they do and are proud to carry on their city’s rich tradition. As you could probably imagine, building instruments of this quality takes time; one luthier reveals she only make a handful in a given year.” (video)
Snopes, The Internet’s Favorite Myth-Debunker, Says It’s Being ‘Held Hostage’
“So, what’s going on? Well, it probably won’t surprise you that there’s a startup tech company and a lawsuit involved. There are claims and counterclaims. But if you want to know the gory details that are available in the court filings, here we go.”
The Old Master Still-Life That Was Looted By A Soviet Spy And Crossed The Atlantic Four Times
“The story behind the work, [Balthasar van der Ast’s Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase,] which was originally part of the collection of the Suermondt Ludwig Museum in Aachen and then went missing for 75 years, is fit for Hollywood.”
Star Of Bolshoi’s Aborted ‘Nureyev’ Ballet Speaks (By The Way, It Had No Nudity)
“When such a huge collective [as the Bolshoi Ballet], after being told of the cancellation in the morning, still musters the strength to go out and perform in the evening – it’s nothing short of a miracle. It’s no longer just about the job, but something much more.” (Also, “all the talk about nudity is false. I don’t think something of that sort would be possible on the Bolshoi’s stage.”)
Berkshire Museum To Sell 40 Works To Fund $60M ‘Reinvention Plan’
“In addition to two Norman Rockwell paintings, Shuffleton’s Barber Shop and Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop, which were previously disclosed, the list includes two [mobile] sculptures by Calder, [and] paintings by [Frederic] Church [and Albert Bierstadt] of the Hudson River School … The [reinvention] plan includes adding $40 million to [the museum’s] endowment, currently about $8.6 million, and a $20 million renovation of its South Street building.”
The Ballerina Who Can ‘Suspend Time Altogether’ – Alastair Macaulay On NY City Ballet’s Tiler Peck
“Most of us, most of our days, are subject to time. We follow calendars and clocks like slaves. Great dancers, however, seem to govern time, to find and possess it without haste and even, for moments, to suspend it altogether. The music’s pulse runs on apace; but they pack every measure with important-seeming activity, now and then playing with the beat, here a hairbreadth behind and there a bit ahead of the music, sometimes pausing miraculously amid the pressing momentum of the dance.”
Opera Tampa’s Artistic Director Suddenly Resigns
“[Daniel] Lipton, 76, was the company’s second artistic director, succeeding 17-year director Anton Coppola in 2012. He had completed five years of a six-year employment agreement … His resignation is effective immediately.”
The ‘Gay Jewish Kangaroo’ Who’s Shaking Up German Opera
Barrie Kosky, for the past five seasons artistic director at the Komische Oper, “has had a revitalizing effect on the company, one of three full-time opera companies in Berlin, thanks to his riotous productions and his eclectic repertoire choices.”
New $100K Landscape Art Prize, World’s Largest, Goes To Australian Aboriginal Artist
The Hadley’s Art Prize, launched and funded by a hotel magnate in Tasmania and believed to be the world’s richest prize devoted to landscape art, went to Peter Mungkuri for his Ngura Wiru (“Good Country”), an ink-on-paper drawing about his remote birthplace in South Australia.