Category: people

“Gregory Mitchell, the 52-year-old actor who suffered a heart attack onstage at the Kennedy Center on Thursday, remained hospitalized in serious condition yesterday. Mitchell was appearing as an angel in a play starring the legendary dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. The two were performing a scene in which Mitchell’s character was trying to rescue Baryshnikov’s character, a retired sailor who has thrown himself into the sea. Mitchell appeared to be breathing heavily and then fell backward.” A doctor attending the play immediately came backstage to treat the actor, and Mitchell was quickly rushed to the hospital. The play has resumed performances with a replacement angel.

Krzysztof Penderecki was once a leader of the musical avant-garde, a deliberate iconoclast who preached the gospel of the new and swore by complexity for its own sake. But unlike so many of his contemporaries in the 20th-century music world, Penderecki eventually responded to public distaste for the avant-garde by embracing tonality, even if only as a balm to soothe the ravaged ears of the modern listener. The composer’s willingness and ability to adapt to changing styles has made him one of the most in-demand artists of his era, and he continues to write new material constantly, even as his career enters its sixth decade.

More than two years after his highly public divorce from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit remains at the top of guest conducting wish lists in Pittsburgh, Dallas, Minneapolis, and countless other cities. The change in his primary role, from being at the helm of one or two orchestras to that of a hired gun, has allowed Dutoit to refocus his energies on maintaining what he calls the “Russian-French” tradition of conducting. That tradition is one of the modern music world’s last connections to the old days of Koussevitsky and Monteux, and Dutoit clearly sees himself as one of the last guardians of the classic orchestral form.

The reelection of President Bush means, among other things, that Dana Gioia will be staying on to complete his four-year term as the head of the National Endowment for the Arts. In his two years on the job, Gioia has been seen as a uniter of diverse constituencies, restoring the NEA’s reputation in Congress and in the country at large. But within the arts world, Gioia is viewed with skepticism, and not just because he was appointed by a Republican president: his programs and his vision represent “a radical shift in direction for the NEA away from funding the creation of new works of art – a direction which, Gioia points out, alienated so many people that the endowment nearly was shut down.”

“Other trumpeters idolised Dizzy Gillespie. But now, more than a decade after his death in 1993, his reputation is in danger of fading away. Miles Davis was in some ways a Gillespie disciple, but one may find 20 of his CDs in a shop to every one of Dizzy’s. What’s more, the trumpeter Jon Faddis, co-leader of the alumni band, has complained about ‘the assertion that Charlie Parker was the sole genius of the bebop era’. Why should this be so? One answer is that Gillespie’s contribution was partly theoretical.”

Dan Glickman used to be a Congressman and Secretary of Agriculture. Now he’s fronting for the Motion Picture Association of America. “The overlying issue is piracy and how we fight it,” Mr. Glickman said, a day after announcing plans to sue people who illegally download movies off the Internet, a provocative way to begin his stewardship. “I still believe lawsuits are only one part of the strategy. Education and awareness and embracing new technologies is part of it. It’s important that we be seen embracing technology.”

Herbert Axelrod, millionaire and violin collector, who fled the US after charges of tax evasion, is to be brought back to the US from Germany this week. “In its indictment, the government accuses Axelrod of two counts of fraud — conspiracy and helping an employee cheat the Internal Revenue Service by funneling more than $1 million into a Swiss bank account. The combined charges carry a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.”

Kente died in a Soweto hospice of HIV-related illness. “Kente’s work remains memorable because he was so innovative. Employing the extremely limited resources available in the urban townships, he was able to craft a host of musicals and dramas depicting the fears, trials, tribulations, hopes and aspirations of the urban African communities.”

Ten years ago Michael Grandage was unemployed and broke. Then he directed his first play and there was no looking back. In just a few years he jumped to the top of his profession, succeeding Sam Mendes as director of Donmar Warehouse. “Whereas Mendes’s programming was essentially Anglocentric, Grandage has made it a much more European-based house, with outstanding productions of plays by Camus, Pirandello and Strindberg.”

For all the fearful talk about what Peter Gelb will do when he takes the reins of the Metropolitan Opera in 2006, Gelb seems to have a remarkably upbeat philosophy about high culture: as he puts it, “art can be both commercially successful and artistically successful.” Of course, it’s the “commercial” aspect that worries some observers, and Gelb’s tenure at Sony Classical is an example of what many purists believe is blatant commercialism at the expense of true artistic success.