Category: today’s top story

“As music director James Levine prepares for back surgery that could keep him from taking the podium at Tanglewood this summer, frustrations are building within the orchestra, and a stunning detail has emerged: Levine has no signed contract with the BSO.” The BSO’s managing director says: “This is not tenable, the uncertainty. We have to protect ourselves.”

The conductor’s “need for a timeout — for surgery and for recuperation — has put the Met and the Boston Symphony in a bind.” Both organizations “said on Monday that it was too soon to speculate about anything beyond the immediate future, though musicians in Boston said they had been aware all season that Mr. Levine was in considerable pain.”

“Looking to join the power set at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Be ready with a check for as much as $10 million. The price of admission can reach that high at the Museum of Modern Art, and remains roughly $5 million at the New York Public Library, according to people involved in the process.”

The conductor, who received harsh reviews this week for his work in the Met’s current revival of La traviata, has withdrawn from the remainder of the run for “personal reasons.” A statement from his manager says that “his artistic contribution, which he feels he has thoroughly prepared,” – though Slatkin had suggested otherwise on his blog – “does not however coincide with the musical ideas of the ensemble.”

“The disclosure came just hours before 400 AGO staff … voted 96.4 per cent in favour of a strike if they can’t get a contract to replace the one that ended last November. On Thursday, 37 full-time and part-time Local 535 members are set to lose their jobs in a layoff action announced last month by AGO management.”

A.O. Scott observes that, before the Web was cheapening criticism and destroying an honorable profession, television shows like the Siskel-and-Ebert franchise were allegedly doing the same thing. “The circumstances in which the art of criticism is practiced are always changing, but the state of the art is remarkably constant. Which is to say that, from a certain angle, the future of criticism is always bleak and the present always a riot of ill-informed opinion and boisterous disputation.”

“Kapoor’s Orbit, a vast, snaking steel structure, will dominate the 2012 Olympic park. It is being hailed as London’s answer to the Eiffel tower and is part of an ambition to make the Olympics site a permanent visitor attraction.”

“All across Canada, people who operate festivals are waiting for an announcement from the minister of tourism and small business. At the same time, they are also apprehensive because this is the second and final year of a short-term program the federal government clearly labelled ‘stimulus’ only.” There are strong reasons the program should live on.

“A significant drop in fundraising dollars, exacerbated by the recession’s ‘strong headwind,’ has forced the Charleston Symphony Orchestra to suspend its operations, effective immediately, … It is the first time in the orchestra’s 75-year history that a performance season has been disrupted because of acute financial difficulties, and next season’s fate is far from certain.”