Category: today’s top story

“American Ballet Theatre, one of the top dance companies in the U.S., will not present a fall repertory season in New York this year, citing the need for rehearsal time for its new production of The Nutcracker, and the difficulty of fund raising in the current economic climate.”

A 73-year-old tour guide testified that “she saw one of the men with an axe, standing in front of Madonna of the Yarnwinder while the other removed it. … The evidence emerged as five other men went on trial accused of demanding £4.25 million for the safe return of the painting, estimated to be worth £50 million.”

In Rome, where Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI awaits its May opening, “any building of such size and exalted cultural purpose must justify its presence in the company of world-famous monuments to imperial and papal glory. Her shrewd solution has been a combination of flamboyant experimentation with implicit respect for the past.”

“There is a new star rising in the Paris art world, still relatively little known to tourists but already a favourite with Parisians. In the last 12 months, it has outdone all other Parisian exhibition halls in the number of visitors attracted to temporary art shows. How has the fearsome, and much-feared, French state cultural bureaucracy reacted to the competition? Rather badly.”

“As government officials across Spain have succumbed to the so-called Bilbao effect — investing hundreds of millions of euros in shiny new arts centers in hopes that urban revitalization would quickly follow — Murcia has taken another road. Instead of putting all its cultural eggs in one high-priced basket, the local government is betting on a decentralized plan to spread cultural riches throughout the province.”

“[B]igger crowds didn’t necessarily mean a financial windfall for museums. About half reported a decline in total revenue in 2009, according to the survey” by the American Association of Museums. “And 18% of museums described their financial condition as ‘very severe.'”

“Moving quickly to fill the leadership void,” company executive director Lourdes Lopez said that Morphoses “would adopt a ‘curatorial model’ in which the company would invite artists from various disciplines to take on the role of resident artist for one season.”

“Radio drama, ranging from ‘Captain Midnight’ to the high art of Orson Welles, thrived for 40 years in America. It was all but gone by the 1960s, killed off by television. Yet now that TV must contend with the Internet, the Internet has given radio drama a whisper of new life.”

“The Berlin Philharmonic is urging Salzburg politicians to clean up the Easter Festival to ensure the orchestra’s continued involvement after a fraud scandal.” Said a spokesperson for the Philharmonic, “I wouldn’t call it a threat.”

The proposed new American embassy in London “has all the glamour of a corporate office block.” And yet the project is “an eye-opening expression of the irresolvable tensions involved in trying to design an emblem of American values when you know it may become the next terrorist target.”