Category: today’s top story

The Italian mezzo will succeed current director Riccardo Muti at the helm of the three-day late-spring event – a festival usually overshadowed by its Easter and summer counterparts – in 2012. The highlight of her first season will be Handel’s Giulio Cesare starring … Cecilia Bartoli.

“The ROH is demanding that its entire stable of creative talent – directors, set and costume designers, lighting and special effects designers, even composers, choreographers and librettists – sign over to the Royal Opera House all their copyright in their work there – in perpetuity.”

“Most of the attention so far has been focused on the headline issues of the orchestra’s insolvency and whether pay cuts of about 30% would mortgage the DSO’s status as an elite symphony. But proposed work rule changes could have just as radical an impact on the DSO’s future.”

“If a song on iTunes sells for 99 cents, how about a literary essay? On Tuesday, Scribner began publishing 69 essays by Chuck Klosterman, the pop culture and sports writer, available individually from retailers like Amazon, Apple and BN.com for 99 cents each.”

Jonathan Jones: “Sadly, the success of Britain’s artists is a major reason many people will support cuts to visual art funding. If there is one thing the public believes about art it is that artists make piles of money. (The full mantra goes: for putting rubbish in galleries.)”

“One of the founding fathers of the New Wave of French film, Chabrol was best known for his masterful suspense thrillers, subversive female roles and stinging critiques of the bourgeoisie. His first work, Le Beau Serge, was released in 1958 and he made more than 80 films, his last – [Bellamy,] a murder mystery starring Gérard Depardieu – released last year.”

According to a statement from CAMI, “Severe reductions in the financial support of all artistic organizations and the reduction of subsidy to the National Orchestra of Spain makes it impossible for them to maintain any overseas touring.”

The serial Ma Malakat Aymanukum (a Quranic phrase meaning “what your right hands possess” or “what is rightfully yours”), broadcast nightly on Syrian TV during the holy month, directly tackles such touchy subjects as the veil, corruption, religious extremism, “honor killings” and the violent repression of women.

Scott Rosenberg: “You recall [Nicholas] Carr’s statement that ‘people who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form.’ Yet the studies he cites show nothing of the sort.”

“Though inspired by cinephile meccas such as the British Film Institute, [the Lightbox is] unique in the world – an art-house rebuttal to the multiplex that recombines fine art, film and pop culture in a blockbuster hybrid of cinemas, galleries, learning studios and public spaces.”