This week education directors from around the US will gather in Los Angeles to talk about the current state of arts education – what works, what doesn’t, and what to do. – Orange County Register
Tag: 01.23.00
COURTING THE STAR CONDUCTOR
Simon Rattle has his pick of orchestras to lead, and almost any of them would be thrilled to have him. He chose Berlin, or rather they chose him, but already the speculation about his future is interesting. – New York Times
BERLIN OPERA CRISIS
Four-part series examines a behind-the-scenes crisis in Berlin’s opera landscape. Part I examines the Deutsche Oper – Last October, on the day of the important premiere of a new production of Schönberg’s “Moses und Aron,” fifteen members of the orchestra phoned in “ill,” forcing the company to frantically phone around several European cities and fly in replacements literally at the last second. Within days the entire orchestra was out on a full-blown strike, resulting in numerous cancelled performances, including all subsequent presentations of “Moses und Aron.” – Die Welt
SING LIKE AN EGYPTIAN
Contemporary opera is suddenly hot, and amid the wave of premieres, other late 20th Century operas are also getting a rehear. Among them Philip Glass’s “Akhnaten,” revived at Boston Lyric Opera, the work’s first production in 11 years. Glass reflects on the piece and the business of modern opera. – Boston Globe
QUAKEPROOFING FOR ART
A $150 million retrofit of San Francisco’s old public library for a museum of Asian art is the Bay Area’s most ambitious museum reaction to its earthquake problem. – San Francisco Chronicle
- St. Louis Museum ponders a quake of its own. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ARTBRIDGE
- The Milwaukee Art Museum is building a new landmark bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava designed to boost the museum’s profile. With a length of 231 feet, topped by a 192-foot tower, the free-floating span is said to be an engineering feat of immense proportions. – Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
FOR THE SOUL OF A CITY
“Joining a debate as old as the reunification of Germany itself, the President of the Berlin Chamber of Architects, has called on the city to abandon “reactionary” plans to rebuild the Emperors’ Palace on Unter den Linden and instead build a future-oriented and community-friendly structure. Rebuilding the Stadtschloss, the Hohenzollern palace blown up by the East German government in 1950, would, he said, produce a fake Disney-esque facade that might become a tourist destination but would leave a hollow heart in the city.” – Die Welt
LIFE AS A FLAMBOYANT POSEUR
Was Salvador Dali a great surrealist painter and draftsman or merely a buffoonish public charlatan and poseur? A new 60-painting show at Connecticut’s Wadsworth Atheneum begs the question. – Hartford Courant
LITERARY SCORN
No country is more haunted by the spirit of its dead writers than Russia. Yet the Russian image of the novelist is no longer that of reverent seer or even heroic dissident. If anyone embodies the new image of the writer in Russia it is the 38-year-old Victor Pelevin, a laconic semi-recluse with a shaved head, a fashionable interest in Zen meditation and an eccentric attachment to dark glasses. Pelevin has emerged as that unusual thing: a genuinely popular serious writer. – New York Times Magazine
BROADWAY ON TOUR
Touring Broadway shows make more money than even a record year on the Great White Way itself. But what are patrons of the road shows really getting for their money? Some of these shows are Broadway Lite. – San Francisco Chronicle