Norman Lebrecht wonders why, amid “the universal mush of Mozart’s 250th birthday, few are bothering to contemplate the 150th anniversary of Schumann’s death, an event that changed the course of music.”
Tag: 02.09.06
How Many Musicians Do You Really Need?
When the CEO of the Lousiville Orchestra paused in the middle of negotiating a new contract with the orchestra’s musicians last month to speculate publicly that the organization might shut down if serious changes did not occur, the musicians were stunned, and then furious. This week, they offered to take a wage freeze and benefit cuts and to submit the whole contract to mediation. But CEO Scott Provancher isn’t hopeful that mediation will accomplish anything, and he remains convinced that only a wholesale reduction in the number of full-time musicians in the orchestra can save the company from Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
D.C. Experimental Theatre Closes Up Shop
“[Washington, D.C.’s] Source Theatre Company, which provided a home for experimental plays and fledging artists for more than 28 years, has ceased operations and agreed to sell its building. Source had been struggling financially for several years and has received almost $1 million in public funds.”
Scrap It Before The Critics Get A Look At It
Minneapolis-based Theatre de la Jeune Lune, which won the 2005 Tony Award for best regional theatre in the U.S., has announced that it will cancel the final production of its 2005-06 season after deciding that the adaptation of “The Old Man Who Read Love Stories” would not be ready in time for its June debut. The company “is known for its unconventional approach to producing and programming. In 2004, the company canceled a week’s worth of performances of “The Ballroom” after opening in order to rework the show after disappointing critical and commercial reaction.”
McMichael Plucks Frick Director
“Thomas J. Smart, director of collections and exhibitions at [Pittsburgh’s] Frick Art & Historical Center since July 1999, will leave the museum to become executive director of The McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Toronto, Ontario… The McMichael collection includes First Nations and Inuit artworks and is the foremost venue in Canada for paintings by the Group of Seven, landscape artists who were active in the first half of the last century.”
When Movie Titles Attack
“We seem to have entered a golden era of woeful movie titles… Is `The Squid and the Whale’ the worst movie title of all time, or is it still a tie between `Chu Chu and the Philly Flash’ and `Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things’?” And can anyone remember the difference between a movie titled ‘A Lot Like Love,’ one called ‘Just Like Heaven,’ and that instant classic, ‘Just Friends’? And don’t even get us started on filmmakers who title their masterpiece with a sound effect…
Well, Duh. Girls Are Icky!
“A study of the most popular G-rated movies of the past 15 years has found that three-quarters of the characters are male, raising concerns that Hollywood is inadvertently telling children that women are less important than men.”
Solzhenitsyn: Ready For His Close-Up
“Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has been called the conscience of the [Russian] nation, but his reputation has risen and fallen as tumultuously as Russia itself since the collapse of the Soviet Union.” So what are the odds that the former exile would suddenly become the biggest TV star in the country he has spent his life critiquing?
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Prop ‘Em Up
Emboldened by several years of electoral and judicial victories, religious conservatives in the U.S. have become extremely vocal when they spot a Hollywood project that a) they don’t like, or b) is aimed squarely at religious audiences but fails to pander in just the right way. As a result, the major studios have become a bit nervous when releasing any film with vaguely religious or sectarian overtones. So what are the producers of the new film version of The DaVinci Code doing to stay out front of what will surely be a wave of religious right-generated negativity? Why, they’re providing the soapbox, of course.
Why They’re Doing It Is Another Question Entirely
Remember when “robotic acting” was an insult? It still is, you say? Not according to one New York troupe. “The underground theatrical superstars Les Freres Corbusier [are premiering] the first production of Hedda Gabler in which half of the major roles are played by robots. Not humans in funny suits, but walking, talking machines performing live onstage. It’s titled, naturally, Heddatron.”