The company has just started performing in the new Carnival Center. “Faced with lower-than-projected ticket sales and higher operating costs at the Carnival Center, Florida Grand Opera has substantially overhauled its 2007-2008 season, cutting back to five operas, dropping its most ambitious productions, and jettisoning the new opera, Cyrano, announced just last month.”
Tag: 02.23.07
LA Times Remaking Its Sunday Books Section?
“Newsroom sources at the Times expect the Sunday Book Review will be folded into a new hybrid opinion section and delivered in Saturday papers. The new section that some staffers have seen would be tabloid-sized, with the favored format apparently using dual front pages like the New York City tabs.”
Lewis Lapham Starts A Journal
“The former Harper’s editor is starting a quarterly. “His journal will examine current topics from numerous historical perspectives. With a sheaf of historical texts alongside reflection by contemporary essayists, each issue will, according the Web site Laphamsquarterly.com, open ‘the doors of history behind the events in the news’ and be a bulwark against ‘the general state of amnesia’.”
Kenyon To Run Barbican
“The City of London Corporation has announced that BBC Proms director Nicholas Kenyon, 55, is to be the next managing director of London’s Barbican Center, effective Oct. 2007. The appointment surprised commentators who had expected the center’s Artistic Director Graham Sheffield to get the job.”
Dutoit To Philadelphia Orchestra
Charles Dutoit has been appointed chief conductor and artistic adviser to the Philadelphia Orchestra. “Dutoit will not have the title of music director, and as interim leader will have many but not all of of the same responsibilities as music director for four years as the orchestra searches for an eighth music director. Dutoit has a long and somewhat complex relationship with the musicians, administration and board of the orchestra.”
Academia Struggles With Wikipedia
A college bans student citations of Wikipedia in research papers. It’s part of “a growing debate within journalism, the law and academia over what respect, if any, to give Wikipedia articles, written by hundreds of volunteers and subject to mistakes and sometimes deliberate falsehoods. Wikipedia itself has restricted the editing of some subjects, mostly because of repeated vandalism or disputes over what should be said.”
“Producers” To Close On Broadway
The show will have run 33 previews and 2,502 regular performances. “On Broadway, the show to date has grossed $283 million. Two national tours went out, playing 74 cities. There are productions running in eight countries, plus one in Las Vegas featuring David Hasselhoff. The show has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, according to the producers. When the show closes, it will be the 18th-longest-running show in Broadway history.”
Oscar Ad Record
Advertisers will pay a record $1.7 million for every 30-second spot. “The show is one of the increasingly few events with enough built-in suspense for most viewers to watch in real time, rather than digitally record the show so they can zip past the ads. That’s one reason advertisers are willing to pay an Oscar record price for a 30-second spot, an uptick from last year’s $1.6 million, despite a droop in the show’s ratings in recent years.”
Microsoft Must Pay $1.3 Billion For MP3 Infringement
A San Diego court made the judgment after a company contended the computer company had infringed on a patent for MP3 technology. “Companies have long been worried that there are patents out there that they may not know about that someone could bring back and sue them over, over some kind of foundational technology that everybody uses,” Urban said. “Microsoft has had that worry made real to them to the tune of $1.52 billion.”
The Most Expensive Museum Admission On The West Coast
is Orange County’s smallish Bowers Museum. It will now charge $19, putting its price right behind New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “The Bowers argues that, because it charged $19 for the ongoing ‘Mummies: Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt … Treasures From the British Museum,’ a special exhibition that opened in April 2005, this does not represent a price increase, since only a handful of patrons were opting to pay $5 to visit just the permanent collections.”