England’s arts advocates need to do a better job of selling themselves to the government. “Politicians seem embarrassed to be associated with the arts. The ‘arm’s-length’ separating grants from government control has become very short indeed – ‘almost Venus de Milo length’, according to the new chairman of Arts Council England, Sir Christopher Frayling.”
Tag: 03.16.05
Mozart, The Bolshoi, And The Protests
A new opera at the Bolshoi has roiled passions. “The demonstrations prompted a political debate over freedom of expression and censorship – historically hypersensitive subjects in Russia. The Kremlin distanced itself from the events, criticising the criminal investigation. Sales of Sorokin’s books soared, and the Bolshoi’s project received promotion nobody could have dreamed about.”
French Police Arresting Conductors
French police are arresting conductors and breaking up tours of orchestras employing Eastern European musicians. “Of all the unsavory aspects of French police going around the country busting orchestras and locking up their conductors or managers, it is the notion that it’s being done to protect these innocent violin-playing lambs from Sofia that drips heaviest with irony. In common with price-fixing cartels the world ’round, France and Germany’s high-priced musicians have only one interest in this affair, and that is keeping low-priced competition off the market. That this means smallish French towns get no opera, or get it only when heavy public subsidies are made available for it, concerns them not at all.”