“Modern opera, baroque productions and ballet are due for a major revival under the Vienna Opera’s new director, Dominique Meyer. … [He] replaces Romanian-born Ioan Holender who ruled over productions for 18 years but had lately come under increasing fire from critics for his lack of innovation.”
Tag: 03.23.10
Fela Kuti’s Children Keep The Family Flame Alight
Bill T. Jones’s musical about the late Nigerian superstar has stormed Broadway and sparked an international resurgence of interest in his music. Back in Lagos, son Femi is a major musician in his own right, and daughter Yeni runs the city’s music mecca, New Afrika Shrine. They’re bemused by the international Fela revival and furious that the rich men their father railed against might co-opt the hit show.
Nouvel Says His Manhattan Condo Building Is Like A Bug’s Eye
“I imagined the building to shimmer, … because only the windows angled toward the sun pick up the light. It is like the eye of an insect that can see more than 180 degrees around.”
Ten Survival Tips For Aspiring Directors
John Caird: “I love being a director. But the job is not as simple as it looks, and getting into the game can be a painful business. The problem is you can’t learn this complicated craft without doing it – yet no one will employ you unless you’ve already proved you have some aptitude for it. And you can’t direct all on your own. You need actors and a play and a theatre.”
Street Dance Hits Britain’s Mainstream
There’s a “boom in street dance, which is edging into the mainstream and changing the landscape of dance. No longer associated with urban, or even suburban centres, it’s reaching into the heartlands.” The form is changing theatre and television as well. (And it was a street-dance group that beat Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent.)
Jean Nouvel To Design Serpentine Gallery Pavilion
“The dramatic design, which consists of bright red geometric panels with retractable awnings, is part of the gallery’s annual series of temporary summer works. Visitors will find the Pritzker prize-winning architect’s pavilion has been rendered in pillar-box red, to contrast with the lush green lawns of Hyde Park.”
The Great, Absurd Tournament Of Books, Explained
Laura Miller: “Because the competition itself is essentially meaningless, ToB is a Trojan horse. Under the guise of a sports conceit, it encourages people to read outside their comfort zones and reflect on the often knee-jerk judgments they make about books they’ve never even cracked open.”
Geffen Playhouse Names Its Main Stage For Gil Cates
“Cates founded the Geffen in 1994, calling on high-profile entertainment industry contacts he’d cultivated as then-dean of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television and the Emmy Award-winning producer of the Academy Awards broadcast for 14 years.”
Benefitting Playwrights, Roundabout Gives Up Some Rights
“The Roundabout will be ‘voluntarily foregoing its subsidiary rights participation for its regular runs at the Laura Pels Theatre, that began with Theresa Rebeck’s The Understudy, and at the Black Box Theatre, regardless of the length of the run.'”
Chatting With Gardner Museum Director Anne Hawley
“‘Boston’s very conservative, which is both a good thing and a bad thing,’ Ms. Hawley says. ‘It sometimes impedes the kind of thinking that one should do. For example, [the city] sat out the 20th century in the visual arts.'”