“Anthony Freud, general director of Houston Grand Opera, will succeed William Mason as general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago starting in October.”
Tag: 04.21.11
Why Easter Resists Christmas-Style Commercialization
Baskets and marshmallow peeps notwithstanding, “Easter has retained a stubborn hold on its identity as a religious holiday. This is all the more surprising when you consider what an opportune time it would be for marketers to convince us to buy more stuff. … So what enables Easter to maintain its religious purity and not devolve into the consumerist nightmare that is Christmas?”
Zahi Hawass’s Latest Venture: Reproductions Of King Tut Artifacts
“The new Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs (MSAA) production unit has just fabricated its first batch of replicas … [130] statues depicting the unique collection of King Tutankhamun. The replicas are to be produced for tourists and hotels in [the Red Sea resort town of] Sharm El-Sheikh.”
National American Latino Museum Faces Challenges
“Though the creation of such an institution has support from members of Congress, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and celebrities like Eva Longoria, building it faces significant obstacles, including budget pressures and a feeling among some in Washington that the Smithsonian should stop spinning off new specialty museums and concentrate on improving the ones it already has.”
Community Rallies To Save Nova Scotia Fringe Festival
“At a town hall in Halifax last weekend a volunteer committee was struck to help the Atlantic Fringe Festival’s board of directors secure funding, seek out sponsorships and, with any luck, save the festival for 2011.”
Gotta Admit – Having The Power To Ban Trashy TV Shows And Movies Would Be Nice
“Those movies were obviously dumb, so no more of them. That’s kind of a cool idea. Imagine having the power to stop the entertainment crap that surrounds, by government decree, just as easy as that, just stop it: No more girl-fight romantic-competition shows, no more celebrity gossip “news” items….”
Lucerne Opera House Debacle – How It Fell Apart
“So there it rests, for the moment; four years of planning, and then, for whatever overt or covert reasons, an embarrassing debacle. If nothing else, it will cause arts organisations across the world to ask themselves whether the promise of a big donation from a rich patron is worth the paper on which it isn’t written.”
Opera Australia Wants More Flexibility As It Expands
“We are going through a very significant growth strategy over the next three to five years, but it’s going to need much more flexibility on the part of all our employees: technicians, orchestra, artists.”
Tim Hetherington, Photojournalist And Director Of Restrepo, Killed In Libya
A co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, about the Afghanistan war, the 41-year-old Hetherington was killed during shelling of the besieged rebel city of Misurata by Qaddafi’s forces .
The Man-With-A-Movie-Camera Who Transformed Non-Fiction Film
Dziga Vertov “began as a poet and medical student who admired Walt Whitman and Vladimir Mayakovsky. He ended up forever changing documentary film, creating works that still fascinate with their radical ideas about how cinema can transform perception and effect social change.”