“Mozart’s original score for the 1791 opera The Magic Flute called for a glass harmonica or keyed glockenspiel to represent a set of magic bells. The instruments were obscure even in Mozart’s day but more than 200 years after his death they no longer exist and no one knows how they worked.” Modern orchestras usually use a celesta, but that won’t work for period-instrument bands. Then a London organ maker set to work on solving the conundrum.
Tag: 07.28.09
Man Booker Semifinalists Include Coetzee, Cromwell, Cheeta The Chimp
“Literary heavyweights AS Byatt and JM Coetzee were today named on this year’s longlist for the Booker prize – which also features a first-time writer purporting to be Tarzan’s chimpanzee.” Other candidates include “Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s gripping account of Henry VIII’s Tudor court told through his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell”; “Adam Foulds’ The Quickening Maze, set in a private asylum used by the Victorian poet John Clare”; and Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn.
That Was Fast: Salzburg Festival Finds Interim Artistic Director For 2011
“The festival’s board of trustees named current music chief Markus Hinterhaeuser as interim director, bridging the gap between the departure next year of Juergen Flimm and the arrival of his successor Alexander Pereira in 2012.” The news comes just three days after Flimm’s early exit was announced.
The Bell Tolls For Hemingway Musical (Yes, Musical)
“So, Too Close to the Sun is closing four weeks early at the Comedy theatre. The unlikely musical about Ernest Hemingway is the latest in a lineup of West End duds that have bombed.” The latest, that is, in a lineup of West End duds whose bombing was entirely predictable. Unlike their flamboyant Broadway peers, “London’s musical flops tend to involve comparative unknowns (such as the team behind last year’s Imagine This) and can be seen coming a mile off.”
Philly’s Academy Of Music Gets 19th-Century Nip & Tuck
“The Academy ballroom renovation, overseen by Philadelphia interior designer John Trosino of KlingStubbins, strips away a scheme installed in the 1950s, replacing it with cues taken from an 1860 photograph magnified to reveal minute details. Planners say it’s nothing less than an authentic reproduction of an entire room – not the familiar grand main auditorium, but the more modest space whose windows face Broad Street.”
George Weissman, Who Led Lincoln Center, Dies at 90
“George Weissman, who helped transform Philip Morris from a midlevel tobacco company to a diversified conglomerate known for contributions to the arts, and who then led Lincoln Center for nearly a decade,” has died. Weissman pushed Philip Morris “to become a major donor to arts groups, particularly experimental undertakings,” and “installed a branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art on the ground floor of the company’s new Park Avenue headquarters.”
Out Of The Theatre, Into The Woods (Or Boat Or Car)
“[T]here’s something about a certain kind of summer theatergoing … that makes you look differently at the city and at the conventions of the stage. This year there are shows on boats, in cars, on the streets and in many public places, from ‘Joan of Arc’ in Fort Tryon Park to ‘Measure for Measure’ in a Lower East Side parking lot. These productions are blurring the boundaries between the created and the real worlds through immersion, interactivity and site-specificity.”
At Dallas Museum, Soundtracks Complement The Art
“If you could hear a painting, what would it sound like? The Dallas Museum of Art and UT Dallas have created a new interactive program to answer that question. A sound design class at UT-Dallas has created a series of soundtracks to accompany specific works in the DMA collection. … Visitors use iPhones and other Internet-enabled devices to access the bonus features.”
SF Ballet Artistic Director Taps Two Number 2s
“Leading the country’s third-largest ballet company requires serious backup. Now instead of one right-hand man, San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson has two.” Bruce Sansom and Ricardo Bustamante, “both 46, have just stepped into the ‘ballet master and assistant to the artistic director’ position vacated when Ashley Wheater became artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet in 2007.”
Hollywood’s 20th Century Props Falters In The Early 21st
“One of the largest movie prop shops in the world is closing. Since the 70s, 20th Century Props has been supplying set decorations for films from Moulin Rouge to Blade Runner. The economy, the last writers strike and productions leaving Hollywood for cheaper locations are all reasons why the shop is closing.”