In 1872, the U.S. had begun to establish itself as a world power, and much of the country was edging away from the wild frontier mentality. With the desire for greater global respect came a desire for high culture, something most Americans hadn’t had a lot of time for previously. So when the city of Boston invited a group of European composers to bring their music (and their considerable) reputations to American shores, it was a big deal. A concert hall seating 100,000 was erected, and the star of the show, Johan Strauss, Jr., was treated like royalty as he led an eye-popping 20,000-piece orchestra, assisted by more than 100 assistant conductors. To Strauss, it was a gross excess antithetical to music’s nature. To America, it was only the beginning…
Tag: 08.09.05
Sittin’ In The Back Row…
Critic Howard Kissel usually sits in prime seats when he goes to Broadway. So he headed for the balconies of popular shows to see how the rest of us live. “Given the sophisticated state of amplification, hearing is never a problem upstairs. But the fact that performers can rely on their body mikes means they do not feel a need to project their characters all the way upstairs the way they had to in the old days.”
Gielgud Resigns From Houston Ballet
Maina Gielgud has resigned as artistic advisor to Houston Ballet. She said she resigned in early July because her situation “had become increasingly ambivalent and uncomfortable. Last season, despite a number of attendant problems, including the threat of canceling my version of Giselle, I still hoped that for 2005-2006 there might be some way of establishing a viable relationship.” She said her views and artistic director Christopher Welch’s “have diverged rapidly in relation to the long-term goals, vision, ideals, management style and methods of directing a classically based ballet company. … It has been increasingly difficult to understand where his vision lies, what his goals are’.”
Blockbuster Video Posts A Big Loss
“The company has been hurt by a 19-week Hollywood box-office slump during the spring and summer that is now working its way into the rental market. The company said industry weakness should continue in the third quarter before the video release schedule improves in the fourth quarter.”
Broadway’s August Busier Than Usual
Six shows are closing on Broadway in the next few weeks. “All the departures will still leave Broadway with 20 shows (21 if “Lennon,” which opens Aug. 14 at the Broadhurst, does well with critics and ticket buyers), more than usual in the summertime when it always has been the custom to see the total of legiters and musicals playing on the N.Y. boards reduced to a handful. (In years past there have been as few as 10 during the dog days of August.)”
Study: Movies Don’t Glamorize Smoking
A new study says that instead of glamorizing smoking, movies showing characters smoking makes them less desirable. “The study concluded that villainous characters are actually more likely to be smokers than heroes – 36 per cent of bad guys were smokers, trumping the 21 per cent of admirable characters who smoked.”
Dopey And Sleepy On Drugs? (Nope, Just Computers)
Last month Disney closed the last of its hand-drawing animators studios. “Of course, future Disney features will not be made by robots but by skilled human animators working with a different kind of tool. But the demise of hand-drawn animation at Disney is a sad and significant cultural watershed that deserves a proper mourning rather than a brief P.R. notice.”
What To Make Of Free Beethovens?
Recording industry people are still pondering the phenomenal demand (1.4 million downloads) for the BBC’s free downloads of Beethoven. “Everyone in the industry was astounded at the result. So astounded, that they have been left on the back foot. No one doubts now that a huge appetite exists in the marketplace for classical music delivered straight to your computer or on to your iPod. But how best to assuage that appetite? The BBC downloads may have been free but if a commercial label got even 10 per cent of that response it would still be a huge leap for downloading. Forward-thinking record-company executives are already talking about using free downloads as a method to tempt new classical buyers in the future.”
Colleges Offer Limited Digital Books
Ten US universities are offering digital versions of assigned books this fall. “Alongside the new and used versions of Dante’s “Inferno” and “Essentials of Psychology” will be little cards offering 33 percent off if students decide to download a digital version of a text instead of buying a hard copy. That’s not a bad deal for a cash-strapped student facing book bills in the hundreds of dollars. But there are trade-offs. The new digital textbook program imposes strict guidelines on how the books can be used, including locking the downloaded books to a single computer and setting a five-month expiration date, after which the book can’t be read.”
Light Where Budddas Once Stood
International outrage was sparked in 2001 when Afghanistan’s repressive Taliban regime ordered two 1,600-year-old statues of Buddha in the country’s Bamiyan Valley destroyed, but despite pressure from Western countries to preserve the massive artifacts, the statues were wiped out. Now, a Japanese artist plans to commemorate the Buddhas with a laser-based installation in the Bamiyan Valley which is drawing funding from the United Nations. “Fourteen laser systems will project 140 overlapping faceless ‘statues’ sweeping four miles across Bamiyan’s cliffs in neon shades of green, pink, orange, white and blue.”