Apple’s wildly successful iTunes service, from which consumers can download music cheaply and legally, is still the industry standard, despite ever-increasing competition. But Apple has yet to make available the music of a raft of independent record labels based in Europe, despite having signed licensing agreements with them. Since much of the most popular music in Europe and the UK is property of such labels, this is a major problem for music fans, but Apple seems to feel little sense of urgency about making the tracks avalable.
Tag: 09.18.04
An Artist So Popular, He Can’t Be Any Good
“François Boucher was surely the most beguiling painter who ever lived, capable of giving the most pleasure to the client – and presumably the sitter too.” And yet, Boucher’s reputation lies at the bottom of a pile of more “high-minded” painters, a victim of the popularity he enjoyed in life. And while it’s true that Boucher was perhaps a bit too infatuated with small, unimportant work (designing Easter eggs for a king, for example,) he was also an undeniably brilliant artist who was forever being plastered with labels he did not deserve. In the end, his greatest crime in the eyes of today’s elitist art audience may have been making too many people happy.
COC Opens With Atwood
The Canadian Opera Company has never before opened its season with a contemporary work, but that changes this week, with the Canadian premiere of Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the darkly horrifying novel by Margaret Atwood. Canadians love seeing art made by other Canadians, of course, but Handmaid, full of violence, rape, and the unceasing degradation of an entire nation of women, is quite a gamble. The production won raves in Copenhagen, but was roundly panned in London. The COC has gone out of its way to insure that Toronto audiences will embrace the show.
From Page To Stage
“When an opera company produces something by Verdi or Puccini, there isn’t quite the excitement of staging something based on the work of your own most celebrated living novelist. Subscriptions are on the rise, and single tickets are hard to come by. This could mean Atwood is the greatest marketing opportunity Bradshaw and the COC have ever had.” Still, the story, which sees the U.S. replaced by a brutal theocracy, is hard to take in print, let alone on stage, and Atwood has always had reservations about allowing her work to be adapted in any way.
DIA Struggles For Solvency
The Detroit Institute of the Arts is midway through a decade-long fundraising campaign intended to put the museum on firm fiscal ground for the foreseeable future, and many in the community had assumed that the DIA was well on its way to success. But last week, executives announced that its original goal of $331 million was not nearly enough to cope with structural issues and unforeseen costs (such as $40 million for asbestos removal.) The new goal is $410 million, to be raised within the next ten years.
Famed Harlem Troupe Shutting Down For The Winter
“The Dance Theatre of Harlem, one of the most acclaimed dance troupes in the world, plans to disband its 44-member company and shut its doors for the rest of the 2004-05 season until its finances can be restructured.” The shutdown will not be officially announced until this Tuesday, but officials from both the company and the union which represents dancers are confirming the story. The company’s dance school will remain open during the hiatus, but some in the dance community are doubtful that the company’s fiscal situation is fixable.