A new film focusing on the life of Adolf Hitler is roiling the European continent, and causing the German people to question whether it is ever acceptable to humanize such a monstrous figure. But humanizing the Führer is exactly what this movie is about, “a Hitler of failed dreams amid a collapsing empire, a man who at turns is delusional, hardhearted, vicious, but also tender, caring, despairing… Downfall cuts an accurate but narrow-gauge path through the historic moment, transiting between the claustrophobic choke of Hitler’s underground bunker and the raging slaughter in the streets of Berlin, avoiding the suffering of all but the Germans.”
Tag: 09.23.04
Montreal Musicians Authorize Strike
The musicians of the Montreal Symphony have authorized their negotiating committee to call a strike at any time if a new contract is not agreed to soon. The MSO players have been working without a deal for more than a year, and their pay scale is currently 34th among North American orchestras, despite being recognized as one of the world’s elite orchestras. In response to the strike authorization, the MSO management issued a statement blasting the musicians for their rigidity and refusal to accept fiscal realities.
The Swimsuit Issue’s Fiercest Defenders: Librarians
“Librarians consider themselves defenders of the First Amendment. On philosophical grounds, they are loath to restrict access to material.” So Banned Book Week, which begins Saturday, is a platform for some of their most elemental beliefs.
For Cleveland Arts School, A New Era
In the early 1960s, decades before the link between arts education and academic success was established, Cleveland educators turned a settlement house into an arts school. Now the Rainey Institute aims for another transformation, this time to expand its reach.
Ambitious Minds Shape Daring Canadian Opera
“It was just over a decade ago at the Edinburgh Festival that the Canadian Opera Company mounted a radically new production of ‘Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung’ that has since emblemized the next life of the COC. And as the $181-million Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts continues to rise as Canada’s first purpose-built opera house at that prime (Toronto) corner, some part of its foundation can be said to have been laid by the international breakthrough the company achieved overseas.”
Nagano To Leave L.A. Opera
“Kent Nagano has announced that he will step down as Los Angeles Opera music director in June 2006, when his current contract expires, and the same year in which he will assume music directorships of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and of the Montreal Symphony.”
Anti-Semitism In A Prague Choir?
“Charges of anti-Semitism have rocked Prague’s cultural elite following allegations that the head of the philharmonic choir has pursued a vendetta against a tenor with Jewish roots. But it is far from clear whether the nature of the conflict between the choir director, Petr Danek, and the tenor, Michal Forst, is based more on personal animosity than on actual anti-Semitic slurs and behavior.”
A Second Postponement For Bellevue Museum
Still short of funding after being closed for a year, Washington state’s Bellevue Arts Museum won’t be reopening in October after all. “The unveiling of the revamped museum has been pushed back to spring 2005, as museum leaders work to raise an estimated $2.8 million for remodeling and operations.”
The Hollywood Cliche, Opera-Style
On Saturday, when Finnish soprano Karita Mattila was too ill to sing the role of Donna Anna in the Lyric Opera’s “Don Giovanni,” her 28-year-old understudy, Erin Wall, gave a performance opposite Bryn Terfel that has vaulted her into an elite circle of young opera singers.
NY Actors To Get Health Care Subsidy
New York actors, musicians, and performers could keep their health care coverage even when they’re between jobs, under a new bill signed into law by the governor this week. The bill isn’t a panacea for performers – any individual making more than $19,345 per year isn’t eligible, for instance – but it’s being hailed as a major step forward in quality of life for performing artists in the state.