“A new opera production at a major company can cost millions of dollars; a world premiere adds another million or so to the price tag.” But new opera “springs up in smaller corners of the performing arts scene” in Washington, which “may actually be a harbinger of the future of the field around the country.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
United Tells Musician To Buy First-Class Ticket For Cello
The cellist “said he had already bought a coach ticket for the instrument — which requires its own boarding pass, has a frequent-flier account and has already racked up tens of thousands of miles. But the airline refused to let him board with it when, at the last minute, the gate attendant protested that it wouldn’t fit in the seat.”
Searching For Hopper’s Nighthawks Diner
“Greenwich Village tour guides point to the lot, now owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and tell visitors that Hopper’s diner stood there. But did it?”
Another Thing Pirate Sites Boast: Legitimate Advertisers
“Shortly after the release of And Then Came Lola, unauthorized copies of the film began to appear on web sites that specialize in pirated movies and TV. That was frustrating enough,” but then the filmmaker “saw the ads surrounding the movie on the websites” — ads for “legit companies like Sony, Radio Shack, Porsche, AT&T, Chase, Auto-Zone and even Netflix.”
Bait: Amazon’s 70 Percent E-Book Royalty
Amazon’s hefty rate is in part “a play for established authors who have not yet published electronic versions of their books. Many of those authors are haggling with their publishers over the royalty terms for digital books. … Amazon is throwing down the gauntlet by promising to give authors 70% of the sale.”
Toledo Museum Of Art Names Brian P. Kennedy Director
“Kennedy, who has led [Dartmouth College’s Hood Museum of Art] since 2005, will succeed former Toledo director Don Bacigalupi, who left the museum a year ago…. Kennedy served as director of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra from 1997 to 2004 and was assistant director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1989 to 1997.”
The Enormous Cultural Value Of Free Museum Admission
“No other country rivals the British tradition of free entry to museums. … At all the other great galleries of Europe you need to buy a ticket. This is a sitting duck, isn’t it? If I were deciding how to save money on museums, I would want to look at the idea of charging for admission. But it would be a terrible mistake.”
Artists And Others On BP And Corporate Arts Sponsorship
Artist Richard Wentworth: “I don’t think it’s particularly interesting to point the finger at BP. All money is filthy. Put your hands in your pockets and take out a tenner: while you’re holding it, it’s clean, but something it did yesterday, or what it will do tomorrow – it’s all vile.”
Charles Saatchi Gives Gallery, 200 Works To UK
The 67-year-old collector “announced today that the 70,000 sq ft gallery would be renamed MOCA London (Museum of Contemporary Art, London) when he retires, and would feature ‘a strong, rotating permanent collection of major installations’, all of it free to the public.” The donated art “will include seminal YBA pieces such as Tracey Emin’s My Bed.”
A Trend That Should Stop: Arts Funding Via Online Voting
“Your swamped e-mail box is a consequence of a new trend in corporate philanthropy — giving money to the non-profit organization that racks up the most ‘votes.'” The contests are “yet a further example of the rampant cult of the amateur, masquerading as grass-roots movements.”