Anja Silja, the “luminous and controversial soprano, sometimes called the ‘German Callas’ … had long expected to be retiring by this time. Yet here she is, giving a mesmerizing portrayal of Kostelnicka in the Met’s current production of Janacek’s ‘Jenufa,’ which opened on Jan. 29.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Dancer Jeannette Ordman Dies
“Jeannette Ordman, a South African-born dancer and teacher who headed the Bat-Dor Dance Company, one of Israel’s most important contemporary-dance organizations, died on Wednesday in Tel Aviv.”
At Tehran’s Fadjr Festival, No Touching, No Dancing
“Censorship is one of the major issues facing Iranian artists today. … The more fundamental restrictions, however, are cultural rather than political. ‘In Iran, we have all these limitations on how we use the body,’ says the actress Sara Reyhani. ‘Before we even move, we have to censor ourselves.'”
Why Look At The Art When You Can Shoot It Instead?
Whether museums permit or prohibit photography, “the proliferation of digital cameras is changing the museum experience for visitors and the institutions themselves. Museums are packed with visitors who aren’t just looking at art, but photographing it and taking it home, too. For other visitors, the shutterbugs can be an annoyance. For museums, however, the issue is serious: Does the dissemination of copyrighted artwork have financial and legal ramifications?”
On The Auction Block: Baltimore’s Art Deco Palace
“The Senator Theatre, one of the last of the nation’s once numerous art deco movie palaces and the only one still showing films in Baltimore, is to be sold at a foreclosure auction Feb. 21. … City officials, who have come to the Senator’s aid in the past, say they are unlikely to do so again.”
Bush Budget Increases Cultural Agencies’ Funding
“The federal cultural agencies and museums received solid support yesterday from the White House in the proposed budget for fiscal 2008. … In the president’s proposal, the National Endowment for the Arts is to get $128.4 million,” an increase of $4 million, while the Smithsonian and the National Endowment for the Humanities see larger budgets as well.
A Familiar Dilemma: Tourism Vs. Cultural Preservation
“As Cambodia has settled into peace and opened to the world, the temples of Angkor have in recent years gone from stone to gold for the national government. This year, a deluge of tour operators is expected to cart in nearly 1 million foreign visitors, a sixfold increase since 2000. … The growth has put the Cambodian government in a difficult position, observers say, forcing it to balance the potential to make money against the need for preservation, restoration and study.”
At A Pilgrimage Site, A Grave And A Leaky Roof
At the 800-year-old church where Shakespeare is buried, “the roof leaks, the metal in the windows is corroding and a small invasion force of deathwatch beetles is boring into the ancient timbers.” The fund-raising goal exceeds $8 million. In the meantime, the visitors keep coming….
Genre Fiction, Set In A Neighborhood Like Yours
Plenty of detective stories are set in suburbia, Marilyn Stasio writes, even though “suburbia just doesn’t attract the same kind of dark, brooding sleuths who are drawn to the mean streets of Big Bad City, U.S.A. What we tend to get, instead, are the comedians, the cranks and the kooks…. But the grounds for satire, no less than murder, depend on where you live — and what constitutes a killing offense in your community.”
My Cravings Are Gone, And So Is My Empathy
With a tiny bit of brain damage, a person could give up smoking: You knew it sounded too good to be true, didn’t you? Neuroscientists caution that altering the brain’s insula could wipe out more than addiction. The insula “helps give rise to moral intuition, empathy and the capacity to respond emotionally to music.”