The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation appears to have decided that the arts have little to no place on its television schedule, and its programming chief has made it abundantly clear that he isn’t interested in scheduling any program that can’t pull at least a million viewers. (That’s the ratings equivalent of ten million viewers in the U.S.) “[But] surely the mandate of any public broadcaster is to forget about competing with popular U.S. shows and provide an alternative.”
Author: sbergman
Broadway Sets New Sales Record
Broadway had its biggest gross ever last week, with a whopping fifteen different shows pulling in over $1 million for the holiday run. “Several producers said yesterday that the final tally for the holiday week would easily exceed the record figure of $22 million.”
Obsessed With Celebrity & Too Busy For Browsing
Independent bookstores have been closing in droves for the last decade, with big chains and online booksellers the most often cited causes. But one indie stalwart whose shop is due to close this spring says that the problem goes beyond simple competition. From the ever-quickening pace of American life to the increasingly celebrity-based, profit-driven publishing industry, indie booksellers find themselves offering a service that is quickly losing both its suppliers and its clientèle.
Stand Back! He’s Got A Documentary!
The shortlist for Oscar’s Best Documentary category is often a useful way to measure the mood of the industry, if not the world. And there’s no doubt about what the films on this year’s list tell us. “This is the year of the angry documentary, of the ‘Take back America’ documentary.” But some filmmakers are worried that the use of documentaries as weapons of political attack will cost them credibility.
MoMA Sells Land To Gain Exhibit Space
“Capitalizing on Manhattan’s robust real estate prices, the Museum of Modern Art is selling its last vacant parcel of land in Midtown for $125 million to Hines, an international real estate developer based in Houston… As part of the deal Hines is to construct a mixed-use building on West 54th Street that will connect to the museum’s second- , fourth- and fifth-floor galleries. [The] project would afford about 50,000 square feet of additional exhibition space for the Modern’s painting and sculpture collections.”
Heaven & Hell: The Musical!
“A Vatican composer is to stage an opera based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, with visions of heaven, hell and purgatory. The lavish production is reported to include 200 performers and musicians, six projectors and a huge stage… Reports suggest heaven will be full of classical style melodies, the limbo of purgatory will be illustrated with Gregorian Chant, with hell full of more jarring music.” Organizers are hoping that Pope Benedict will attend the premiere.
The Mindless Inanity Of Classical Ringtones
We’ve all heard the techophiles bleating about cell phone ringtones being the new frontier of recorded music, so should we be encouraged when we learn that Beethoven-based ringtones are some of the most popular? Or should we wonder, instead, whether those who choose the Ode to Joy are even aware of what they’re hearing? “Ours is a time when all things great are pulled down to the lowest level, everything subject to its own form of Cliff Notes… Rather than have your music so devalued, it is probably better to remain unknown to the great unwashed, permanently enshrined in a state of anonymous immortality.”
Isn’t That What Charlotte Church Used To Say, Too?
If the record companies and promoters have their way, Scottish singing sensation Nicky Spence will shortly be the next “classical crossover” superstar. But ask the 23-year-old Spence himself about such plans, and he sounds well aware of the pitfalls of the crossover path. He’s happy to use his rags-to-riches life story for promotional purposes if it gets him noticed, but in the end, it’s the operatic stage that calls to him.
Ah, To Live In Such A World…
The arts have had a tough time getting respect from pop culture and government types in recent decades. But Steven Winn says that’s all going to change in 2007. Among Winn’s predictions for the year: Gwen Stefani makes Schubert hip again when she partners with the Cleveland Orchestra on a multi-year lieder project; and the National Endowment for the Arts suddenly finds itself on the receiving end of a $306 billion Congressional appropriation that no one will take credit for.
A Legacy In Search Of Respect
Composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s complex legacy (was he a Stalinist stooge, or a quiet rebel?) has so far meant that his archive has never been given the sort of permanent home or widespread study that other great composers have been granted. ” Moving Shostakovich’s archive into a museum where it could be scrutinized by music scholars would put to rest many myths that still cast a pall on his legacy… But interest in the archive is low.”