Americans have a tendency to narrow the focus of everything: chardonnay is the only wine, Friends is the only sitcom, and opera singers with “creamy, smooth,” pop-influenced voices are the only stars. “It’s a world where the serviceably ‘pretty’ has become the definition of the beautiful, threatening to crowd out all the other categories of beauty, for instance, the exotic, the interesting, the gothic.” But there are still a few singers out there willing to break the mold American audiences are locked into, if only we’re willing to give them a chance.
Tag: 01.08.06
FM Looks To Talk To Save It From Satellite
Having so homogenized the FM radio landscape that listeners have begun turning to iPod shuffles and satellite pay services for their music fix, the corporate conglomerates that control a majority of U.S. commercial radio stations have begun to try out news/talk on their FM frequencies. In the process, traditional talk formats are being swept aside in favor of more wide-ranging approaches that skew less political and (the broadcasters hope) attract a wider variety of listeners.
Assessing The Cleveland Museum’s New Director
He is not a household name, even within the art world, and so he might have seemed an underdog for a major directorship at one of America’s leading museums. But Steven Litt is impressed anyway. “In choosing Timothy Rub of Cincinnati as its next director, the Cleveland Museum of Art picked an arts manager who has not yet achieved cultural stardom… Rub transformed local perceptions about the 125-year-old [Cincinnati Art Museum,] long viewed as an elitist institution on a hilltop in Eden Park, overlooking the rest of the city… The new director will need those skills in Cleveland. Rub, whose appointment begins in April, will take over the massive, $258 million expansion and renovation the museum launched in October.”
Ballet On The Brink
Dance has not fared particularly well in Northern Ohio in recent years. The old Cleveland/San Jose Ballet folded back in 2000, and this season, the Ohio Ballet, which performs in Cleveland and Akron, canceled many of its winter performances and laid off all but two full-time staffers. Now, the ballet has 60 days to determine whether it has the resources to rehire its dancers for April performances. More importantly, the company is attempting to assess whether there is really enough support in the area to sustain a resident ballet in the long term.
We Know What’s Real. Don’t We?
“Virtual reality” has come a long way in the last few years. In fact, it has come so far that most intelligent individuals would be hard put to give you a comprehensive definition of what it means, or to separate the first word from the second. “Right before our eyes, this thing that we call the world has been irrevocably altered, along with the ‘reality’ we have counted on. Virtual reality is so permeating our lives that one day soon we may find it impossible to distinguish the virtual from the real.”
The Shirtless Baritone
Nathan Gunn is one hell of a singer. No one is disputing that. But the thing is, he’s also unbelievably good-looking, especially in comparison to many of his male compatriots in the opera world, who have a tendency to look – how shall we put it – very, very fat. Consequently, Gunn’s rise to the top of the opera world (and make no mistake, 2005 was the year the young baritone became a bona fide star) has run on two parallel tracks, one defined by his gentle and distinctive voice, and the other by his exceedingly well-defined pecs.
The Accountant At The Helm Of ENO
No opera could ever be as chaotic and melodramatic as the scandal currently enveloping the English National Opera. But as dark as things seem at the moment, the Australian financial whiz recently appointed to replace Sean Doran at the ENO’s helm believes that she has a plan that will turn everything around. Loretta Tomasi is hardly a classic arts administrator, and comes from the world of finance and for-profit companies, a quality which immediately makes her suspect to many in the arts. But despite all the recent dust-ups in the press, the ENO is on the verge of retiring its accumulated debt and returning to normal operations after three years of emergency funding from the government. Of course, that doesn’t alleviate the company’s artistic problems…
Broadway Sets A New Year’s Record
2005 was a blockbuster year for Broadway, and it wrapped up with a record-setting performance in the biggest week of the year. The week between Christmas and New Year’s nearly always racks up the biggest box-office gross of the season, and this time around, 28 shows took in more than $25 million over the week, making it the highest-grossing seven day period in Broadway history.
Missouri Cancels Arts Funding
“The Missouri Arts Council has canceled a program worth millions of dollars once promised to local arts groups. In the fiscal year beginning July 1, the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Ballet, the Lyric Opera, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and 21 other arts organizations across Missouri will no longer receive annual payments from the council that would have reached tens of millions of dollars over time. The arts council gave no notice to any of the affected arts groups in October when it voted to end contracts with organizations participating in the Capital Incentive Program. The program allowed them to collect interest from the council’s endowment. Now, because of budget cuts and erratic state funding of the arts council, there is too little money to pay them.”
SPAC, On The Road To Recovery, Discovers It’s A Long Trek
Upstate New York’s Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) has had a productive year, and if reports from within are to be believed, the organization is well on its way to healing the divisive splits that left it on the edge of insolvency a year ago. But time doesn’t stand still for rebuilding purposes, and SPAC is facing a daunting array of challenges in the year ahead, from expanding its audience base to expanding its board. A major marketing push is on tap, and audience services such as online ticketing are a priority as well. Still, SPAC needs millions of dollars to stabilize its depleted endowment, and is still trying to worm money out of the New York State Assembly for physical improvements.