The company’s board decided at the end of January to cancel this spring’s two productions, Daughter of the Regiment in March and La Bohème in May, due to a severe drop in ticket sales and donations. “But even if someone wrote a check for $500,000, [the company’s managing director] said, she couldn’t say if part of the season could be salvaged.”
Tag: 01.30.09
William Friedkin Pulls Out Of La Scala’s Inconvenient Truth
The filmmaker-turned-opera-director has withdrawn from the Al-Gore-slideshow-turned-hit-movie-turned-opera over “irreconcilable creative differences” with librettist J.D. McClatchy. But composer Giorgio Battistelli claims that Friedkin’s reasons are “personal, not artistic” and complains that the director cared more about special effects than the piece’s message.
‘The LSD Of 2009’: Hollywood To Ramp Up Digital 3D
“After the 3-D commercial triumphs of 2008 – among them the Hannah Montana concert film, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Bolt – Hollywood is readying more than a dozen 3-D titles for release in 2009, not all kiddie fare.”
Should American TV Dramas Shorten Their Seasons?
Audiences have become more demanding, acclimated to dramas that tell multifaceted stories. The uncomfortable corollary is that popular series can quickly unravel under the weight of missteps
Pasadena Rejects Public Art; Arts Commissioner Resigns
“The Pasadena City Council has voted to reject a recommendation by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission to install controversial public artworks of light tubes and giant caps on the plaza in front of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.” Arts commissioner Sasha Anawalt quits the commission in protest.
When Art Began (A Long Long Time Ago)
Denis Dutton suggests that “Darwinian aesthetics shed light on literature, music and painting not by demonstrating them to be evolutionary adaptations, but by showing how their existence and character are connected to prehistoric preferences, interests and capacities.”
Art Auction Houses Downsize, Restructure
“Like banks, auto manufacturers and insurance companies that are struggling to stay afloat, however, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are laying off scores of employees in their offices around the world, restructuring departments and cutting costs in every area.”
E-Book Sales Stoke Optimism
“Over the course of the year, e-book sales were up 63.8 percent. It is in these figures that many industry analysts see hope for the publishing industry at large, which is turning slowly – and not without some grumbling – toward mass digitization. But it’s not the bigger houses, such as Macmillan or HarperCollins, that are moving the fastest.”
Art Basel’s Marc Spiegler Talks Art Markets
“It’s important to remember that there was already a thriving art world before the boom. And to the extent that the boom has receded, it still leaves more behind than was there before. In fact, what we saw at Art Basel Miami Beach in December was that collectors who left the market because they didn’t like the boom-time competitive atmosphere were actually returning. So there is an influx even as there’s an exodus.”
LA’s Museum Of Contemporary Art Lays Off Staff
“The cash-strapped institution announced today that it is reducing its staff by 20% as well as cutting operating expenses. The plan is to reduce expenses by approximately $4.4 million a year.”