The big corporate art fairs are a triumph. Of what? Jerry Saltz says start with the money: “Welcome to the branded and marketed art world of 2005. Maybe it’s always been this way, but it’s certainly more so now. These days art fairs are perfect storms of money, marketability, and instant gratification—tent-city casinos where art is shipped in and parked for five days, while spectators gawk as comped V.I.P.s and shoppers roll the dice for all to see. And in this game, everybody plays: artists, dealers, and buyers.”
Tag: 02.01.05
BBC Orchestra’s New Conductor
Jiri Belohlavek, former direector of the Czech Philharmonic, has been named as the new chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, replacing Leonard Slatkin.
Scots National Theatre – Maybe (Just Maybe) It’ll Turn Out Alright
There’s been no shortage of worry in Scotland about how the new National Theatre would take shape. Maybe that’s because of the many years it took to get the idea off the ground. “But now that the National Theatre of Scotland is beginning to take shape, even the sharpest critics of the idea are being forced to concede that those fears may have been misplaced. For one thing, the organisation is being set up on an innovative commissioning model designed to ensure that the NTS works through Scotland’s existing companies, investing its budget in developing world-class new projects with them, and helping them to raise their game with every new production.”
Breaking Even – A Rarity Off-Broadway These Days
“Burdened by ever-higher costs and increased competition from Broadway and beyond, the successful commercial Off Broadway play is a rarity these days, producers say. Long considered a cheaper, more viable alternative to the high costs of Broadway, the average Off Broadway production now regularly runs more than $500,000 to produce, with some costing nearly $1 million. Predictably, those higher costs have been passed on to the consumer; good seats for Off Broadway shows now commonly run more than $50, with some shows asking $65 or $75.”
Are Video Games The New Music Tastemaker?
Where do kids get their music these days? Increasingly less from MTV. No, the new music guru is video games. “Recent surveys show that more than 40 per cent of game players have bought a CD from an artist featured in a game, 40 per cent have learned of a new band from a game, and 27 per cent have gone out and bought the CD.”
Aussie Theatre In Decline
Theatre is on the decline in Australia – few audiences and fewer productions. “When they are young and starting out, writers hone their skills on the theatrical fringe. But these fringe companies are disappearing. The number of new works being staged around Australia dropped by more than a third in the past 20 years. More specifically, there has been “a jaw-dropping decrease” in theatrical activity in Melbourne in the decade to 2003 – down by 20 productions to 36.”
Celebrating Peter Brook
“In a matter of weeks, on March 21 to be exact, Peter Brook turns 80. This is quite a milestone by any reckoning. One would be hard pushed to identify another living British director whose contribution to theatre has been so immense – and yet all the signs are that there’ll be no great song and dance made when this anniversary comes round.”
Death Of The Pop Single
“The single is now over. Not the pop song, of course, which blasts over everything from car ads to party political broadcasts, but the single record, which has now gone the way of the tape-to-tape. Just before Christmas, it was announced that more songs were downloaded from the internet than were bought as CDs or records in shops, and, this week, it emerged that sales of new songs were being outstripped by their sales as mobile phone ringtones. Downloading means no physical record, no sleeve, no artwork of any kind, just a piece of sound that will most often be deployed now by young people as a way of alerting them to another sound they like much more: the sound of each other talking. When the song becomes tired, consumers will simply press “delete”. Given that pop music has always been the most nostalgic of art forms, the new disposability might sit oddly.”
Muti Still Miffed At Covent Garden
Last year after 20 years trying to convince Riccardo Muti to conduct in its house, Covent Garden had to watch as the maestro walked out at the last minute. And Muti? He puts the blame squarely on the opera company: “I think that Covent Garden didn’t behave properly. La Repubblica wrote a line that was wonderful. It said, ‘In this story, for once, the English behaved like Italians, and the Italians behaved like the English.’ That said everything.”
Where Did Popular Classical Music Go?
Where is the new classical music? Okay, there’s lots of music being written out there. But “what is the most recently composed piece of classical music to have achieved a genuinely established place in the repertoire? I mean a piece that you can count on hearing in most major cities most years, and a performance of which is likely to bring in a large general audience. Shostakovich’s first cello concerto, written in 1959, perhaps? Even that is stretching a point. A more truthful answer might be Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, composed 56 years ago in 1948.”