Opera Coming To Jacksonville?

A retired opera singer and arts manager is hoping to raise $3m to start up a new opera company in Jacksonville, Florida. The company, which hopes to mount its first production in spring 2009, plans to stage three operas per season, and has signed the Jacksonville Symphony to accompany its shows.

£26m Buys A Lot Of Bacon

An important Francis Bacon painting sold at auction in London this week for £26.34 million, “breaking the record for any postwar and contemporary work of art sold in Europe… Almost 1,000 collectors, dealers and hangers-on descended on Christie’s in London to witness the sale as a barometer of the art market. “

DC’s Fancy New “Living Room”

Architect Norman Foster’s latest challenge was to revitalize the courtyard of the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, and “the result is quite a departure in a city as architecturally conservative as Washington DC… Foster was eager to rekindle the history of the Smithsonian as a social-events building providing a large public living room.”