The League of American Theaters and Producers’ “Singles’ Night on Broadway” seemed to attract mainly older, straight theatergoers. “The crowd looked a lot like — well, a Broadway crowd. The Broadway audience, according to the league, is a little more than 60 percent female. Same here. More than half the Broadway audience is between the ages of 35 and 64. Same here, if not more so.”
Tag: 03.02.07
Approaching 80, Masur Is Careful But Not Cautious
As Kurt Masur nears his 80th birthday and the end of his tenure with the London Philharmonic, he recently “seemed hardier than he had when visited in November in London, though still a bit fragile — a description that no one would have associated with this imposing figure a decade ago — and with a marked tremor in his hands. ‘I’m fine again,’ he said, ‘in the middle of my life again.'”
Classical Music Buyers Migrate To Downloads
Major orchestras, with or without major labels — sometimes without any label — are releasing their music as downloads, and audiences are buying. “Mark Berry, a spokesman for the budget label Naxos, said that digital distribution accounted for nearly 20 percent of that company’s revenue in 2006, up from about 8 percent the year before.”
Dance Theater Workshop Exec Director To Resign
“Dance Theater Workshop’s executive director, Marion Koltun Dienstag, is resigning next month, the organization said yesterday. … Her departure follows the resignation of the artistic director Cathy Edwards, a pioneering force in contemporary dance, who was replaced last year by Carla Peterson.” (third item)
Could NY Phil Tailor A Post For Barenboim?
Daniel Barenboim doesn’t want to be a fundraiser. That would seem to mean he can’t become Lorin Maazel’s successor at the New York Philharmonic — and, indeed, Barenboim has said he’s not interested. But what if the job were reconfigured to be entirely about music-making, not money?
NRO To Cut Ties With Longtime Director
The executive director of the Colorado-based National Repertory Orchestra (a prominent training program for young musicians) has been told that her contract will not be renewed when it expires at the end of this season. Terese Kaptur took over the NRO program in 2002 after serving for three years as the orchestra’s artistic director.
Portrait Of The Artist As A Prizewinner
“Australia’s most prestigious portrait prize has been awarded to John Beard for his painting of a fellow artist. Beard, a Welsh-born artist, painted Janet Laurence in oil and wax on linen. The monochrome portrait of Ms Laurence’s head and shoulders, measuring about one square metre, today took out the $35,000 Archibald Prize.”
Pope Warned To Beware Of Dennis Kucinich
“An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”… The choice of Cardinal Biffi raised eyebrows in the Vatican, given his sometimes eccentric views. The cardinal gave a warning of the coming of the Antichrist during his two decades as the Archbishop of Bologna, and said that an ‘invasion’ of Muslim immigrants was undermining Europe’s Christian values.”
Can Opera Help Rehabilitate Criminals?
Music education – specifically, a full-scale opera program – is having a profound impact on the lives of prisoners in the UK, according to some observers in the prison system. But some guards and wardens believe that the program is just an undeserved reward for evil men. “This schism between the punitive versus the rehabilitative runs deep within the penal system; prisoner access to creative projects depends on the attitude of individual governors.”
When Torture Becomes Just A Part Of Life
Fox’s hit terrorism drama 24 has kept viewers around the world on the edge of their seats for years now. But recently, many voices have been raised regarding the irresponsibility of the large number of torture scenes in the show. Critics point out that torture, while rarely effective in real life, always seems to be the magic bullet for defeating the bad guys on the show. The larger effect on viewers is feared to be “‘normalisation’ — the process whereby unspeakable acts become acceptable routine.”