New Yorkers are buzzing about Gerard Mortier’s appointment to lead NY City Opera. But Parisians offer a reality check: “Some see his tenure here as a disappointment; most view it as a failure, marked by hostile, sagging audiences, acid press criticism and unfilled promise. His campaign to ‘reinvent opera’ has yet to show any positive effect, and with his penchant for intemperate public statements and his widely criticized management style, one has to wonder how his tenure in New York will unfold.”
Tag: 03.06.07
Canada Moves Towards Nationalizing More Museums
The Canadian Parliament is quietly making major changes to the way the federal government funds museums. Specifically, measures recently passed allow for federal funding of museums outside the Ottawa region for the first time ever, a move that could open the floodgates for museums wishing to be classified as national institutions.
France: We Can Sing. We Can Win!
France is tired of losing in the Eurovision Song Contest. So it’s undertaking a national effort to win. “We’ve had enough of being humiliated by Ukraine and of calamitous scores well behind Bosnia-Herzegovina or Macedonia. France wants to reclaim its dominant position . . . Operation reconquest has begun.”
Glum Sellers – Misery Memoirs Top The Charts
“Of the 100 bestselling paperbacks last year, more than a tenth were tales of real-life misery, and they make up six of the top 10 in theSunday Times paperback bestseller list. New figures show that the misery memoir market doubled from £12m in 2005 to £24m last year, with up to 10 new titles vying to be top of the glums each month.”
Why Artists Aren’t The Best Judge Of Their Own Work
“On the whole, it is assumed that artists are a fairly arrogant bunch. I don’t think that’s an unfair assumption. The very act of writing a novel or painting or performing your song needs arrogance – an arrogance that says: ‘I have a unique insight and I have the talent to give that insight a form and the confidence to ask you to come and have a look at what I’m doing.’ That is an arrogance that puts us somewhere up there with the gods.”
Block That Call – Russian Theatre Jams Cell Phones
Alexandrinsky theatre in St Petersburg is Russia’s oldest theatre. Theatre managers were fed up with trying to convince patrons to shut off their mobile phones, so they have begun jamming the signals.
Gehry: My Biggest Guggenheim Yet
Frank Gehry is working on a new Guggenheim branch in Abu Dhabi: “Abu Dhabi’s going to be very different – a take on a traditional, spread out, organic Arab village or town. Not literally, but it’ll have the equivalent of streets and alleys, souk-like spaces and plazas, some shaded and others covered. It’ll be the biggest Guggenheim yet.”
Too Much Info (Make It Stop!!!)
Investigators attempted to add up all the digital information produced last year. That includes “all the ones and zeros that make up photos, videos, e-mails, Web pages, instant messages, phone calls and other digital content cascading through our world today. Add it all up and IDC determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes – 161 exabytes – of digital information last year. That’s like 12 stacks of books that each reach from the Earth to the sun.”
Dutch Government Buys Back Nazi-Looted Paintings
The paintings had belonged to art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, a gallery owner who fled the advancing Nazis. “Goudstikker abandoned 1,400 artworks when he escaped the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. He took with him a black notebook recording over 1,000 of the pictures. Hermann Goering looted the gallery weeks later. The paintings were recovered from Germany after the war and incorporated into the Dutch National Art Collection.
Hollywood’s Record Year
Hollywood took in a record $25.8 billion in worldwide ticket sales in 2006. “Global sales rose 11 percent from $23.3 billion on a U.S. rebound from a decline in 2005 and because of gains in Russia, Germany, France and Brazil. Sales last year were bolstered by a larger number of films and higher ticket prices. Studios, including small, independent filmmakers, released 599 new movies, up from 535 in 2005.”