Luciano Pavarotti’s opera farewell at the Metropolitan this weekend was a nostalgia-charged event, writes Tim Page. The door has still been left open as to whether the great tenor will come back to opera. “Myself, I hope he packs it in. It has been a glorious career and it might be best to leave before mounting and irreversible infirmities, apparent throughout the evening, overwhelm what remains of his fragile but still magnificent artistry.”
Tag: 03.15.04
The Best, Worst And Indifferent Of This Year’s Whitney
This year’s Whitney Biennial, writes John Perreault, doesn’t adhere to the premise set out for it in the curators’ catalogue essay. “The current biennial, they write, suggests an art ‘sea change’ as important as that delineated by the 1993 biennial (whatever that change was). The present change seems to have something to do with 9/11, corporate greed and dot-com collapse. Alas, although I enjoy the new biennial a great deal, I don’t think this point is adequately demonstrated either by their text or their exhibition. All three, nevertheless, produced credible single-author essays, leading one to suspect that the introduction is a bit of an exquisite corpse…”
Opera – One Size No Longer Fits All?
Covent Garden’s rude brush-off of Deborah Voigt for being too big is a sign of a changing opera world, writes Joshua Kosman. “The resultant possibilities for mocking and excoriating this once- respected opera company are rife and fairly obvious (insert “the opera ain’t over” joke of your choosing here). But this mini-scandal reveals some important shifts in the prevailing attitudes toward opera and the performing arts in general. Have we really reached the point where only the slim or the beautiful (the two terms are far from synonymous) need apply? Does artistic prowess now count for less than comeliness? Must every other consideration be subsumed to the visual?”
Kurdish Artists – Art Of The Future
For years, Kurdish artists documented Saddam Hussein’s crimes against Kurds. Now, “with Saddam in a prison cell, some Kurdish artists and intellectuals are putting words and images into a new battle for political goals and a dream of a longed-for homeland.”
The Passion Of The Box Office (And More To Come?)
The Passion of the Christ has taken in more than $265 million – an obvious success at the box office. So Hollywood, predictably, is wondering the big money question: has the movie industry been “neglecting large segments of the American audience eager for more openly religious fare?”
KC Cellist, 30
Veronica Freeman, a popular cellist with the Kansas City Symphony since 2000, died Thursday, one week after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She was 30.” The orchestra described Williams as “the heart and soul of the band … the uniting factor of the orchestra.”
Saving The Building Blocks Of Jazz
“In a campaign long on ambition and short on funding, music aficionados and historians have targeted for preservation nearly 2,000 New Orleans-area buildings connected to the birth of jazz — from the childhood homes of its pioneers to the mammoth halls where they performed. By poring over old phone books and dusty property records, through word of mouth and even the stubs of timeworn rent checks, researchers and historians have identified more than 600 homes and 1,300 performance halls linked to the early days of jazz.”
A Resale Fee For Australian Artists Proposed
A proposal for Australian artists to receive 3 percent of the resale of art is on the table. “Unlike writers, musicians and composers, Australian artists do not receive royalty – or droit de suite – payments. This means that if an artist’s work is resold at auction, or by an agent or private gallery for more than its original price, artists do not reap the rewards.”
Is Aboriginal Art Boom Sustainable?
“Aboriginal art is now worth $10 million a year to the salerooms – up from a mere $620,000 a decade ago. But Sotheby’s has been taking 60 per cent or more of the total and its main competitors want to grab their share. Others have tried, however, and failed. And whether there are enough collectors in Australia or overseas to keep five big salerooms running profitably seems highly doubtful.”
Sitarist Khan, 76
Vilayat Khan was a pioneer sitar player of Indian classical music, “he was one of the first sitar players to take his music overseas. Khan came from six generations of musicians, and taught and performed Indian classical music in the United States.”