“With subjects such as television reality shows providing fodder for contemporary opera, why not sports? Martin Smolka’s Nagano, an opera in three periods plus overtime, relates the Czechs’ victory at the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, having come near but never achieving the gold four times in 50 years.”
Tag: 05.11.04
World Turning Away From American Products
American-made consumer products have been popular all over the world. Partly, they’re sold as embodying an American lifestyle. But with America’s image declining worldwide, a new study reports that “the number of people who like and use US branded products has fallen significantly over the past year, while brands perceived to be non-American have remained relatively stable.”
Degrading Experience – CD’s Rotting
Some consumers are finding that older CD’s in their collection are degrading, suffering from “CD rot,” a gradual deterioration of the data-carrying layer. It’s not known for sure how common the blight is, but it’s just one of a number of reasons that optical discs, including DVDs, may be a lot less long-lived than first thought. ‘We were all told that CDs were well-nigh indestructible when they were introduced in the mid-’80s. Companies used that in part to justify the higher price of CDs as well.”
Dohnanyi’s Cleveland Deficit
Conductor Christophe von Dohnanyi has a busy international schedule. But curiously, his schedule conspiculously does not include Cleveland, where he was the orchestra’s music director for 18 years. “Oddly, the Dohnanyi situation is a chilling case of Cleveland deja vu. For reasons sometimes clear and often not, the Cleveland Orchestra has a terrible record of bringing former music directors back to town.”
Last-Minute At The Met
“You can spend a decade singing minor roles in residence at a major opera house. And another 10 years in the hinterlands, perfecting major roles with minor opera companies. And by the time your ducks are lined up, you’re lucky to have a few years of good singing left, since opera stars, like professional athletes, have careers circumscribed by age and time. Too much too soon can kill a young voice. But too little too late can waste a singer’s prime.” So when a singer gets an opportunity to step in on short notice to sing at the Met…
Angry Arts Workers Threaten Cannes
French officials plan to meet with angry arts workers, who are planning to protest at the Cannes Film Festival and could disrupt France’s summer arts festivals again this summer. “The event’s organizers are due today to meet unions representing 60,000 to 100,000 part-time actors and technicians who plan protests against cuts in their welfare benefits.”
Muscle-Control Disorder Ends Oboe Career
Oboist Alex Klein is retiring from the Chicago Symphony because of a muscle-control disorder. “I just couldn’t understand why my fingers were not going the way I wanted. So I practiced harder, which only made it worse. I acquired a lot of secondary problems, including muscle tension. The more I played, the more my fingers would curl away from the oboe and the more effort I’d have to make to straighten them.”
Cranach Painting Recovered In Georgia
Georgian police in Tblisi have “discovered a painting by the famous German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder stolen from the Georgian State Museum of Fine Arts 10 years ago.”
Art Beats Bonds, Stocks, Etc…
The art market is hot for investors. And experts are saying that art as an investment is proving to be sound strategy. Partly this is “due to the highly variable returns of other asset classes over the last few years, Wall Street’s fascination with alternative investments, and the excitement that accompanies record-setting auction prices.” And, “academics and economists, armed with newly mined historical data, have demonstrated that including art in an investment portfolio can yield important diversification benefits thanks to the low correlation between art returns and those of stocks, bonds, and other traditional asset classes.”
Massachusetts’ Billion Dollar Culture Crisis
A new report says that Massachusetts cultural groups pump more than a billion dollars a year into the economy. But the “cultural sector is losing its luster as a tourist destination, and it is in danger of losing ground as a cultural hub as well. Theaters and historic homes are crumbling, and vital museums and arts centers are struggling to pay for basic repairs, maintenance, and expansion planned, the report found. Yet Massachusetts is one of the few culture-rich regions of the country that provides no steady support for capital improvements.”