The Metropolitan Opera holds a celebration of Mirella Freni’s 40 years singing there. “At 70, Ms. Freni was reminding audiences that she would be by far the most interesting singer at her own gala. Not that the Met wasn’t offering some of its best to join her onstage; the program inadvertently seemed to confess that today’s stars are fewer and lesser than those who surrounded the honoree when she was in her prime a generation ago.”
Tag: 05.17.05
Why Academic Historians Need To learn How To Write Better
A new David McCullough history of the American revolution is due out, and academic historians are stewing. “Instead of grumbling over the public’s middlebrow book buying tastes, the best thing academic historians can do is to try to offer them something better. A number of our own practices lead us away from engaging the public as we should. I’ve seen students entering graduate school aspiring to write like Arthur Schlesinger, only to be shunted into producing pinched, monographic studies. I’ve seen conferences full of brilliant minds unable to find an interesting presentation to attend that isn’t literally read off the page in a soporific drone. We write too much for each other—and, as we do, a public hungry for good history walks into Barnes & Noble and gets handed vapid mythmaking that uninformed critics ratify as “magisterial” or “definitive.”
A Sacramento Parthenon?
A California developer wants to build a 29-story office tower in Sacramento. “The building would be topped by a replica of the Parthenon, the temple of Athena — the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom — set atop the Acropolis in Athens.”
An American In Venice
Ed Ruscha is representing the United States at this year’s Venice Biennale. “One thing this Venice Biennale thing has done is to make me focus on being an American. You can’t help it. They make the rules and they have these nationalistic entries from each country. That does focus you on your origins. So I am feeling the fact that I am an American in Venice. I feel good about that. I take it from a particularly American perspective.”
Chicago Lyric A Hit In The Ledger
Chicago Lyric Opera had one of its strongest sweasons artistically. And it also managed to balance its budget for the 17th time in 18 years. “The season’s budget was $58.2 million. Ticket sales brought in $30,035,108, while the annual fund-raising drive reached a record $21.5 million. The company also reached its goal of adding $50 million in pledges to its endowment fund, which currently stands at about $50 million.”
Cannes Buzz Growing
The buzz is building at Cannes, as a series of strong films debut. Regulars are beginning to say this might be one of the strongest festivals in years, writes Roger Ebert.
Young Conductor On The Move
“With classical music on the defensive, a new breed of maestro has emerged – confident enough to reinvent the past, communicative enough to appeal to a wider audience. But they still have one hurdle to overcome before they pass the test of maturity, and it’s a test 30-year-old Edward Gardner is acutely aware of.”
Why Movie Grosses Are Meaningless
Weekend box office numbers for movies are completely bogus. “Once upon a time, when the studios owned the theaters and carted away locked boxes of cash from them, these box-office numbers meant something. But nowadays, as dazzling as the “boffo,” “socko,” and “near-record” figures may seem to the media and other number fetishists, they have little real significance other than to measure the effectiveness of the studios’ massive expenditures on ads.”