Tag: 05.29.19

‘How The Seuss Stole Graduation’: Why ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go’ Became A Cliché Gift For Commencement

“For the first generation in U.S. history to do worse than their parents, Oh, the Places You’ll Go is just right: It celebrates young adults’ dreams of escaping from home in the warm embrace of a children’s book they associate with home. … Oh, the Places You’ll Go may not tell us much about the way the world works, but it tells us a lot about how a certain set of Americans wish it worked.” – The Washington Post

Why Boston Ballet Star Kathleen Breen Combes Made A Point Of Moving Into Administration

For the retiring dancer, who’s about to become executive director of Festival Ballet Providence, it was a definite choice: she got a degree and interned in Boston Ballet’s administrative offices when not dancing. “As much as I love being in the studio, I knew that after I stopped dancing, I didn’t want to continue that rigorous in-the-studio lifestyle. … I became very interested in what the art form could offer as a whole, rather than just personally what I could offer as an artist.” – Dance Magazine

A Second Studio — This Time, A Big One — Says It Has Problems With Georgia’s New Anti-Abortion Law

Said Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, “I don’t see how it’s practical for us to continue to shoot there [if the law takes effect] … I think many people who work for us will not want to work there, and we will have to heed their wishes in that regard.” The statement came a day after Netflix announced it would “rethink our entire investment in Georgia” if the law was not overturned. – Reuters

Playwright Lynn Nottage Has Written An Opera For The Met And Lincoln Center

The two-time Pulitzer winner (for Ruined and Sweat) adapted her 2004 play Intimate Apparel into a chamber opera with a score by Ricky Ian Gordon (The Grapes of Wrath). The piece, part of the joint commissioning project by the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater launched in 2006, will premiere late next February on the smaller of LCT’s two stages. – The New York Times

UK Government’s ‘Hostile Immigration Policy’ Will Be ‘Devastating’ For Edinburgh’s Festivals, Warns Edinburgh Lawmaker

Stressing the enormous financial benefits that the city’s festivals bring to Scotland, a member of the Scottish Parliament is arguing that the increasingly frequent, seemingly arbitrary denials of visas to international artists and writers invited to Edinburgh is discouraging those writers and artists from even trying to come. – Edinburgh Live

Disgraced Conductor Daniele Gatti Gets Second Big Post In Italy, At Abbado’s Orchestra Mozart

The 57-year-old Gatti, fired from Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra last year for sexual misconduct, has been named chief conductor of the Bologna-based chamber orchestra founded by Claudio Abbado in 2004. Last December, he was appointed music director of Rome’s opera house, and earlier this month he was hired to conduct a brand-new orchestra in Milan called LaFil. – The Violin Channel

We’re Not Returning This Painting To Italy, Even If It’s A Leonardo, Swiss High Court Rules

“Switzerland’s highest court has rejected Italy’s request for the return of an oil painting attributed by some to Leonardo Da Vinci, ruling no Swiss laws were broken when the work was brought over the border. Titled Portrait of Isabella d’Este and dated to the 16th century, the painting became the subject of an international tug-of-war after an Italian woman, Emidia Cecchini, sought to sell it in 2013.” – Reuters