“Is [Catherine] Zeta-Jones’s win for A Little Night Music a feather in the UK’s cap? The film siren belongs as much to Hollywood as to Swansea. [Douglas] Hodge is a delight in La Cage, but surely its success has something to do with the local actors – including TV star Kelsey Grammer – who occupy the other dressing rooms?”
Tag: 06.14.10
Four Years Later, Alice Tully Hall Gets Its Pipe Organ Back
“The process started at the hall’s loading dock on 66th Street, with smaller pieces at first. Occasionally a recognizable feature — the organist’s bench, for example — would float by. … A little later, the second truck started yielding up organ pipes on 65th Street, where the stage entrance provided a more direct route and easier turns into the hall.”
Alan Bennett Falls Victim To Ice Cream Robbers
Shortly after withdrawing £1,500 from the bank, “Bennett, 76, was targeted by two women pickpockets who splattered his raincoat with ice cream, then stole his wallet as they purported to wipe him clean.” The playwright said that the incident was “most upsetting. But I shall be writing about it in my diaries.”
James Levine Bows Out Of Tanglewood Season
“Levine, the Boston Symphony’s music director, said doctors told him he’s made great progress, but have advised him to ‘err on the side of caution and take the summer off to recuperate more fully from the two back surgeries of this past year.’ Levine’s latest surgery was in April.”
Glimmerglass Transforms From An Opera Into A Festival
“The venerated institution will change its name to the Glimmerglass Festival starting next summer to reflect a broader array of productions and events. For 2011, the festival is expanding its scope to include regular productions of Broadway musicals plus expanded offerings of concerts, cabaret and readings.”
LA Should Say Yes To Eli Broad’s Downtown Museum
“[T]he City Council and other agencies of local government should base their decisions not on what is best for Broad but on what best serves the public. And they should approve this deal.”
Frank W. Ballard Dies at 80; Started UConn Puppet Program
“Considered one of the most eminent puppeteers in the country, Mr. Ballard was long associated with the University of Connecticut, which through his work became — and remains — a Mecca for puppeteers in training. … It is beyond rare for an institution of higher learning to grant degrees in puppetry.”
Will Gompertz: I’m Giving The Culture Sec’y A Novel
The title of Sam Lipsyte’s “The Ask” “is American fund-raiser-speak for the quarry: the banker, the rich widow, the beneficiary of a will…. Mr Hunt might be interested in The Ask because he has said he wants to import American-style philanthropy to help mitigate against autumn’s government cuts in what he describes as ‘a horrible period for arts and cultural funding’.”
Swapping Pro Musicians For Students Riles Chicago Union
“‘Destructive and hurtful to the professional musicians and the marketplace of Chicago’ is how Gary Matts, president of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, characterizes the Harris Theater’s electing to replace the Chicago Sinfonietta with [a university orchestra] for the Chicago premiere of [Mark] Morris’ ‘Romeo and Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare’….”
Do Online Opera Clips Help Or Harm?
“One reason to link to the videos at all is that opera companies themselves are putting them out there more and more as a way to promote what they’re doing. Which is well and good; but it’s a mistake to equate them with a movie trailer in terms of giving you a sense of what to expect when you get into the house.”