Tag: 07.05.05

Phone Salesman Releases International Album

Paul Potts, the opera-singing tenor who won the “Britain’s Got Talent” last month, is releasing an album in 15 countries. “The former mobile phone salesman won fans across the world after 10 million people viewed his winning performance on video-sharing site YouTube. The 36-year-old Welshman signed a £1m recording deal with show judge Simon Cowell after his win last month. The album will include Nessun Dorma, which he performed on the programme.”

Booming Art Market Doesn’t Necessarily Help Artists

“Over the past decade, the contemporary art market in Australia has exploded, and it’s not only corporations who are buying. An art market analyst, Michael Reid, says 1.3 per cent of the population were buying art 10 years ago – now roughly 5 per cent are purchasing. While a burgeoning market can be an enormously positive thing, in that it encourages diversity in the art market and introduces Australians to art, the dollars do not necessarily trickle down to the majority of artists, especially riskier, less-marketable artists.”

The Decline Of The Movie Audience Over Many Decades

“Whatever the box-office blips, the regular movie audience has been so decimated over the past 56 years that the habitual weekly adult moviegoer will soon qualify as an endangered species. In 1948, 90 million Americans—65 percent of the population—went to a movie house in an average week; in 2004, 30 million Americans—roughly 10 percent of the population—went to see a movie in an average week. What changed in the interval was that virtually every American family bought a TV set, and home entertainment largely replaced theater entertainment. More important than mere numbers, the nature of the audience changed in this secular decline.”

Gergiev’s Obsession (Hint – It’s Not the LSO)

“The unexpected news that the Russian super-conductor Valery Gergiev has added Britain’s top orchestra, the London Symphony, to his bulging portfolio is still reverberating round the classical-music world… Gergiev is clearly delighted to be chosen by the LSO, but his real passion is reserved for the Kirov Opera and Ballet. With a single-mindedness that borders on obsession, Gergiev has thrown himself into creating a company to rival, and many would say, overtake, the Bolshoi in Moscow.”

Fire Destroys Berkeley Rep Shop

A fire has destroyed Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s scene shop. “The Rep’s two theaters and adjacent School of Theatre in downtown Berkeley were not affected by the three-alarm fire, but the rented warehouse where the company has built all its sets for 15 years, located many blocks away in northwest Berkeley, was destroyed. The Rep’s immediate losses, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, were principally in the form of tools and materials.”

Study: TV For Kids Under Three Is Bad

“For each hour of television watched per day before age 3, a child’s reading comprehension and short-term memory scores fell at age 6 and 7. But for older children, every hour of television led to slightly better performance sounding out and pronouncing words. Since 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended no television for children 2 and younger, including educational shows. For older children, the academy suggests no more than one to two hours a day of “quality” television.”

Vilar – The Disappearing Man

Philanthropist Alberto Vilar was good to Los Angeles Opera, giving it millions. Now that he’s defaulted on his gifts and got in trouble with the law, “it’s as if the man who once posed with Domingo, celebrity conductors and members of the board, who delighted in publicly handing out checks and watched performances intently from a seat of honor in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, had never set foot in town.”

The V&A’s Sensible Alternative

When the Victoria & Albert Museum finally decided to bag Daniel Libeskind’s controversial “spiral” addition, the museum started over. “This time round the museum started by asking the question, “What do we really need?” or rather, “What does the visitor need?” It commissioned a masterplan, re-thought the whole way the museum is organised, realised the heart of this new vision was the garden, and then brought in designers to suggest what might be done to make what had become a dank and unloved space, dominated by brooding cypress trees, work.”