Anne LeBaron is finally getting her moment in the musical sun. The composer’s “penchant for working with other musicians and designers across multiple art forms may have found its fullest expression in the multi-media Crescent City. LeBaron has said that the concept of hyperopera, which she has taught in CalArts classes, denotes ‘an opera resulting from intensive collaboration across all the disciplines essential for producing opera in the 21st century.'”
Tag: 07.07.12
Opera On The Beach: Bring It!
“A great screen was set up on the very beach itself, and the opera performed, as seen by the black-tied audience in the award-winning glass-and-steel theatre at Wormsley, to thousands sitting on the sand, while donkeys took their children for rides, and the adults vainly tried to keep the beach out of their sandwiches.”
Yes, There’s (Quite A Bit) More To Say About Nora Ephron
We all know about Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally, but that’s not Nora Ephron’s full legacy. “As well as a purveyor of beloved romantic comedies, Ephron was a trailblazing journalist, filmmaker and feminist, an astonishingly accomplished woman who generously shared her hard-won wisdom with younger writers.”
What The Hell Is Really Going On With The New York Public Library?
“The debate is getting bitter. Hundreds of writers, from Peter Carey to Mario Vargas Llosa, have gone on record against the plan. An exhaustive exposé in the literary magazine n+1 raised the temperature, and the current issue of theNew York Review of Books contains page after page of tetchy point v counterpoint. Whatever the fate of our library, a lot of people are going to be very angry when this is all over.”
Artist Rachel Whiteread Was In Whitechapel Long Before The Hipster Olympics
After the artist (now a Turner Prize-winning sculptor) graduated from art school in the ’80s, she moved to London’s East End. “‘I remember calling my mum from a phone box outside,’ she says, her voice on the edge of laughter, as it often seems to be. ‘There was blood all over it. I thought: “Oh my God, where have I moved to?”‘
The Battle’s Over, And Fandango Has Won (Our Online Movie Ticket Business)
“Fandango is emerging as the winner in its decade-long battle against rival MovieTickets.com, dramatically altering a growing sector of the movie business.”
How Bad Are Book Trailers?
They’re pretty damn crap. And they don’t even seem connected to the books themselves. What’s the point?
Putting A Monetary Value On The Arts – Is That Possible, Or Even Desirable?
“We tend to think of the arts as ‘independent and esoteric.’ In fact, they are dependent (meaning simply, ‘connected’) and everyday.Trying to tease out their monetary value, therefore, is practically impossible, not to mention their effects on our other cultural practices. Just look at the local effects of one little satirical sketch comedy show, Portlandia, on the city and its sense of itself. How do you measure that?”
The Crowd’s Not So Wise – But Neither Are The Experts
“After the better part of a decade in which various markets, from Intrade to the stock market, became many people’s preferred way to peer into the future, a backlash is clearly under way. Not so long ago, knowing about the existence of Intrade was a mark of being in the vanguard. Today, mocking Intrade, ideally on Twitter, is a sign of sophistication.” But don’t ask experts about the future either – they’re just as wrong, and just as mocked.
Spanish Police Arrest Four In Attempted Picasso Forgery
“The canvas, a counterfeit version of a 1964 work called The bust of Jeune Garcon was accompanied by false authenticity documents bearing the signatures of Paloma, one of the Spanish painter’s daughters, and a renowned French art expert.”