Producer Richard Jordan, citing Bartlett Sher’s current Lincoln Center Theater production of My Fair Lady: “While critics enthused over Sher’s new ending, referencing it back to the issues of today, watching it play before a regular audience you felt a sense that the musical no longer gave them a pay-off. Instead, it felt as though they had been waiting more than three hours for the ‘I love you’ moment only to then be denied it – it’s not how Lerner intended this scene to play and it was surprising his estate allowed it. We should be concerned about a growing attitude that classics can be ‘fixed’ to match today’s agenda – one risks changing the very essence of the work itself.”
Tag: 07.19.18
Did Robert Indiana’s Assistant Exploit And/Or Steal From Him? Two Legal Cases Aim To Answer
“In May the Morgan Art Foundation (MAF), Indiana’s representative since the 1990s and the owner of the artist’s famous Love trademark, filed a lawsuit in New York against the artist’s long-time assistant, Jamie Thomas, and an art publisher, Michael McKenzie. MAF says the pair exploited Indiana towards the end of his life, producing dubious works in his name and isolating him from friends. … Meanwhile, the lawyer representing Indiana’s estate — estimated to be worth $50m — is seeking documents to determine the extent of the artist’s assets, based on ‘reasonable suspicion’ that some ‘may have been conveyed away or otherwise misappropriated or sold without due compensation’.”
Yuval Sharon Wants To Stage ‘La Bohème’ Backwards
The MacArthur-winning director, whose staging of Lohengrin is about to open the Bayreuth Festival, seriously proposes doing Puccini’s opera in reverse order, Acts 4 through 1. “It will work really well, from devastation to the beginning. Some people might even think it’s the way it’s supposed to happen. …You can put it on the moon or anywhere else and it’s still the same old Bohème. But how do you get to the core of this piece if not by radically transforming our ability to listen to this piece and thereby open a door to a way that we’ve never thought about it before? So if we end in Act 1, with them singing offstage with these high C’s, what a wonderful way to end an opera.”
Walker Art Center To Commission Indigenous Artist To Replace Sam Durant’s Disassembled ‘Scaffold’
“The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis … has created an Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee, which will be charged with commissioning a Native artist to do a public artwork for the museum’s sculpture garden. … The museum’s release said the committee was formed in response to the controversy surrounding Sam Durant’s Scaffold (2012),” which was installed there last summer and them removed following protests by Dakota people.
Paramount Fires Head Of Its TV Division After Racially ‘Insensitive Comments’
“Five years after being tapped to lead the newly relaunched Paramount Television banner, Amy Powell is out.” Multiple individuals had complained about things Powell reportedly said about black women on a conference call about the company’s TV adaptation of The First Wives’ Club, which features a largely African-American cast.
One-Third Of UK Performing Arts Students Have Been Sexually Harassed: Survey
“The poll of 600 drama, music and dance students found that more than half (51%) had experienced inappropriate behaviour, sexual harassment or bullying. Nearly two thirds (73%) of those who experienced some sort of incident identified as female. … When asked if they had reported their concerns, 57% who had experienced inappropriate behaviour did not report it. Just 13% did.”
At A Workshop Where The Choreographers Don’t Have To Finish Their Work
“The National Choreographers Initiative in Irvine seek[s] to emphasize the creative process and take the pressure off producing a finished, polished product. The three-week summertime workshop — now celebrating its 15th year — will culminate with a public performance July 28 … Unlike formal, completed dance productions, the show will start with four choreographers introducing their pieces, 16 dancers presenting what they’ve learned, and a question and answer session with the audience concluding the program.”
Anna Netrebko And Yusif Eyvazov Cancel Because They’re In Quarantine With Norovirus
The superstar soprano and her tenor husband were to star in this weekend’s performances of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur in Baden-Baden until health authorities required them to stay away. Singers Tatiana Serjan and Migran Agadzhanyan are coming to the last-minute rescue.
Students Cover Mural Of Rudyard Kipling Poem With Text By Maya Angelou
“The poem ‘If’, which was written around 1895, had been painted on the wall of the university’s newly refurbished students’ union. But students [who argue that Kipling ‘dehumanised people of colour’] painted over the verses, replacing them with the 1978 poem ‘Still I Rise’ by the US poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.”
Giant Scientific Publisher Cuts Off Scientists In Sweden And Germany From Access To Papers
Elsevier last week stopped thousands of scientists in Germany from reading its recent journal articles, as a row escalates over the cost of a nationwide open-access agreement. Negotiators in Germany and Sweden want all their papers published in Elsevier journals to be open access as part of any new contracts. They have said that they will not pay more than they did previously for subscriptions. But, until now, the Dutch publisher has offered other countries read-and-publish deals that cover only a small proportion of a country’s publishing output.