The annual Shakespeare on Boston Common has been a tradition for many years. But “struggling to break even, the Citi Performing Arts Center has slashed the budget for Shakespeare on the Common in half and shortened its run to less than a week. Instead of 20 performances, the Center will present seven, starting Tuesday, plus two open dress rehearsals. Even the stage has shrunk, to less than a third the size of last year’s.”
Tag: 07.22.07
Curse Of Success (How To Get An Honest Assessment?)
If your work is really really successful, how will you know if it’s actually very good? “J K Rowling might genuinely want to know if her work is taken seriously: but the praise is just too cacophonous. Popularity can be worse than any curse. Just as Jack Vettriano, Andrew Lloyd-Webber or Lynda La Plante.”
The Book Club Problem
It’s choosing a book. “Time-deprived women — and a few men — are making room for book clubs, a trend that took off in 1996 when Oprah Winfrey launched her club with Jacquelyn Mitchard’s “The Deep End of the Ocean.” But members often find it difficult to choose a book. Avid readers have plowed through the obvious choices. Some crave juicy reads, while others want to tackle classics. As a result, members may join a book club in hopes of diversifying their library and instead find the club taking a safe route.”
Curse Of The Ninth
“It didn’t take long for Beethoven’s last symphony, with its famous choral finale extolling universal brotherhood, to take on iconic stature. It represented for many people a spiritual, as well as musical, high. That the piece carried the number 9 just added to the significance, for, as any numerologist (or long-lived cat) will tell you, nine can be awfully potent. Some ancient cultures considered it a sacred number. Those who value things in threes view nine as the ultimate – three times three. So, if mighty Beethoven stopped at nine, lesser mortals would surely have to do the same.”
When Chicago Ran The Movies
A hundred years ago Chicago built a thriving movie industry. And then… it moved to Hollywood. “The central location; the center of a transportation hub; the idea of raw materials coming in and being transformed into something else and then getting shipped out — that’s Chicago.
Tomorrow’s Conductors Today
The American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival is “one of the most ambitious such programs in the world. David Zinman also believes it is the best. During its short history, it has produced more than 120 alumni, including Daniel Meyer, resident conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony; Mei- Ann Chen, assistant conductor of the Oregon Symphony; and Jonathan Schiffman, music director of the Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon- Provence in France.”
A Star Architect Meets Dance
Architect Zaha Hadid is collaborating on a piece of dance at the Lincoln Center Festival: “What’s interesting about dance is that there isn’t a single linear path through the stage. There’s always overlap and interplay. If you look at the movement in dance, you see that dancers occupy the space differently at every single moment. They occupy the stage in different ways.”
A New Stamp On The Salzburg Festival
Directors of the formidible Salzburg Festival have tended to be larger than life. Enter rookie Jürgen Flimm: “Here the whole festival is my stage. My job is to orchestrate productions the way a director orchestrates the characters in a play. The citizenry and visitors are characters too.”
The Woman Behind The JT LeRoy Literary Hoax
“What some call simple fraud, she describes as the result of her own multiple personalities which predate the books. She tried to explain this to the Manhattan court, but its judgement seemed to reject her position. ‘It’s so difficult to explain. When people think of multiple personalities, they think of Sybil. It’s not like that for me. I don’t go to sleep and another personality takes over. I’m aware, I’m conscious, but it’s like I’ve moved to the back of the bike and they’re driving’.”
The Barnes, In The Flesh
“Now, as the foundation, in financial trouble, moves ever closer to leaving its odd home and transplanting its collection to a new building planned for downtown Philadelphia — a decision viewed as essential by some and apostasy by others — Harry Sefarbi is often seen as more than just a veteran teacher of Barnes’s method. He has become a voluble, cane-carrying symbol of all the ethereal qualities that critics of the move fear may be lost in the foundation’s translation to a sleeker, more contemporary space.”