“Opera has long revelled in its highbrow glamour and artistic mastery but increasingly, here and overseas, the art has been drawn towards a bigger, more mainstream appeal. And that means playing up its stars’ sex appeal, attracting a potential new audience that might otherwise find opera arcane or intimidating.”
Tag: 08.17.08
Daniel Barenboim’s “Noble Folly”
“Barenboim’s reflections on the enterprise reveal that it was never more than a noble folly. Is there a connection between art and fractious life? Does music actually have the power to sponsor brotherhood, as Beethoven claimed in the boisterous finale of his ninth symphony? Only metaphorically…”
Elliott Carter @ 99
“The constant remark made about Carter during the Tanglewood festival was that he is unique in music history. No major composer has ever been so vital for so long.”
Tate Director Gets Job For Life
Sir Nicholas Serota, the formidable and contentious director of the Tate galleries whose contract was about to expire, has been made a “permanent employee” to stand at the helm of the galleries indefinitely, The Independent has learnt.
Movie Ratings Get More Nonsensical
“Each week, in its ongoing campaign to become sillier and more perplexing, the Motion Picture Association of America’s Classification and Rating Administration (MPAA and CARA for short) contributes another series of film ratings, along with reasons, briefly (or “momentarily”) stated, for those ratings.”
Canadian National Ballet Soloist Jumps To Dirty Dancing
“I’ll be doing eight shows a week. I’m going to take it one show at a time and try to keep it a little bit different each time. At the ballet we had so many casts for each show, you’d maybe get to do three shows maximum. Here you really get to build your character, once you’ve worked past the nerves and stress.”
Gustavo Dudamel – Too Much Stardom Too Fast?
“Dudamel is undoubtedly a bright hope for the future, but one worries about the damage potential of too much hype too soon. Luckily, he comes across as a sensible, down-to-earth young man, who might himself acknowledge that he would benefit from slowing down a bit, getting some more living under his belt, the better to probe beneath the surface of such masterworks.”
Why Should We Really Care About Spelling?
“In a recent survey, 54% of UK employers said spelling mistakes on a CV were by far their biggest pet-hate. And only this week a judge branded a court official ‘illiterate’ after receiving a charge sheet littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.”
Charge: UK’s Richard And Judy Book Club Treats Audience As Idiots
“Certain totemic elements, certain gongs must been struck for a novel to be worthy of presentation to a mass audience. This is a coarsening. ‘[The Richard and Judy book club] is a wasted opportunity … They have a massive captive audience of people who aren’t completely undiscerning; they aren’t stupid. Why are they treating them as if they are stupid? There is an opportunity to use that connection to turn a generation on to good writing.”
Photographers Under Public Attack
“The internet is home to a fast-growing, worldwide community of photographers who feel their hobby is being gradually outlawed by an increasingly paranoid society. But the photographers from America, Canada, Australia and beyond all seem to agree on one thing: nowhere is the situation worse than in Britain.”