New York City Opera costumers have voted to authorize a strike against the comnpany. “The vote, at the union’s headquarters on West 45th Street, means that the union could strike at any time, though both sides said yesterday that talks were continuing. The union’s contract expired in November.”
Tag: 08.30.03
Art Newspaper Editor Moves On
Anna Somers Cocks, founding editor of The Art Newspaper, is leaving the publication after 13 years. “Over the years I have learnt how much the art world is interconnected: how, for example, an academic publication in one country can lead to an exhibition in another that then boosts the market for a certain category of art.”
BBC Takes On Chaucer For The 21st Century
“Traditionalists, gird your loins, for they have updated Geoffrey Chaucer. From a shortlist of 10 tales they have invited the cream of today’s television writers to create contemporary versions in their own voices but true to the spirit of Chaucer’s original. ‘Chaucer held up a mirror to the 14th century and we intend to do the same for the 21st, exploring themes such as the cult of celebrity, bigotry and the obsession with youth’.”
Songs Without Words
“Most singing that we hear has words, and, although the singer may depart from those words for bar after bar of vocal gymnastics (as in a bel canto aria, for instance), we know that in the end we shall be returned to the text. It doesn’t matter that the text may be more of a pretext for music than a real text conveying important information. Nor does it seem to matter very much to many people if the text that is being sung happens to be in a language they do not understand. A song that has no text at all takes us into a different world.”
Football Network Rescues Arts Channel
A pay-TV service that has built its success on televising football and Hollywood movies, has bought a 50 percent stake in the UK Artsworld channel. Artsworld had been struggling financially for some time. “There is definitely room for growth. This deal will help us accelerate. We expect to go on to cable next year. We don’t propose to change the mix and we won’t dumb down. We retain editorial control, Rupert Murdoch won’t be ringing up demanding this or that ballet. In fact, so far our principal effect has been to spur the BBC into reviving its arts coverage.”
Anti-Infection Arts Funding
The Toronto Film Festival is getting $400,000 from the Ontario government for “SARS relief.” With SARS scaring away visitors to the province, the government set up a fund to help out. “Previously, the ministry announced it was providing the Shaw and Stratford festivals a total of $800,000 in marketing assistance to help them overcome the effects of the SARS outbreak. The TIFF money has been used for campaign aimed at potential attendees in U.S. border states and Canada as well as producers and buyers in the U.S. and overseas.”