“What is it that makes people who have earned some success or social status imagine that they have the gift to command musical attention? Why, for instance, does the present chairman of English National Opera, Martin Smith, conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (which he once financed), albeit in private performances? Why did the former chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga, demand to conduct top US and European orchestras, albeit in exchange for a million-dollar donation? Are these men so deficient in reality sensors that they fail to consider what orchestral musicians who work with real maestros must make of their pathetic presumption?”
Tag: 08.31.05
Italy’s Endangered Cultural Treasures
Many of Italy’s most famous cultural sites are in peril, and the government is embarking on a campaign to increase awareness of the problem. “Pollution, vandalism and natural decay have all contributed to the condition of many cultural sites. ‘The care and defence of our cultural and artistic heritage isn’t only the state’s responsibility, it is every Italian’s. Italians must care for the great art they have around them today, or it may not be there for future generations’.”
“Cuban Nijinsky” Defects To US
Rolando Sarabia, 23, one of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s leading dancers, has defected to the US. “His departure, which was first reported by the Spanish newspaper El País, will be keenly felt in Cuba. Critics have called him the “Cuban Nijinsky” and compared him to the young Mikhail Baryshnikov. A company dancer since 1999, he has won ballet competitions in Paris; Varna, Bulgaria; and Jackson, Miss. Christened Sarabita by his many fans, Mr. Sarabia is the love object of at least half the adolescent balletomanes in Cuba, of which there are many.