IN NEED OF A “RADICAL RETHINK”

Ever since moving into its new home in Covent Garden last winter, the Royal Opera has been plagued by financial and management crises. “Almost everything that has gone wrong at the Dome was dry-run at the ROH. The long-running crisis is neither a matter of money (the usual excuse) nor of human frailty, but of a deep-seated structural fault that can only be remedied by a radical rethink.” The Telegraph (UK)

BARENBOIM NEGOTIATES WITH BERLIN

The City of Berlin says that Daniel Barenboim will not renew his contract as director of the Staatsoper, after the city’s culture minister flies to Chicago for negotiations with Barenboim.  “Given Barenboim’s stature in the international classical music world, Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen has stated that the city should try to keep him at the Staatsoper ‘no matter what’. But so far, the city’s senate has refused to allocate additional money.” – Chicago Sun-Times

OPERA ANGEL

Vilar’s L.A. Opera donation breaks down into two parts – $6 million will go for new productions over three years, starting in 2001. One million dollars a year over the next four years will support and expand the company’s training and coaching program for young singers. These donations come on the heels of a separate Vilar pledge to L.A. Opera of $2 million, announced by its new artistic director Placido Domingo on Monday. – Los Angeles Times

ON THE ATTACK

A long parade of lawmakers testified before the Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday in response to this week’s FTC report attacking Hollywood’s marketing violent content to children. VP nominee Joseph Lieberman decried a “culture of carnage” and urged the industry to self-regulate itself, or face government intervention. – CNN 09/13/00

  • BUT WHAT IF YOU HELD A HEARING AND NOBODY CAME? Not one of the film industry executives invited to participate in Wednesday’s hearing showed up. John McCain was livid, demanding the absentees (including Michael Eisner, Rupert Murdoch, and Harvey Weinstein) show up for a follow-up hearing in two weeks. – Salon 09/14/00

  • NO, YOU’RE RUDE: Hollywood execs, meanwhile, said that Senator McCain “showed his absence of manners by inviting them Friday night to show up on short notice without ever having had time to study the report. A spokesman for one of the studios, in fact, said no invitation to appear was ever received.” – Variety 09/14/00

ARTS INSTITUTIONS CONSIDER FORMAL HIGHER EDUCATION

Arts institutions are into education big time these days. So how long before some of those programs become formalized?  Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History and John G. Shedd Aquarium have become so far-reaching in their educational purposes these days it would not be a stretch to see the three facilities, individually or as a consortium, become degree-conferring institutions. – Chicago Tribune 09/13/00

CENSORSHIP LIST

Harry Potter, Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”, John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” were among the most-singled-out books adults wanted removed from American library shelves in the 1990s says the American Library Association. – Ottawa Citizen (AP)

MIAMI OUT-DAZZLES BOLSHOI, JOFFREY

The Balanchine Celebration Festival gets underway at the Kennedy Center. And surprise – “of the three companies represented on the program – the Bolshoi Ballet, Miami City Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago – Miami got to set the exclamation points, closing each half of the evening with high-wattage show-stoppers. Its ‘Rubies’ section of the full-length ballet ‘Jewels’ was about as dazzling as one could bear.” – Washington Post