“[C]redit analysts at Standard & Poor’s say they believe that the nearly three dozen nonprofit cultural institutions the company rates will ‘manage their businesses reasonably well during this recession,’ just as they have weathered past economic downturns.”
Tag: 10.13.09
The Right Wing’s Absurd, Online Obama-Art Freak-Out
The list of art borrowed by the White House “had been generally known since spring, but that story had appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s culture pages, not in its hard-right Op-Ed section, so the right wing paid scant attention. Now the Free Republic website was busily declaring ‘Fraud,’ with delightful blogger Beelzebubba gloating, ‘Freeper breaks the story.'”
NY City Opera Director And Board Survive Coup Attempt: Report
“A source with knowledge of the discussions … [said] that a group of former City Opera board members tried to form a coalition to oust key members of the current City Opera board, and had recruited Joe Volpe, former head of the Metropolitan Opera, as their standard-bearer” to replace new general director George Steel.
Where Robert Altman Came From (Besides Kansas City)
“[H]e was a pilot at the tag end of the Pacific war, a member of a crew, and someone who survived great peril in flimsy aircraft. It made a gambler out of him – or someone who declined to be as responsible as others.”
El Sistema Opens First US Program
“The Abreu Fellows Program [at New England Conservatory of Music] provides tuition-free instruction and a living stipend for young postgraduate musicians who seek to develop El Sistema programs in the U.S. and beyond.”
The Problem With The Battle Over The Met’s New Tosca
Both defenders and detractors of Luc Bondy’s staging “have seized on this event as a watershed event in the history of opera in America and have been flogging their opinions of the production endlessly so as to advance their broader agenda. So once again, poor Floria Tosca has become a victim in a war that she wanted nothing to do with.”
London’s First Adult Puppetry Festival In 25 Years
The director of the ten-day Suspense festival says that “recent shows such as War Horse, Avenue Q and Anthony Minghella’s Madam Butterfly have revealed how ‘sophisticated, irrational, grotesque and potent the artform can be’.”
Sadler’s Wells Tries Movie-Style Trailers Before Performances
“The trailers will highlight forthcoming productions at both the Peacock and the Sadler’s Wells main house, including Jump, Christmas show The Snowman and Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.“
Temporary Truce At Escondido, Cal. Arts Center
“Turmoil at Escondido’s struggling performing arts center was partly alleviated this week when city officials agreed to tell arts center trustees how their performance would be judged and what might prompt the city to reduce their power. The move comes one week after city officials threatened to withhold operating cash from the center.”
Alagna v. Gheorghiu: Opera’s Erstwhile ‘Love Couple’ Now Splitsville
Tempestuous soprano Angela Gheorghiu and turbulent tenor Roberto Alagna were once the opera world’s best-publicized love match, married on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House by then-mayor Rudy Giuliani. This weekend, their long-rumored separation became public via dueling statements to the press.