“Herbert Axelrod, the Monmouth County philanthropist turned globetrotting fugitive, pleaded not guilty to a federal tax charge in Trenton yesterday, ending a seven-month odyssey that brought him from Cuba to Switzerland to a jail cell in Germany. In his first U.S. court appearance since fleeing the country in April, the 77-year-old millionaire appeared upbeat and relaxed. He smiled and waved to friends in the courtroom gallery, at one point offering a reassuring wink.”
Tag: 11.13.04
The Music May Be The Easy Part
What does it take to put on a Ring Cycle? Well, you’ll need five years to plan the logistics, enough orchestra musicians to cover 16 hours of music, 35 scenery trucks, a tech crew of 80 professionals, a conductor healthy enough to get through the damn thing without collapsing, and oh yes, “a 10×16-metre curtain of water that doesn’t splash the orchestra, make too much noise or drown the audience.”
Kennedy Center Actor Has On-Stage Heart Attack
“Gregory Mitchell, the 52-year-old actor who suffered a heart attack onstage at the Kennedy Center on Thursday, remained hospitalized in serious condition yesterday. Mitchell was appearing as an angel in a play starring the legendary dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. The two were performing a scene in which Mitchell’s character was trying to rescue Baryshnikov’s character, a retired sailor who has thrown himself into the sea. Mitchell appeared to be breathing heavily and then fell backward.” A doctor attending the play immediately came backstage to treat the actor, and Mitchell was quickly rushed to the hospital. The play has resumed performances with a replacement angel.
Quick, Write A Book!
“If, as some people believe, every single person has a novel inside himself, then a lot of people have been wasting a lot of time doing a lot of things other than writing.” The organizer of the unexpectedly popular National Novel Writing Month, which encourages amateur Dostoyevskys everywhere to crank out a full-length work in just 30 days, has a new treatise to promote, focusing on – you guessed it – “a pragmatic, populist approach to fiction writing.” Can great art actually result from this? Maybe not, but the point isn’t perfection, it’s encouraging the creative process in a society which has increasingly discarded it.
The Composer as Chameleon
Krzysztof Penderecki was once a leader of the musical avant-garde, a deliberate iconoclast who preached the gospel of the new and swore by complexity for its own sake. But unlike so many of his contemporaries in the 20th-century music world, Penderecki eventually responded to public distaste for the avant-garde by embracing tonality, even if only as a balm to soothe the ravaged ears of the modern listener. The composer’s willingness and ability to adapt to changing styles has made him one of the most in-demand artists of his era, and he continues to write new material constantly, even as his career enters its sixth decade.
Dutoit On The Rebound
More than two years after his highly public divorce from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit remains at the top of guest conducting wish lists in Pittsburgh, Dallas, Minneapolis, and countless other cities. The change in his primary role, from being at the helm of one or two orchestras to that of a hired gun, has allowed Dutoit to refocus his energies on maintaining what he calls the “Russian-French” tradition of conducting. That tradition is one of the modern music world’s last connections to the old days of Koussevitsky and Monteux, and Dutoit clearly sees himself as one of the last guardians of the classic orchestral form.
Is Europe Heading Towards The American Funding Model?
European museums are rapidly being forced to confront a new economic reality in which the centuries-old tradition of government funding appears to be withering on the vine. “Such is the crisis in government financing for British museums that their acquisitions budgets can no longer match market prices. In the case of the Tate, its buying power is about 5 percent of what it was two decades ago… Is this the moment when corporate sponsorship of major arts institutions finally becomes respectable in Europe? The answers seem obvious. How else can museums remain vigorous?”
Gem Finds A Buyer
August Wilson’s beleagured play, Gem of the Ocean, has found a new lead investor to rescue its recently delayed Broadway run from oblivion. San Francisco producer Carole Shorenstein Hays has stepped into the funding void after receiving a call from executives at Jujamcyn Theaters. Rehearsals will start up again this week, with previews set to begin later in the month.
One-Man Magazine
“Esopus magazine is a thing of lavish, eccentric beauty, less flipped through than stared at, forcing readers to reconcile their expectations of what a magazine is with the strange artifact in their laps… But pull back the cover of Esopus and you will find only Tod Lippy, designer, editor, conjurer. Just Tod Lippy, with his one d and his conceit that he can make the magazine he wants and that people will give him $10 for each one and that then he can make another one. With a circulation of 5,000 and a twice-a-year schedule – it came out of nowhere in 2003 – it is not so much a magazine as a cult that meets semiannually.”
Boston’s New Nutcracker
A whole new Nutcracker is not exactly what Boston Ballet was hoping to mount this holiday season. But when the city’s Wang Center booted its longtime December tenant in favor of a touring show with better special effects, the company was forced to reinvent its holiday staple in a new space, with less room to maneuver, smaller audiences, and a smaller budget to match. The result will be a Nutcracker that Boston audiences won’t recognize: “About 40 costumes have been redesigned… The company is using, for the first time, an extensive network of computer-programmed sets of moving and LED lights for a different look,” and new scenery aims to make the best use of the space.