The Seattle-area orchestra’s new executive director has been changing long-established procedures and incurred the wrath of musicians.
Tag: 12.02.08
Renzo Piano To Design Major Reconstruction Project In Malta’s Historic Capital
The Maltese government has approved a plan for architect Renzo Piano to undertake a reconstruction that could change the face of Valletta, the country’s capital. While the old walled city is filled with attractive Baroque buildings, the City Gate as it stands now is notoriously rundown and unattractive. Piano is to design a new landmark structure for the City Gate as well as a new Parliament building on the site of the old Royal Opera House.
Original Masters Of Nellie Melba’s First Recordings Found
The gramophone era’s first female opera star made her first recordings in 1904, and the original metal masters (electroplated from the wax cylinders engraved by the machine into which she sang) have been rediscovered, stashed away deep in the Deutsche Grammophon archives. “Many were buckled and distorted, but modern techniques allow them to be restored to near-pristine condition. There’s no digital enhancing. Melba sings exactly as she would have done in her drawing room 104 years ago.”
Theatre Online, V. 2.0
“The New York-based Ontological-Hysteric Theatre is in the process of rehearsing its new show, Astronome – A Night at the Opera, and will be streaming its rehearsals online every Wednesday evening until the show opens. This idea has excited bloggers stateside. George Hunka says, ‘It’s a unique offering from two unique theatre and music artists… watch Foreman, his cast and his crew create a new work before your very eyes. You want the theatrical process available through the internet, you’ve got it.”
And So The ‘Synergy’ Begins: NY Post Runs Wall St. Journal Content
Never let it be said that Rupert Murdoch doesn’t try to get value for his money. This past weekend, for the first time, his New York Post ran a story from The Wall Street Journal, which Murdoch’s News Corp. acquired last year as part of its purchase of Dow Jones. Journal staffers expect more of this, and it makes them queasy: “If this becomes common practice, Journal stories could be published in the tabloid with Post headlines and graphics, or vice versa. Not to mention story subjects who agree to an interview with one paper might not be aware of it running in another that day.”
Ballet BC: Not Out Of The Woods Yet, But At Least On The Path
The Vancouver company made headlines last week when it laid off its entire staff in response to a severe cash crunch. Since the news broke, Ballet BC’s situation has improved as thousands of people have bought tickets to its annual (imported) Nutcracker, the indispensable cash cow for virtually every North American ballet company.
At Least They’ve Gotten One Marble Back
“Greece welcomed back on Tuesday a marble fragment from a frieze decorating the Parthenon temple which an Austrian soldier removed during World War Two… An inscription on the fragment, measuring 7-by-30 cm (2.8 by 12 inches), says it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943 – in the midst of the three-year occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, led by Germany.”
Roman Polanski Tries To Get Statutory Rape Charge Voided
“Thirty years after he fled the U.S. to avoid sentencing on child molestation charges, Academy Award-winning director Roman Polanski has filed a formal request to have the case dismissed.” His attorneys cited alleged misconduct by the presiding judge and district attorney’s office, as revealed in the HBO documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.
‘I Wanted To Grab The Sun And Bring It Inside The Court.’
Architect Dominique Perrault’s new European Court of Justice building in Luxembourg features a pair of “pencil-thin gold towers” that “light up like a pair of giant candles” in the late afternoon sun, a light-filled central plaza, and a central judges’ chamber surrounded by a gold-colored “woven steel veil, which floats over the court like an improbably glamorous mosquito net over the bed of a fairytale princess.”
The Pangs Of Hell (Or Something) Are Raging In Their Bosoms
“There are 30 seconds of perfectly groomed young women in the back-arching, pupils-dilating throes of carnal abandon – either in flagrante delicto with a partner, or in the bath, or pressed against a window, that sort of thing” in the current UK television ad for a Durex feminine lubricant. The accompanying music is “Der Hölle rache,” the Queen of the Night’s stratospheric vengeance aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute.