The merger between Southern California’s Southwest Museum and the Autry Museum pairs a great collection with (finally) the resources to build on it. But it will take more than money to turn around the Southwest. “Inadequate display and storage facilities, employee theft from the collection, shoddy record-keeping, daunting conservation needs, a chronic lack of funding and an incompetent board were among the Himalayan-size hurdles faced by L.A.’s oldest museum.”
Tag: 12.15.02
Putting Fort Worth On The Architectural Map
Tadao Ando’s design for the new Fort Worth Modern Art Museum should establish him once and for all as one of the world’s architectural masters, says Benjamin Forgey. “There is no mystery or ceremony in approaching the high, off-center entryway of the Ando building. You just go in. And then, right away, you begin to experience the magic, generosity, subtlety and self-confidence of Ando’s art.”
The Kimmel Center, One Year In
One year after Philadelphia’s dramatic new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts made its debut, the jury is still out on whether it’s a success. On the plus side, attendance is generally good, and acoustic improvements are being gradually made. On the other hand, the acoustics are hardly what they should be, there are cosmetic problems everywhere, public access is much more limited than promised, and who could forget the sprinkler-system malfunction which doused the Philadelphia Orchestra with dirty water two weeks ago?
The Rodney Dangerfield Of Opera Composers
If there are two undeniable truths in the world of opera, they are: 1) Audiences can never get enough Puccini; and 2) Musicologists have had just about enough of him. Even as scholars began to (finally) embrace other Italian opera composers like Verdi and Donizetti a few decades back, Puccini was left behind, an afterthought in the study of “serious” opera. Now, a new study of the man and his work may finally drag the musicological community into line with the people who pack opera houses for the latest production of Tosca.
Struggling To Stay On Top
The Houston Symphony musicians have fired another public shot at their management, warning that if proposed cuts to the orchestra’s schedule and compensation package are implemented, it would mean the effective end of a major orchestral presence in the nation’s fourth-largest city: “The success of any campaign for the sustenance of this orchestra depends not in part, but entirely on the ongoing preservation of the symphony’s artistic stature.”
It’s Not One Thing, It’s Everything
So what exactly is wrong with Nicholas Maw’s adaptation of Sophie’s Choice? What isn’t? “The opera’s novel-like narrative plays badly onstage. None of the three main characters – the refugee Sophie, her charismatic but mentally ill Brooklyn boyfriend Nathan, and the bystanding narrator Stingo – has a strong entrance. Character expositions are antitheatrical, dispersed rather than concentrated. The first two acts don’t end so much as they stop. Scene after scene lacks a context that might infuse the mundane hi-how-are-you moments in the libretto with significance.”
Get Your Art At A Christmas Discount
And you thought only the malls were crass and commercial enough to blitz you with Christmas sales! As it happens, lots of galleries and art dealers are looking to cash in on the holiday buying spirit as well, and there may be no better time to pick up some smaller pieces for your collection. “Smart art shoppers have come to rely on the annual discounts to stuff stockings or fill out their own collections, and little guilt is expressed over taking home art by the famous or the nearly-famous at garage-sale prices.”
And The Meek Shall Inherit The Record Business
“Once again this year there was much gnashing of teeth throughout the music business about the ongoing ‘demise’ of classical recording. But… while classical Goliaths like BMG, Decca and Philips have cut back on the number of releases, this has had the positive result of halting much wasteful duplication of repertory. The fact remains that 2002 still brought plenty of important and interesting classical releases, many of them from smaller independent companiesthat are now the shining hope of a battered industry.”