Carnival Center Looking for Fundraising Help
Florida’s Carnival Center for the Performing Arts is a new, first-class facility that has had difficulty attracting private donations, reports the Miami Herald. To improve this situation, the center’s president, Michael Hardy, invited CEO Michael Kaiser and several other executives from Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center to tour the Miami complex and offer some advice.
The Kennedy Center sells 85 percent of its tickets and can raise as much as $70 million in donations in a year. Carnival currently raises $2.2 million in yearly support. Suggested remedies include spending money to attract donations in the expectation that better quality programming and more media coverage will reap future rewards. One proposal involves commissioning a new opera. The Carnival Center plans to complete a five-year plan in November, said the report.
www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6814.html
www.carnivalcenterperformingarts.com/events.php
Dodge Foundation Makes Grants in New Jersey
The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation of Morristown, N.J. has made major grants to New Jersey’s arts organizations, reports the Newark Star Ledger. Some of the larger groups are not receiving more than last year, but the New Jersey Symphony is receiving $175,000 and Princeton’s New Jersey Opera Theatre gets $30,000.
Montclair State University will receive $10,000 for the production of the opera Elmer Gantry, which is based on the Sinclair Lewis novel. The opera, set to open Jan. 23, 2008, features music by Robert Aldridge and a libretto by Herschel Garfein.
Atlanta Opera Polls Subscribers
Atlanta Opera hired the Gallup Poll organization to survey several hundred of its current and former subscribers, asking their opinions on the company’s move to a suburban theater, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Most of those polled did not object to the move. Seventy percent said they would attend opera in a theater that was not in the center of the city, but that driving time was important. Amenities, such as restaurants, were also a factor, but most subscribers preferred the suburban location. The poll also found that the appearances of famous singers had little influence on subscribers’ desire to attend a performance.
www.accessatlanta.com
Landau Leaves IMG Artists
Edna Landau, senior vice president and managing director of IMG Artists, has left the management firm after more than two decades to “pursue new opportunities in the arts, education, and corporate world,” reports Billboard.biz. Elizabeth Sobol, who has been with IMG since its inception, has assumed Landau’s post.
IMG has been expanding beyond the world of classical music and now has a joint venture with the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, a company that deals with motion pictures and television, said the report.
www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i3d0f320aaf6dea314e5f8b6e115e2dd2
www.imgartists.com/?page=news/index.html&id=89
Opera Booming in the United States
The United States now has some 125 professional opera companies, most inaugurated during the past 25 years, says the online business magazine The American. Opera attendance grew 46 percent between 1982 and 2002, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. Annual admissions now approach 20 million, only two million less than the tickets sold in 2006-2007 for NFL football.
Currently, the United States has more opera companies than Germany and almost twice as many as Italy. Both European countries have state-supported opera companies that can spend far more on productions, but American opera companies raised $387 million in private donations for 2005.
www.american.com
(search for “opera boom”)
Milan Opera to Exhibit Callas Memorabilia
The Teatro alla Scala will mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Maria Callas with two exhibits and a coffee-table book. Off-stage photos of the singer will be on view from September through November, and a display of costumes Callas wore will be on display from September 2007 through January 2008. The soprano, whose career was inextricably entwined with Milanese opera, died of a heart attack Sept. 16, 1977.
The book, published by Allemandi, will document Callas’ 10 seasons with the company. Callas debuted there in December 1951, in Verdi’s I vespri Siciliani.
www.teatroallascala.org
www.callas.it/news/english/romano.html
Police Using Classical Music to Fight Crime
The police department in Tacoma, Wash. believes that playing classical music at bus stops will decrease vandalism and keep gang members from using public transportation, according to the city’s News Tribune. The police are broadcasting music played by radio station KING FM from speakers high above the public waiting area of the Mall Transit Center. If the technique is effective, police will install more speakers at heavily used bus stations known to have crime problems, said
the report.
www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/121533.html
‘Regietheater’ Meets Resistance in the United States
Opera professionals know that many new productions of well-known works involve a great deal more than a simple retelling of a familiar story. “Regietheater” (German for “director’s theater”), which elevates the stage director to the position once held by the conductor, is now evident in all corners of the United States even though it is not universally accepted by audiences or donors.
In the summer issue of New York’s City Journal, Heather MacDonald writes extensively on the excesses of this new way of producing opera. Whether you agree or disagree with her, it is important for singers to know what is being written on such an important subject.
www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_urbanities-regietheater.html
