June 23, 2004

Arts Briefing

IGHLIGHTS

FIGHTING FILM PIRACY The movie industry is offering bounties as high as $500 to theater employees who catch pirates illegally recording films and report them to the police. The payments will come from the Anti-Camcording Rewards Program announced on Monday by the Motion Picture Association of America, representing the major studios, and the National Association of Theater Owners, according to a Reuters-Hollywood Reporter account. Matt Grossman, the association spokesman, said that most films that turn up on the Internet had been filmed by a camcorder during their first few days of release in the United States. Overseas laboratories use the pirated films to create illegal DVD's for sale around the world. The amount of the rewards under the new program is at the discretion of the association, which is financing it.

BAD VIBES FROM ROCK The director of the Hermitage Museum lashed out yesterday against events like the Paul McCartney concert on Sunday in St. Petersburg, Russia, contending that the noise was damaging to its priceless paintings and calling such shows "totally unacceptable." In comments published in an opinion column in the daily newspaper Izvestia, the director, Mikhail Piotrovski, said that when Hermitage art travels for exhibitions, "we do not ship any of our paintings by airplane" to avoid potentially damaging vibrations, Agence France-Presse reported. He said the sound from the McCartney concert, which attracted 60,000 fans to the central square outside the Winter Palace, part of the Hermitage, was "incomparably more powerful than that of any airplane," and that "something has to be done so there are no more of these types of shows."

REPLACING ALISTAIR COOKE The BBC will use a lineup of American journalists in a new series as replacements for Alistair Cooke and his "Letter From America" on BBC Radio 4. The new 10-minute series, "State of the Union," beginning on July 9, will feature local views of life in the United States as it heads toward the presidential election in November, the BBC reported. Mr. Cooke's essays, which began in 1946, ended just before he died at 95 in March. Maria Balinska, editor of the new program, said the producers of "Letter From America" never intended to replace Mr. Cooke. "Our thinking was always to have a show with a group of people," she said. "It is impossible to replace him." Commentators on "State of the Union" will include Robert Hodierne, an editor of Military Times, the Detroit News writer Betty DeRamus and the Arkansas journalist Paul Greenberg.

QUASTHOFF CANCELLATION Bronchitis has forced the German baritone Thomas Quasthoff, left, to cancel his four scheduled appearances with the Oregon Bach Festival, which begins on Friday in Eugene, Ore. Mr. Quastoff has been advised by his doctor not to fly and to rest his voice. He was to have sung on June 30, July 3, July 7 and July 11, when the festival closes with a performance of Mendelssohn's "Elijah." Organizers of the festival have replaced Mr. Quasthoff with other performers and, in some instances, revised the programs.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 'BILLY ELLIOT — THE MUSICAL' With music by Elton John, the stage version of the popular British film "Billy Elliot" is to open on March 11 at the Victoria Palace in London. Behind the production stands the same team that created the 2000 film about the 11-year-old son of a widowed miner who turns away from boxing and is determined to win a place in the Royal Ballet School. Stephen Daldry, who won an Oscar nomination, will return as the director; Lee Hall as the writer (and lyricist); and Peter Darling as the choreographer. A search is in progress for a boy to play the title role in "Billy Elliot — The Musical."

FOOTNOTES

Bob Dylan is to be joined by Willie Nelson on a 22-date musical tour that will take them to minor-league baseball parks across the country, beginning at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Aug. 6, The Associated Press reported. The tour will close on Sept. 4 in Kansas City, Kan. . . . The alternative music to be heard this summer at one of Europe's biggest outdoor rock events is . . . opera. Works by Puccini, Verdi and Wagner and performances by the Danish Royal Opera, a chamber choir and a symphony orchestra will be on the program at the annual Roskilde Festival in Denmark, from July 1 through 4, The Associated Press reported. Other performers at the event, inspired by the 1969 Woodstock Festival, include David Bowie, the Pixies and Avril Lavigne.