Nureyev: Legend and Legacy

[California]

An interesting program in early September on Nureyev: Legend and Legacy  at Theatre Royal Drury Lane: https://lwtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/nureyev-legend-and-legacy/

Not clear if this is a fundraiser for something (what?) or whether ordinary tickets will be available along with the very expensive VIP tickets.

Anybody know what this is about?

[California]

9 hours ago, California said:

An interesting program in early September on Nureyev: Legend and Legacy  at Theatre Royal Drury Lane: https://lwtheatres.co.uk/whats-on/nureyev-legend-and-legacy/

Not clear if this is a fundraiser for something (what?) or whether ordinary tickets will be available along with the very expensive VIP tickets.

Anybody know what this is about?

Booking now available for Nureyev: Legend and Legacy for five performances on September 5, 6, and 12, with tickets starting at 25 GBP. Still not clear what funds are being raised for, other than (possibly) the Nureyev Foundation.

https://booking.lwtheatres.co.uk/event/f8045eba-58cc-ec11-8396-a2de2f294bbc/#_ga=2.151894138.255075581.1652282580-744035630.1652282580

[volcanohunter]

The Nureyev gala will be available on demand on Marquee TV from September 6. I'm guessing for subscribers?

Edited September 2, 2022 by volcanohunter

[California]

38 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

The Nureyev gala will be available on demand on Marquee TV from September 6. I'm guessing for subscribers?

I'm a subscriber and it looks like they are charging us an extra $9.99 to "rent." They have had surcharges on other things, which I find annoying, after buying a one-year subscription. I hope I'm misreading this!

[volcanohunter]

On 5/12/2022 at 3:56 AM, California said:

Still not clear what funds are being raised for, other than (possibly) the Nureyev Foundation.

One of the gala's "producers" is the UK's richest man, Leonard Blavatnik, whose philanthropy and political donations have come under scrutiny repeatedly. Personally, I wouldn't be inclined to spend money on the gala in any way, shape or form.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/may/16/questions-raised-about-uk-arts-donations-of-leonard-blavatnik

https://www.spisok-putina.org/en/personas/blavatnik-2/

[volcanohunter]

P S. Until mid-July the Bolshoi's TV program "Ticket to the Bolshoi" began with the acknowledgement: "This film was created with charitable support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation," but in the most recent episode it was gone, which I suppose to mean that Blavatnik is trying to distance himself from Russia and accusations that he made his fortune thanks to Putin.

[Mashinka]

I am going tomorrow.  To be honest I've never heard about this bloke.  They never sell stuff with a "dodgy Russian oligarch" disclaimer here.

[volcanohunter]

I haven't the foggiest notion about the sort of people who own £41 million mansions in Kensington Gardens. For several years whenever I saw an episode of Bilet v Bolshoi, it began by acknowledging the sponsorship of the Blavatnik Family Foundation. I had no idea what that was and assumed the sponsor was domestic.

On the one hand journalists write that Blavatnik keeps a low profile.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-06-03/len-blavatnik-net-worth-quiet-billionaire-separates-fortune-from-russian-money

On the other hand, buildings are named or renamed after him:

"In 2016, he donated a tidy (confidential) sum to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, which renamed the entrance hall of its new extension for him, and Tate Modern’s Switch House extension was renamed the Blavatnik Building after he donated £50 million. In 2020, he donated £10 million to the Courtauld Institute in London; the year after, he put up nearly half the funds to buy a £20.1 million rare manuscript collection for the U.K. organization Friends of the National Library."

https://www.artnews.com/art-collectors/top-200-profiles/len-blavatnik/

Whatever the needs of the Nureyev Foundation, Blavatnik could cover them without putting a dent in his fortune.

Edited September 4, 2022 by volcanohunter

[Mashinka]

Britain is a basically philistine country, all arts organizations are desperate for sponsors, no questions asked, and they are often foreign.  They cough up the cash because it's an ego trip to see their names on things, e.g. Vilar.  The names change when the money runs out.  Donors names never register with me at all.

[California]

3 hours ago, Mashinka said:

Britain is a basically philistine country, all arts organizations are desperate for sponsors, no questions asked, and they are often foreign.  They cough up the cash because it's an ego trip to see their names on things, e.g. Vilar.  The names change when the money runs out.  Donors names never register with me at all.

I wonder if there is a connection to the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Colorado! In the US, the desperate search for donors, rewarded with naming opportunities, is also widespread.

https://vilarpac.org/

[nanushka]

2 minutes ago, California said:

I wonder if there is a connection to the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Colorado! In the US, the desperate search for donors, rewarded with naming opportunities, is also widespread.

https://vilarpac.org/

Yes, there is. Vilar's fall was notorious.

Quote

A lasting effect, however, clearly came from the severe decline in his personal fortune due to the crash in technology stocks around 2000. It is documented that Vilar still continued to make pledges even as his personal and his company's fortunes continued to plunge. Among the pledges were $5 million for money for voice loss research after meeting Julie Andrews and $30 million to a Berlin opera company: "Asking Alberto for money was like offering an alcoholic a drink".^[8] However, many of his pledges were never paid.

...

Many of the organizations to which Vilar had pledged donations gradually began to remove his name from parts of their institutions where it had been prominently placed.

In July 2005 the Royal Opera House announced that, following Vilar's failure to maintain the agreed payment schedule, his name would be removed from the building. Later his name was removed from the young artists program when a new donor stepped forward.

At the Metropolitan Opera, where his name appeared on the "Vilar Grand Tier", it has since been removed. The Washington Opera's young artists program has also been renamed (after additional support was found) as the "Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program", and the Kennedy Center's "Arts Management Fellowship" program has similarly dropped the Vilar name.

 

[Drew]

If one is waiting for “clean hands” money to support the performing arts, then one will be waiting a loooooong time. And State funding doesn’t solve the problem. Some private patrons, like some governments, may be worse or even much worse than others but the sources of that kind of wealth are all pretty bad, and many of them horrible....and going back millenia.  I am not saying one can’t make distinctions, but I find many of those distinctions to be artificial. I may SAY “New York State Theater” on this website where almost everyone knows what I am talking about....but like it or not that theater (renamed the David Koch Theater) is now a monument to a man I loathe whose influence on the U.S. (and world) has been pernicious.  As for where the money goes for some of these galas that are not attached to any company or high profile institutions, rumors abound and....nothing edifying. (To be clear: I have never heard rumors about the Nureyev gala specifically.)

Edited September 5, 2022 by Drew
Spelling

[Helene]

I remember this same discussion from when PBS started to advertise the sponsors, like Exxon.

I'm guessing the discussion has been going on for all of those millenia.

[California]

1 hour ago, Helene said:

I remember this same discussion from when PBS started to advertise the sponsors, like Exxon.

I'm guessing the discussion has been going on for all of those millenia.

PBS has had what it calls "enhanced underwriting" since the early 90s - essentially 30-second commercials to offset the loss of federal funding.

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-1995-06-07-9506070196-story.html

[California]

2 hours ago, Drew said:

If one is waiting for “clean hands” money to support the performing arts, then one will be waiting a loooooong time. And State funding doesn’t solve the problem. Some private patrons, like some governments, may be worse or even much worse than others but the sources of that kind of wealth are all pretty bad, and many of them horrible....and going back millenia.  I am not saying one can’t make distinctions, but I find many of those distinctions to be artificial. I may SAY “New York State Theater” on this website where almost everyone knows what I am talking about....but like it or not that theater (renamed the David Koch Theater) is now a monument to a man I loathe whose influence on the U.S. (and world) has been pernicious.  As for where the money goes for some of these galas that are not attached to any company or high profile institutions, rumors abound and....nothing edifying. (To be clear: I have never heard rumors about the Nureyev gala specifically.)

And look at the origins of the money for the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations (and many others). They do a lot of good now, but historically those individuals did enormous damage to the country. It's interesting that Sackler money is being rejected now with the public awareness of the opiod crisis - or, at least, their name is being removed even if the money isn't being returned.