In Brief: Leaving for Siena

This may be the final regular Sunday roundup of links to Blogville and beyond for a while. I will be reporting from the ground in Siena starting later this week and through the beginning of August.

• As Tyler Green reported, Montgomery County, outside Philadelphia, is pulling out all the stops to try to keep the Barnes Collection on Latches Lane. Of course, this is after years of the neighborhood around the museum seemingly doing their best to keep art lovers away from the museum by limiting the number of visitors through zoning laws. [Modern Art Notes]


• When we say that Strauss and von Hoffmanstal were one of the greatest composer-librettist pairings in operatic history, we mean that they were a team. Now it's a legal fact. The heirs of Richard Strauss were ordered to share the royalties with the heirs of Hugo von Hoffmanstal, and this covers all of the operas on which the two men collaborated, including Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra. Considering how often those two operas are performed, especially the former, that must be a pretty penny. [Associated Press]


• In related news, Joyce DiDonato is making her debut at San Francisco Opera, as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. She has pictures of her costume and powdered wig at her blog. [Yankeediva]


• Brian has seen the SF Rosenkavalier: singers up, production down. [Out West Arts]


• Roberto Benigni is touring a new one-man show called "Tutto Dante." It combines stand-up comedy with, and I am not making this up, dramatic readings from Dante's Inferno. [Washington Post]


• France may have lost François Pinault and his art collection to Venice, but a new contemporary art museum has just opened in Paris, at the Place de la Madeleine. The Pinacothèque de Paris opened on June 15 with a Roy Lichtenstein exhibit. Great, now I have another reason to visit Paris. [Le Monde]