The Economy and the Arts

An assortment of news, mostly bad, about the arts and the economy:

• parterre box says that the Opera Orchestra of New York (OONY) will be canceling its scheduled performances of Rienzi and Medea. You can't tell from their web site, though, because the last press release posted was the announcement of the 2007-08 season. (PEOPLE. More new media advice: Keep your web site up to date!)
• Los Angeles Opera is laying off 17 people, amounting to 17% of its workers.
• Lyric Opera of Chicago finished 2008 in the black, according to a comment in the parterre box posting linked to above. Thank goodness for some good news.
  
• A couple of days ago, I received email from Jehuda Reinhartz, president of Brandeis University, my alma mater, saying that the board of trustees had decided to close the Rose Art Museum and sell off its collection, owing to a big decline in the value of Brandeis's endowment. This made the Times in short order. Today, there's a report that the Massachusettes state attorney general will be looking at the proposal. There's dismay all around about this plan, because the collection is large and significant.