Morning Report - News from July 12, 2002

POP/ROCK

Whitney Can’t Wait to Get Her Point Across

Whitney Houston’s new single, “Watcha Lookin’ At,” has been leaked to New York radio stations behind the backs of Arista Records executives, the Fox News Channel reports. Executives at the company were said to be more than a bit flustered because finishing touches are still being put on the untitled, long-awaited album, scheduled for release Sept. 17. Houston’s last album of all-new material was released in 1998.

On the cut, which Houston co-wrote with Atlanta producers Andrew Lewis and Jerry Mohammed, the singer takes a broad swipe at the press and others who have had a field day chronicling her turbulent personal life. In a nutshell: She tells everyone else to get a life so she can get on with hers.

Arista insiders told Fox that they probably will not take legal action in reaction to the premature release.

THE ARTS

Rubens Sale Sets Records in London

“The Massacre of the Innocents,” a recently discovered painting by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, sold Wednesday for $76.2 million--the third-highest price ever paid for a painting and the highest for one by an Old Master, Sotheby’s auction house in London said.

Painted between 1609 and 1611, the piece was only positively identified a few weeks ago, when the owner took it to a specialist at the auction house for examination. For more than 200 years, the owners believed it to be the work of artist Jan van den Hoecke.

The sum, paid by an unidentified private collector, smashed the expected price of $9 million, said Alexander Bell, head of Sotheby’s Old Master paintings department. Bell said the price was more than double what previously had been paid for a work by an Old Master, which includes the 17th century Dutch painters Jan van Eyck, Rubens and Rembrandt. Although one of the bidders is believed to have been Los Angeles’ J. Paul Getty Museum, a spokesman for the institution said it does not comment on potential acquisitions.

The painting, a depiction of the moment when King Herod ordered the slaughter of all newborn boys to get rid of the Messiah, is also said to be the most expensive painting ever sold at an auction in London--surpassing the record that was held by Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” which sold in 1987 for $35 million.

Overall, it is the third-most-expensive painting ever sold at auction, behind Van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet,” sold by Christie’s in New York for $82.5 million in 1990, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Au Moulin de la Galette,” sold by Sotheby’s in New York for $78 million the same year.

OPERA

Gilfry Withdraws From Santa Fe Production

Los Angeles baritone and rising opera star Rodney Gilfry has withdrawn from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at the Santa Fe Opera, following reports of vocal difficulty.

“Perhaps because he tried to reflect ‘Onegin’s’ stiffness in voice as well as body, perhaps because this was his debut in the part, Gilfry did not sing well,” wrote Craig Smith in a review of the opera’s June 28 opening that ran in the Sante Fe New Mexican. “Some moments were better than others, but many were worse. The question is, can the baritone master the role or will it continue to master him?”

“His condition worsened as the evening wore on,” wrote Olin Chism in the Dallas Morning News, “and by the final scene he was close to losing his voice. At one point he dropped out entirely--or perhaps it was a matter of a loud orchestra covering softly sung notes.”

Gilfry sang the title role in the opera, which is part of Santa Fe’s two-month summer opera festival, one more time, on July 2, but his understudy, Nicolai Janitzky, sang July 6 and is scheduled to perform tonight as well. Scott Hendricks, who made his Santa Fe Opera debut last summer, will sing the final five performances.

“I am extremely disappointed to be leaving this extraordinary company and my fellow cast members,” Gilfry said, announcing his departure Thursday. “But I feel it is in everyone’s best interest if I withdraw at this time.”

QUICK TAKES

Larry Elder’s local KABC-AM talk radio show will go national through a syndication deal with ABC Radio Networks starting Aug. 12, according to the Hollywood Reporter....Des McAnuff, artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, has been selected to direct the “first officially licensed and sanctioned live theatrical multimedia stage production celebrating Frank Sinatra,” according to Frank Sinatra Enterprises and Radio City Entertainment. Tina Sinatra is executive producing.... Talk show host Jerry Springer has been sued by Jeffrey Campbell, son of a guest who was killed by her ex-husband shortly after their “love-triangle” episode aired. The show created a “mood that led to murder,” Cambell claimed....”The Price is Right” host Bob Barker underwent prostate surgery Wednesday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. Barker, 78, is expected to make a full recovery....”Big Brother 3” premiered to solid ratings Wednesday with an estimated 9.2 million viewers--edging out the 9 million watching Fox’s “American Idol.”