MORNING REPORT - News from July 20, 2000

The Main Event: Barbra Streisand will end her concert career this September with a pair of shows at Staples Center and two more at Madison Square Garden in New York. The 58-year-old singer “has chosen to conclude her public performance career in the two cities most closely associated with her work,” Martin Erlichman, her longtime manager, said Wednesday. The Staples shows will be Sept. 20 and 21, and tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster on July 30. Despite selling millions of albums since her Grammy-winning debut in 1963, Streisand has been famously uncomfortable with concerts. Before a series of 1993 shows, she had not performed in public for pay for more than 20 years. In recent years, she has made only rare returns to the spotlight--among them several hugely successful shows at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to ring in the year 2000. After the upcoming shows, Streisand will turn her attention back to film. According to Erlichman, she’s considering a project in which she would direct but not star.

THE ARTS

New Kennedy Center Chief: Michael Kaiser, who resigned last month as executive director of London’s Royal Opera House, on Wednesday was named president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Kaiser, 47, was credited with turning around the fortunes of the national venue in Covent Garden, which is home to the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet. He will start his duties in Washington on Feb. 1, 2001. Kaiser previously served as executive director at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and American Ballet Theater.

TELEVISION

Bigger ‘Brother’: CBS will try to capitalize on the success of “Survivor” by expanding its other summer series, “Big Brother,” to Wednesdays beginning next week. CBS will move the one-hour live show--when “Big Brother” contestants are voted out of the house--to follow “Survivor,” paring the Thursday installment down to half an hour. That means “Big Brother” will air in prime time every night but Sunday, through September.

Doss Exits ‘NBC Nightly News’: After nearly five years as executive producer of “NBC Nightly News,” during which the show has become the top-rated evening newscast, David Doss is leaving to look at new media opportunities. Jonathan Wald, senior broadcast producer on the show, was named acting executive producer.

QUICK TAKES

Italian conductor Riccardo Muti has turned down an offer to become the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, saying he didn’t have the time to devote to the job. . . . Anne Hamburger, whose first season as artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse began in May, has decided to leave after the season is over to take a job as the Los Angeles-based executive vice president of creative entertainment for Disney theme parks and resorts.