Failure: what's it good for in arts and higher education?

By Sally Taylor. Failure is a fact of life for artists and academics, says Sally Taylor – must arts graduates learn to live with it too? Earlier this month the acclaimed theatre opera and film director Patrice Chéreau died. His greatest achievement is widely seen as his Wagner Ring cycle for the 1976 Bayreuth festival. Audiences at the time, however, were bitterly divided. There were death threats, bomb threats and brawls in the auditorium, reminiscent of the 1913 opening of The Rite of Spring. More...