Win and loss in Gwinnett; rain delay in Bayreuth

Gwinnett County, GA, the Atlanta suburb that snared the Braves' Triple-A baseball team from Richmond – the team is due to move in 2009 – has lost its local orchestra. A projected 20 percent increase in costs led the Gwinnett Philharmonic to shut down after 13 seasons, Pierre Ruhe reports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

http://www.ajc.com/cherokee/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/08/01/philharmonic_closes.html

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At the Bayreuth Festival, meanwhile, a downpour and subsequent flooding delayed a July 31 performance of "Siegfried," the third installment of Wagner's "Ring" cycle. The washout is supposed to come at the end of the fourth and final installment, "Götterdämmerung." Mother Nature evidently misplaced her libretto:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMB-gG6eCi4ZqWZStqPXkK5Xr1jQ