Monster Mash: Brand’s early exit from Getty; Butz in Broadway’s ‘Enron’; director calls soprano ‘plump’

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-- Resignation: Michael Brand, the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, is stepping down from his position before the end of his five-year contract. Some sources point to a personality clash between Brand and James Wood, the chief executive of the Getty Trust. (Los Angeles Times)

-- How not to succeed in business: Norbert Leo Butz has been cast in the role of disgraced financier Jeffrey Skilling in the Broadway production of ‘Enron.’ (Playbill)

-- Offended: Soprano Daniela Desi has walked out of a Rome production of ‘La Traviata’ after the director, Franco Zeffirelli, publicly made comments about her weight. (London Times)

-- Legal settlement: An agreement has been reached in a dispute involving three paintings by Pablo Picasso that were sold in the 1930s to keep them out of the hands of Nazis. (CBC)

-- Passing the baton: Paavo Jarvi will step down as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra after the 2010-11 season. (Cincinnati Enquirer)

-- Disputed artifact: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has returned an 18th-century snuff box to the heirs of a Munich gallery whose owners sold it during the Nazi regime. (Art Info)

-- Lawsuit: The president of the African American Museum in Philadelphia is hit with a slander suit from a former publicrelations consultant. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

-- Also in the L.A. Times: Pee-wee Herman is making good on a promise to inconvenienced fans; Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein is named 2010 Gilmore Artist.

-- David Ng