What’s the point, they say, when social distancing restrictions would mean they wouldn’t survive more than three months anyway? – BBC
Month: May 2020
And Now A Word From The Cassandra Of American Letters
Lionel Shriver, who is sixty-three, thinks people are ridiculous for congratulating themselves on enduring quarantine, when the worst is yet to come. “This is not the bad part,” she said. – The New Yorker
How Verdi Evolved To The Next Form Of Opera
“At the Paris Opéra, there were many colleagues to deal with and only the institution’s most successful composers had enough clout to impose their will on a piece. It makes sense that Verdi’s triumph came at the end, when he was no longer just a successful foreigner, but a living legend and someone who had a work history with the company. For Don Carlos, he was the ultimate authority, like a modern movie auteur.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Opera Of The Web (Not Just On It)
“In our first performance one of our actors froze in the middle of her big solo. But, fortunately, we had planned for and built that into the piece, so what we did is skip to the next cue, and then when she unfroze she joined up with us again, just as you would do if you were doing a live play or musical or opera.” – American Theatre
Time To Rethink The Entire Restaurant Industry
The current crisis has turned the industry’s cracks into chasms, exposing the ways in which it fails its workers almost by design. It has also raised the question of what restaurants will look like—and how they could survive—once this is all over. But a better question might be whether they should survive as they currently exist. What could restaurants look like if we threw out the old system and built something better? – The New Republic
Why We Need To Rethink The Art Blockbuster
Over the years, the blockbuster has been frequently called into question, and with good reason. Do these shows really serve our audiences or do they just pander to the crowd in order to attract large numbers of visitors? – The Art Newspaper
The Tragedy Of Philosophy
To live is to encounter the tragic — a reality shot through with utter strife, and covered in complete darkness. Despite our best attempts, we are not going to get out of it. For philosophers to overlook, sugarcoat, or rationalize this fact is to deny something essential about who we are and what we might become, both intentionally but also in spite of ourselves. – Los Angeles Review of Books
Well, Nobody’s Using The Airport These Days, So Let’s Use It As A Drive-In
That’s what Uruguayans are doing with Carrasco International Airport near Montevideo. The movies, screened every evening, range from The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog to Bohemian Rhapsody and Joker. Viewers, in their cars, can order snacks and drinks via WhatsApp, and they can put on masks and go inside to use the airport’s (constantly cleaned) restrooms. – The Guardian
When Art Became “The Show”
Today the more relevant split is the more recent one between modern and contemporary fields (the latter has no exact date of origin—1968, 1980, 1989?), which is a schism less between the university and the museum than between scholarly curators and flashy exhibition-makers. This split was opened up when the 20th-century art museum was penetrated by the culture industry, and it was deepened when the contemporary art world expanded into the global business of art biennials and fairs. With the first development came a demand for on-site entertainment, and with the second a need for far-flung attractions. – Artnet
Europe’s Dance Companies Begin, Very Carefully, To Go Back To Work
Here, for instance, are the rules for dance class at the Ballet du Rhin in France: “Dancers are not allowed to use changing rooms. Instead, they must go directly to the studio and stand at a marked spot at the barre, about 11 feet away from others. Their outside clothes must go into a bag to ensure they do not touch anything … [and] that bag must then be put into another one provided by the company that is thrown into the trash once the class has finished. They are also each given a spray to disinfect the barre. And, of course, they have to dance wearing masks.” – The New York Times