“What’s the difference between an opera and a musical? Theories abound. Some say opera is through-sung while musicals include spoken dialogue (although there are many operas with spoken dialogue; think Carmen). Some say opera is unamplified, while musicals are mic’d (except that there are many operas written for amplification, and many musicals that weren’t). But ask Stephen Sondheim … and you’ll hear that it has to do largely, simply, with the expectations of the audience. Sondheim should know.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Cirque Du Soleil’s Vegas Beatles Show, Ten Years And Eight Million Viewers Later
Later
“When Love opened, in 2006, some critics raised an eyebrow at the prediction by Apple and Cirque that it would run for 10 years. How many Beatles fans, after all, were likely to travel to Las Vegas to see a site-specific acrobatic show?”
What Happened When A 17th-Century Bishop Invented A Language That Was Completely Rational, Systematic, And Taxonomically Orderly
Well, it was rational, systematic, and taxonomically orderly. If only that were the way humans actually think.
Why It’s Hard To Adapt Philip Roth For The Screen
James Schamus, director of Indignation: “With Roth you often get it in the course of negotiating the gap between an astringent or removed voice that’s narrating on the one hand, and then the actual narrated events of the characters. There’s this weird disjunction that creates this space for him to play and work. You don’t have those tools in cinema.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.02.16
Is Opera The Real 21st Century Art Form?
A 2015 survey by blogger Mai Mae reported that 260 new opera companies started since 2000 in the United States. There are 80 opera companies now working in New York alone. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-02
Nominations for Audience Development Innovation
No Good Deed Goes UNPUBLISHED. That’s my motto – and why I ask: Have you seen an example of an arts organization doing something REMARKABLE in the pursuit of audience development – something especially CREATIVE, AMBITIOUS and/or EFFECTIVE?… read more
AJBlog: Audience Wanted Published 2016-08-02
Five Years On
July 30 marked the fifth anniversary of Engaging Matters. On the one hand, it seems like yesterday that this journey began; on the other, it feels like it’s been going on forever. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-08-02
Insiders and Outsiders: Reflections on The Art of Relevance by Nina Simon
Simon uses the analogy of doors, locks, and keys as the driving metaphor for relevance, which she defines as “a key that unlocks meaning.” … read more
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2016-08-02
Good News From a Buyout, For A Change
I’ve been holding my tongue for a few days, but today I can give you the news of Richard Aste, the European paintings curator at the Brooklyn Museum. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-02
A Wintry Tale of Love and Jealousy
“What were you thinking, Will?” And “Eat your heart out, Marius Petipa.” These two silent remarks to the eminent dead periodically rattled around in my head while I was … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-08-02
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A New Tactile Language Helps Create Comic Books For The Blind
“‘Comic books have a language,’ says comic artist Ilan Manouach. ‘They have specific devices’ to convey certain actions or emotions, like ‘a lightbulb, [or] a drop of sweat,’ that get lost when a visual story is translated into a fully language-based one. But Manouach believes he’s found a way to overcome that particular hurdle.”
Press [W] To Waterboard: A Video Game That Lets You Torture Iraqi Prisoners
“What if there were a way to make sense of state-sanctioned torture in a more visceral way than by reading a news article or watching a documentary? Two years ago, that’s exactly what a team of Pittsburgh-based video-game designers set out to create: an experience that would bring people uncomfortably close to the abuses that took place in one particularly infamous prison camp.”
The Disintegration Of Joe McGinniss: A Son’s Memoir
The meteoric rise of the author of The Selling of the President 1968, the split with his family (“I get off the plane after doing Merv Griffin and the Tonight Show and have to leave for Paris and your mother tells me I need to take out the trash”), the intermittent happy visits, and the long, depressive, alcohol-fueled decline.
Big Tech Killed Bookstore Chains – And It’s Saving Indie Bookstores
“It’s a bit of tech innovators being hoisted by their own petard: the massive drop in cost in back-office software and computers has benefitted small stores as much as a large ones. It costs much less now to do much more than a decade [ago], reducing overhead and improving efficiency.”
It’s Not Just Meryl Anymore: A Crop Of Older Actresses Have Become Box-Office Draws
“Streep, at 67, is no longer an outlier defying all conventional wisdom about the box-office viability of an actress north of 50; she’s part of a trend.”