Author: Matthew Westphal

A “Window Concert” In A Hotel Courtyard Was Vienna’s First Taste Of Opera Since Lockdown

“Deserted by tourists, a hotel in Vienna gave itself a temporary one-night-only makeover, turning itself into an outdoor concert hall. The guest bedrooms, which have stood empty during the coronavirus lockdown, were transformed into opera boxes for an evening, and the hotel courtyard into a stage to create a rare moment of joy in the city of music on Saturday.” – Yahoo! (AFP)

Recreating The Acoustic J.S. Bach Worked In

“As a composer, Bach would have been highly attuned to the effects of a church’s acoustics on the performance of music. He was known, for example, to have preferred composing for the Thomaskirche over Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche because he deemed it superior for choral music. Supported by an NEH grant and state-of-the-art computational methods, an interdisciplinary team led by Boren is digitally reconstructing the soundscape of the eighteenth-century Thomaskirche to determine just how Bach’s music would have sounded to the composer when it was first performed.” – Humanities Magazine

With a country “on the brink” does it matter if your arts venue is shuttered?

I hear from nearly all corners of the arts sector that there is “no going back to normal” — that something fundamental needs to be redesigned in our systems to make them more equitable, healthy, and sustainable. If so, it matters which arts organizations survive the next two years and which go away, and it matters how arts organizations are defining their short-term and long-term crises and goals. – Diane Ragsdale

How Pro Dancers Can Make TikTok Work For Them

“It’s paradoxical but true: On TikTok, a platform driven largely by dance, people with little to no dance background are becoming megastars — and highly-trained dancers can seem like fish out of water. … But with canceled performances creating more free time for dancers, TikTok can be a great way to keep performing and stay engaged with an audience. We spoke with four pros who’ve built large followings on the app about how trained dancers can find TikTok success.” – Dance Spirit

In Russia, Independent Booksellers Begin Championing Neglected Writers

“The most widely-read books are translated foreign bestsellers. There is little space for Russian talent — and if you want to be one of the chosen few to secure a book deal, that means satisfying big publishers’ often conservative tastes. … Change, however, is already coming — driven by a new wave of young literary activists and independent startups challenging the status quo. Many are led by young women, on offshoot from Russia’s growing feminist movement. They search for the forgotten Russian writers of the past, look for young new voices, and translate the queer foreign titles that would otherwise never make it into Russian.” – The Calvert Journal

Hollywood Unions And Studios Finally Agree On COVID Safety Guidelines For Restarting Production

A 22-page white paper with dozens of requirements and recommendations, delivered to Govs. Gavin Newsom (CA) and Andrew Cuomo (NY) as well as the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, was drawn up by a 50-member committee with representatives of studios, the trade guilds, and the unions SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, DGA, and the Teamsters. – Variety

Mady Mesplé, One Of 20th Century’s Great Coloratura Sopranos, Dead At 89

While she did sing some Italian roles (Gilda, Lucia, Rosina) and even a few German ones (the Queen of the Night, Zerbinetta), Mesplé won worldwide acclaim for the French concert and opera repertoire — new works by Francis Poulenc as well as such famous parts as Olympia (The Tales of Hoffman), Leïla (The Pearl Fishers), and, most of all, the title role in Lakmé. – Gramophone

Despite Pandemic Lockdowns And COVID In Its Company, ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ World Tour Keeps Running

Performances are canceled and theaters are dark all around the world, but the long-touring Broadway production of Phantom has continued to fill a 1,600-seat house in Seoul for eight shows a week. The show even survived a three-week hiatus after some cast members contracted coronavirus. “The musical … is believed to be the only large-scale English-language production running anywhere in the world. And it has remained open not through social-distancing measures — a virtual impossibility in the theater, either logistically or financially, many say — but an approach grounded in strict hygiene.” – The New York Times

Nelson-Atkins Museum Caught In Protests Controversy After Kansas City Police Use Its Grounds As Staging Area

This past Friday night, as the KCPD prepared to confront people demonstrating against police violence in Minneapolis and elsewhere, security guards on duty at the closed museum agreed to police requests to park squad cars there — and the Nelson-Atkins got some harsh criticism online when photos of those police cars hit social media. Museum director Julián Zugazagoitia says that when he found out about this after midnight, he asked the KCPD to vacate: “It is exactly the opposite of what the Nelson stands for, what the museum stands for, what we want to do as work and what we have been doing as work.” – KCUR (Kansas City)