“My recurring nightmare was me, onstage, in this 1,100-seat theater, with no people in it. I’ve had it ever since we even talked about doing the show [The New One] on Broadway. Strangely enough, that became a reality in rehearsal, because it’s just the designers and the crew in the audience. There’s eight people in a room that seats 1,100, and so I do the show from start to finish with no laughter. It’s really empowering to live your nightmare.” — New York Times Magazine
Author: Matthew Westphal
The World’s First Serial Podcast Opera — But Is It, Really?
Composer Jason Cady’s Buick City 1am “is an intriguing concept, addressing several of the traditional form’s shortcomings in relation to the modern world: it makes no undue demands of one’s attention span (four 25-minute episodes), it is accessible (anywhere, 24/7, via one’s phone), and it is free.” But does it qualify as an opera? Using a quite reasonable definition, Gina Leishman suggests that the answer is no. — Financial Times
What It’s Like For American Dancers To Study Ballet In Cuba
Sofia Castán Vargas, a 16-year-old San Diegan/Tijuana now enrolled at the Alonso Cuban National Ballet School, and Catherine Conley, a 20-year-old alumna who stayed on to become a corps member in the Cuban National Ballet, talk about the challenges a student from the U.S. wull face and the particular qualities of Cuban training that drew them there. — Pointe Magazine
What An Obscure German Novel Taught A ‘Politico’ Writer About Dictators And Wannabes
Lion Feuchtwanger’s The Oppermanns, which takes place largely in 1933, the year Hitler took over the German government, “is a case study in how quickly the institutions of democracy and the habits of civilization can be destroyed and how educated and well-intentioned citizens can watch the destruction proceed without seeing it. … Reading him now — 84 years after the book’s publication and 60 years after the author’s death — the quandaries feel very current.” — Politico
Why Does The Industry Keep Marketing Classical Music As A Tranquilizer?
Classical radio stations promote their programming as “calming and refreshing,” an “oasis,” or “an island of sanity.” Playlists on YouTube and audio streaming services have titles like “8 Hours Classical Music for Sleeping”; inexpensive compilation CDs offer “The Most Relaxing Classical Music in the Universe.” Jennifer Gersten, winner of the 2018 Rubin Prize in Music Criticism — identifies at least one reason why the industry keeps falling into this rut, and argues that the habit sells both the music itself and potential listeners very short. — Washington Post
‘Emotional Labor’ Concept Creep: Sociologist Who Coined The Term Says We’re Using It Too Much
“Really, I’m horrified,” says Arlie Hochschild, who introduced the concept back in 1983 as “the work, for which you’re paid, which centrally involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job … from the flight attendant whose job it is to be nicer than natural to the bill collector whose job it is to be, if necessary, harsher than natural.” Now, she points out, “it’s being used, for example, to refer to the enacting of to-do lists … It’s also being applied to perfectionism: You’ve absolutely got to do the perfect Christmas holiday.” — The Atlantic
The Perverse Imagination of Edward Carey
A few weeks ago I got a historical novel, written for adults, called Little, based on the life of Madame Tussaud. I soon learned that my 12-year-old son had beaten me to this author’s work: He’d already read Heap House, the first novel in the outlandish, fantasy-based The Iremonger Trilogy, aimed at precocious kids. I was lucky enough to speak to the writer, Edward Carey, about how he kept it all straight, and how slight the differences between categories are.
Home invasion — with a happy ending
In case you hadn’t noticed, @terryteachout, my Twitter account, was hacked on Sunday morning as part of a cross-platform attack on my social-media presence. The objective, it seems, was ransom.
A First: Conservatory Appoints Lecturer To Teach Musicians Health And Wellbeing
“Sara Ascenso, a clinical psychologist and trained pianist, will start at the [Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester] in January. Her role will include lecturing and research, and she will also develop the health and wellbeing provision across the college, ensuring it is tailored to musicians’ needs.” — The Guardian
One Of London’s Grand Victorian Performance Halls Reopens After £18.8M Restoration
The Alexandra Palace, designed by the architects of the Royal Albert Hall, opened on a north London hilltop in 1873 — and burned down 16 days later. It was rebuilt in 1875 and was very popular but never made money; it “suffered more false dawns and setbacks in its 145-year history than almost any other playhouse in the country” and served a number of undignified uses over the decades. It’s now back in service as a performance venue for the first time in more than 80 years, refurbished and modernized to seat an audience of up to 1,000. — The Stage