Take a Tony winner, a guy touring in “Hamilton,” and Renée Fleming, and what do you get? A revival of “Carousel,” of course.
Author: ArtsJournal2
How Deeply Depressed Lisbon Found Its Way Back To Hope
Things have changed dramatically in just a few years – and in several decades. “For the first time since the 1940s, when Lisbon was a refuge from the war, says Pestana, the city is ‘really cosmopolitan.'”
Top Posts From AJBlogs For The Weekend Of 04.16.17
What We Learned About Audience This Week: Is Streaming Good For The Arts? How About The Death Of Retail?
This Week: Is streaming performances good for the arts?… Why Are we still allowing ticket surcharges?… Another study tells us how to build arts audiences… TV’s audience base is slipping away… How will the … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts AudiencePublished 2017-04-16
Welcome to the Ride
Waaaaaay back in 2011, as communications and research VP of a newly re-launched arts funding organization old enough to be an antique, I devised (with friends and colleagues) a bike ride that we named … read more
AJBlog: The Bright RidePublished 2017-04-16
Weekend Extra: Bud Freeman With Art Hodes
Coleman Hawkins made the tenor saxophone a jazz instrument. Bud Freeman (1906-1991), two years younger than Hawkins, followed as another of the horn’s early masters. Freeman (pictured) started on C-melody saxophone and … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-04-15
Blogback: Francis Naumann on Duchamp’s Remakes of the “Fountain” Readymade
Art historian and gallerist Francis Naumann responds to Plumbing Duchamp’s Urinal: How Erudite Art Historians Piss on Simplicity: As you can well imagine, I took considerable offense in your remarks, as you go on to … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2017-04-15
The Late, Great Derek Walcott
Folks, This week CultureCrash guest columnist Lawrence Christon looks at the legacy of the Saint Lucia-born, US-residing poet Derek Walcott, who died March 17. I share Christon’s fondness for DW’s verse, and was pleased … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-04-14
When A New Opera Turns (Terrifyingly) Topical
Yes, it’s about Machiavelli. “Drawing from disparate political histories involving the Medicis, Hitler, Alexander Hamilton, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Osama bin Laden, the Machiavelli of the future, with Henry Kissinger as his sidekick, delivers a warning about abuses of power and lapses of political judgment. There is one ‘new prince’ that everyone in the audience was probably thinking of during the production, but he is conspicuously absent from this political soup.”
If You’re In Despair About Big Ideas, Don’t Be: They Can Still Change The World
If cognitive dissonance causes people – especially educated people – to cling to their beliefs even harder, what hope is there? Probably a sudden shock: “A worldview is not a Lego set where a block is added here, removed there. It’s a fortress that is defended tooth and nail, with all possible reinforcements, until the pressure becomes so overpowering that the walls cave in.”
Ballet Idaho’s Artistic Director Is About To Retire
In 2008, the ballet dissolved its artistic partnership with the Eugene Ballet and struck out on its own with Peter Anastos at its head. “Starting a new company from scratch is certainly not for sissies,” he says now, as he prepares to finish up his decade with the reinvented company.
Why Did Australia’s Most Famous Artist Turn His Back On The Couple Who Gave Him Love And Launched Him To Fame?
And what’s the deal with art historians who have failed to use primary sources while talking about them? “A modest exhibition of slate paintings will not be the grandest tribute paid to Sidney Nolan in his centenary year. But it is perhaps the most poignant. Australia’s greatest 20th-century artist painted them in the early 1940s while in the early throes of his decade-long affair with Sunday Reed, and living in a decidedly modern menage with Sunday and her husband John.”
Netflix Is Digging Deeper For More, And Better, Original Films
But films – especially documentaries after the recent rule change at the Academy – on Netflix are shut out of Oscars consideration next year. Still, “for filmmakers like Mr. Leon, the flexibility of the Netflix option is an artistic lifesaver.”
Netflix Finally Goes To Cannes
The company appears to have fixed its problems with the festival: “Up until now, Cannes had snubbed Netflix, saying the company’s online-first approach to film releases bypasses cinemas and should be discouraged. It is notable that both Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories will have theatrical releases.”
Why Is Bach’s St. John Passion Getting So Much (More) Play This Year?
Seriously, why? “The ‘St. John’ problem has become ever more troubling in the decades since World War II and the Holocaust. With the horrible potential latent in anti-Semitism ever more apparent, any performance or hearing of this work must be cause for sober reflection, not mere mindless pleasure.”