“The union, which represents 51,000 actors and stage managers around the country, said it had given the green light to two summer shows in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts: an outdoor production of the musical Godspell, and an indoor production of the solo show Harry Clarke.” – The New York Times
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La Scala Reopens For First Time Since COVID Lockdown
For now, it’s a small-scale relaunch: only 600 audience members in a roughly 2,000-seat house (so social distancing can be maintained) and chamber music rather than full-fledged opera. There will be a total of four programs in July before the traditional summer break; in September, the company will perform Verdi’s Requiem in Milan’s Duomo and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in the theater. – France 24
Meet France’s New Culture Minister
“[Roselyne] Bachelot, 73, is returning to politics after eight years working as a commentator in radio and television. Prior to that, she served as the minister of ecology and sustainable development under former President Jacques Chirac, then as health minister and minister of social cohesion under President Nicolas Sarkozy, always in rightwing governments.” – The Art Newspaper
Michelangelo: Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man
When Michelangelo turned seventy, as he does at the beginning of Michelangelo, God’s Architect, he had nineteen more years to live, every one of them spent at work. As dear friends died and his body weakened, he took on a remarkable series of huge, daunting projects, fully aware, as William Wallace emphasizes, that he would never live to see them completed. In his deeply spiritual vision of the world, his own limits hardly mattered; God had called him, and he had answered. – New York Review of Books
A Need To Redefine Black Music
If Black lives matter now more than ever, hearing Black liveness in classical music also matters. The alternative is an addiction to exclusion that ends, as addictions often do, in impoverishment. – The New York Times
School As We Knew It Is Over. Long Live School!
“School” as we knew it is over — but that doesn’t mean learning has to be. Learning is a universal activity across human societies; school as we knew it is a recent, unusual, self-contradictory institution. As educators and as citizens, we need to understand the various purposes school was supposed to serve, and the limitations to its success. Only then can we re-imagine education for, and beyond, this public health emergency. – Medium
Big Problem For The Arts: Insurers Won’t Insure Against Virus Cancellations
“Right now most insurers, if not all, have come out with a virus or communicable disease exclusion that they’re putting on their policies.” – Reuters
Everest
If we are experts in music, we need to know about now. Imagine a scientist who said: ‘You know I only repeat the experiments of the 19th century. I’ve really worked at them. I get fantastic results.’ But is that science? – Bruce Brubaker
The New Deal, the Arts, and Race — and Today
FDR’s Works Progress Administration was the closest Washington had come to emulating European arts subsidies. At the same time, the New Deal made a devil’s pact with race – and the WPA was no exception. – Joseph Horowitz
Why Did Blockbuster Lose to Netflix?
Blockbuster, it turns out, ended up doing a very good job of fighting back against Netflix and might well have won, but it made some fundamental mistakes that ended up dooming its future. – Recode