Category: music

Literature professor Moustafa Bayoumi, social media producer and Orthodox Jew Kayla Epstein, cartoonist Eli Valley, and Guardian copy editor Alan Yuhas give their verdicts on the opera – and the sound and fury surrounding it. (Spoiler alert: none of them think it glorifies terrorists.)

“The first night of the opera Rigoletto was due to go ahead at the Rome Opera Theatre Tuesday but performers planned to read a message to the audience protesting the mass sacking of 182 orchestra and choir members … Earlier the troubled opera house’s personnel manager, Stefano Bottaro, … rejected a request to rescind the sackings in return for a discussion over productivity levels and costs.”

“There are a number of reasons why people claim this work is anti-Semitic, but the loudest protesters seemed to focus on the most banal of them. The notion that we should prohibit all works of art that allow the bad guys a point of view would decimate the Western canon.”

Parodies, comedy and wry comment; classical music as object of fun.

“The major accomplishment of this powerful, mesmerizing production … is to effectively dismantle the suggestion that the work is anti-Jewish and trivializes a brutal act.”

“Since the Philadelphia Orchestra exited bankruptcy more than two years ago, several key financial indicators have brightened. Obligations associated with the orchestra’s Chapter 11 settlement have been paid off, income from concerts is growing nicely, and annual fund-raising is improving more than nicely.”

“Memphis Symphony Orchestra musicians on Monday formally agreed to accept a one-year, 38 percent pay cut in an attempt to help the financially struggling performance arts organization reduce expenses as it works toward the goal of balancing its budget.”

“With more orchestras declining than thriving, classical music audiences can be forgiven for thinking the brand new Pennsylvania Philharmonic is a mirage.” Especially since it’s performing in towns – Pottstown, York, Bethlehem, and the like – “that can’t always support a professional group.”

“I often find myself sitting in a concert thinking I would never be here were it not for professional interest. This is a real shame, because to sit down in a concert hall and not do anything else other than listen for two hours is a great and quite radical experience in our lives. But there are many unspoken ‘rules’ and conventions at classical concerts that we often accept quietly and which make the experience of classical concert worse than it should be.”

“If I had to depend on what I actually get from sales I’d be tending bars between sets.” The 67-year-old rock legend also says that electronic devices “estrange people from their morals and also make it easier to steal music than pay for it.”