“The 21st century, indeed, is the time of arts-driven “Close Encounters.” A decade ago, it would have been difficult to imagine a bevy of New York City Ballet principal dancers chatting with patrons shortly before the curtain goes up. Some of them, The New York Times mentioned, still can’t quite bring themselves to leap from silence to sharing. But more and more of them are realizing, and embracing, this notion of humanness.”
Tag: 09.26.10
Can Eschenbach and the National Symphony Give Each Other a Fresh Start?
“But it’s exactly this, this naivete of believing in the music at all costs, that is a hallmark of Christoph Eschenbach. It’s an attitude that has helped him build a star reputation in the conducting world – and has also threatened to be his undoing. … [Now] the question is whether he can make the NSO, and its audience, believe in him.”
The Kafka-esque Battle Over Kafka’s Papers
The legal struggle reflects “the strangeness of the idea that Kafka can be anyone’s private property. Isn’t that what Brod demonstrated, when he disregarded Kafka’s last testament [by rescuing and publishing the author’s works instead of burning them]: that Kafka’s works weren’t even Kafka’s private property but, rather, belonged to humanity?”