Tag: 12.20.19

Sure, The New Cats’ ‘Memory’ Is A Popera Furball, But Whose Fault Is That?

Let’s talk more about what Andrew Lloyd Weber did with this music, and what’s been done to it since it premiered. Erm, the LAT‘s pop music critic isn’t a fan: “To hear the song’s dreary opening arpeggios now is to reflexively brush off the possibility of encountering something that might move you; the tune, a happily trashy bit of ersatz Puccini, has become a kind of showbiz parody of the emotion it once sought genuinely to embody.” – Los Angeles Times

A Landline Lamentation

Roger Cohen misses the world of the landline. “In the landline world there was down time. You left the house, you looked around, you saw people, you daydreamed, you got lost, you found your way again, you gazed from the train window at lines of poplars swaying in the mist. Time drifted. It was not raw material for the extraction of productivity. It stretched away, an empty canvas.” – The New York Times

Vienna Ballet Academy Fires Director Over Abuse Claims

The academy had given its students “insufficient medical and therapeutic care,” a commission set up by the Austrian government, said in a report issued on Tuesday. There also seemed to be “no awareness” that it had a responsibility for its students’ health. The decision to effectively dismiss Simona Noja-Nebyla was announced in a news release on Friday by the company that oversees all of Austria’s federal theaters. – The New York Times

What Classical Music Needs To Do About Climate Change

Welcome work by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research examines all the areas of impact touring has on the environment and recognises that the issue is complex: it cannot be solved by planting a set number of trees per tour. From audiences travelling to concerts to the power required by the halls, this crisis is the responsibility of all of us. Everyone must be conscious of their behaviour and acknowledge the active part they have to play. Planning permission for all new concert halls, for example, should only be given if the buildings will be carbon neutral. Existing concert halls must make radical changes to ensure they are as close to carbon neutral as possible. – The Guardian

“Cats” Was Bad Theatre, An Even Worse Movie. So Why Does It Endure?

“Theater people resent “Cats” not just because it made Broadway uncool until “Hamilton” finally rescued it from the pop cultural stocks. What really infuriates buffs is that “Cats” ushered in an era of grandiose spectacle, the vacuous parade of shows from the 1980s and early ’90s that made it seem as if a musical had to have a helicopter or a crashing chandelier to be worth the rapidly rising ticket price.” – Los Angeles Times

“Beetlejuice” Has Been A Hit – What Its Surprise Closing Says About Today’s Broadway

Broadway’s supply and demand for theatres is a far cry from the mid 1980s, when commercial theatre in New York in general seemed like it might be on the ropes. Hamilton, Moulin Rouge!, The Lion King and Wicked all grossed more than $2 million last week, and To Kill a Mockingbird – a play – grossed $700,000 more than Beetlejuice – evidence of how expectations and earnings are being recalibrated. – The Stage