The Met Opera is the largest performing arts company in the country, and it is quietly desperate — box-office receipts down $20 million from a decade ago, deficits mounting, and no obvious fix in sight (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, meanwhile, just fired its music director, and the postmortem is not gentle: Andris Nelsons is being held up as the cautionary symbol of the “overstretched, overtired, overindulged modern music director” (The New York Times). Big institutions, big problems.
The Toronto Film Critics Association is effectively in freefall after an Indigenous filmmaker’s pro-Palestine acceptance speech was cut from a broadcast. She returned her trophy, the president resigned, and 16 members have quit — with more weighing it (The Hollywood Reporter). The Voice of America got better news: a federal judge ruled Kari Lake’s appointment invalid, potentially reinstating more than 1,000 journalists and restoring broadcasts to China, Russia, and Iran (The New York Times).
And then there’s Timothée Chalamet, who declared that nobody cares about opera and ballet. Opera and ballet companies responded by posting sold-out notices and offering discount ticket codes in his name (NBC). Somebody cares.
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