Archives for 2018

The twentieth episode of Three on the Aisle, the twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading.

Here’s an excerpt from American Theatre’s “official” summary of the proceedings:

This week [the panelists] celebrate a happy first birthday—or, as Terry says incredulously in this episode, “Have we really been doing this for a year?” Yes, they have! To celebrate the show’s one-year anniversary, our hosts take on a favorite punching bag of theatre criticism: the jukebox musical. Is it pure populism or can it be brilliant? Or both? They discuss that in relation to a new Bob Dylan jukebox musical currently playing at the Public Theater, Girl from the North Country (it made two of our critics cry!).

Then the critics discuss another recurring theatrical theme: the British invasion of the American theatre. Girl from the North Country originated in London, and so did The Nap, The Ferryman, and others currently running and still set to open on Broadway….

This episode closes with a tally of shows the critics love and want you to see…

To listen, download the latest episode, read more about it, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

In case you missed any previous episodes, you’ll find them all here.

“Giacometti,” a 1966 documentary featurette about Alberto Giacometti, the great Swiss sculptor, directed by Michael Gill and made in collaboration with David Sylvester for the Arts Council of Great Britain:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved.”

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

In this week’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I write about the current plight of the Metropolitan Opera—and its wider implications. Here’s an excerpt.

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After James Levine, what? When the Metropolitan Opera’s music director emeritus was fired earlier this year after the company charged him with “sexually abusive and harassing conduct” toward younger artists, it was clear that some kind of change had to come. And sure enough, plenty is happening at the post-Levine Met, which has announced a roster of forthcoming innovations, many of which sound promising—on paper. Yet the more things change, at the Met and at other major American opera companies, the more they seem to stay the same.

The Met’s widely reported plans, which started with bringing in a youngish music director, 43-year-old Yannick Nézet-Séguin, now include commissioning operas from two female composers, Missy Mazzoli and Jeanine Tesori. In addition, the American premiere of Nico Muhly’s “Marnie,” a stage version of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Marnie,” opens on Oct. 19. In the pipeline for the future are a new “Hamlet” opera and revivals of Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” and Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking”…and my eyes are already glazing over.

For openers, why on earth is the Met importing an opera based on one of Hitchcock’s biggest and most notorious disasters? And what makes Mr. Gelb think that Ms. Tesori, the composer of such Broadway hits as “Fun Home” and “Shrek the Musical,” is capable of turning out a score that has the size and weight necessary to go over in a king-sized house that was purpose-built for grand opera? (Her two previous ventures into opera are a small-scale one-act piece and a children’s show.) As for “Aknahten” and “Dead Man Walking,” they’re “innovative” only in the sense that they’re new to the company, whose repertory for the current season includes, as usual, “Aida,” “La Bohème,” “Carmen” and “La Traviata,” the four most frequently performed operas in the Met’s history….

I’m already on record as believing that Mr. Gelb’s protracted failure to deal with Mr. Levine’s alleged misconduct makes it impossible for him to lead the Met into the future, and that he should resign or be fired. (Granted, Mr. Levine has consistently denied the charges, but the Met has made it perfectly clear that it doesn’t believe him.) Nor was I impressed by his unsure stewardship of the company prior to Mr. Levine’s long-overdue dismissal. At the same time, though, I’ve been giving much thought to a 2014 interview in which Mr. Gelb claimed that grand opera is “a dinosaur of an art form….what I’m doing is fighting an uphill battle to try and maintain an audience in a very difficult time.”

Was Mr. Gelb right to bemoan what he called the “cultural and social rejection of [grand] opera as an art form”? And is the Met the canary in the coal mine of American opera?…

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Read the whole thing here.

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, most shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, most shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 28, reviewed here)
• Uncle Vanya (drama, G, not suitable for children, extended through Oct. 28, reviewed here)

“It’s an interesting story with a great many good things in it, but I’m afraid we’re not quite persuaded by the tour-de-force ending.”

Robert Henderson, letter to Elizabeth McKie, Flannery O’Connor’s literary agent, rejecting “Good Country People” for The New Yorker (April 6, 1955)

Jascha Heifetz performs Camille Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, accompanied by a studio orchestra conducted by Alfred Newman. This sequence, an excerpt from Archie Mayo’s They Shall Have Music, released in 1939, is believed to be the only surviving sound footage in which Newman, who became 20th Century Fox’s music director in 1940, can be seen conducting a piece of classical music:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“You say that all men are lazy. I would be delighted to be so if I were able, but I never have the time.”

Camille Saint-Saëns, letter to Marie Fauré (February 1904)