Archives for 2018

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I discuss James Levine’s firing. Here’s an excerpt.

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It was all true. That’s the conclusion of the Metropolitan Opera, which fired James Levine on Monday, issuing a statement declaring that an outside investigation in which more than 70 people were interviewed has uncovered “credible evidence” that he “engaged in sexually abusive and harassing conduct toward vulnerable artists in the early stages of their careers, over whom Mr. Levine had authority.” The company also said that this conduct took place “both before and during” his tenure at the Met….

Now what? If the Met’s conclusions are correct, then firing Mr. Levine was self-evidently necessary. Call it good riddance to foul rubbish. But that alone will not be remotely sufficient to ensure the survival of the company that he has besmirched.

The Met appears to think otherwise. Its officers are behaving as if getting rid of its music director emeritus is the only step needed to clean house. In its statement, the company pointedly declared that “any claims or rumors that members of the Met’s management or its board of directors engaged in a cover-up of information relating to these issues are completely unsubstantiated.”

But it’s not good enough merely to issue a tight-lipped nothing-to-see-here-move-along statement in which you announce that you’ve investigated your star conductor, found him guilty as hell and given him the boot….

If the report of the investigation justifies firing Mr. Levine, then why is it not being released? The company claims that it must protect the privacy of those who spoke to its investigators. But this is one case where the interests of the institution as a whole trump those of any individual associated with it. By not explaining in detail why Mr. Levine is being fired, Peter Gelb is playing “trust me” with the public. The problem is that neither he nor his board have earned that trust…

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Read the whole thing here.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet plays “St. Louis Blues” on Belgian TV in 1964. Brubeck is the pianist, Paul Desmond the alto saxophonist, Eugene Wright the bassist, and Joe Morello the drummer:

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

“There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. Men do not quarrel about the meaning of sunsets; they never dispute that the hawthorn says the best and wittiest thing about the spring.”

G.K. Chesterton, “A Defence of Heraldry”

From 2008:

Making art—and a biography is a work of art, more or less—is a strange sensation. During your working hours you really do watch the rest of the world from a window, yet at the same time you don’t fully feel the act of creation in which you’re involved. Hours slip by without your being aware of their passing, and all at once you look up and the sun has set. On Wednesday I got up at eight, went to work at eight-thirty, and stopped writing at six-forty-five to dress for the theater, and the only person I spoke to during that time (except for a brief call to Mrs. T in Connecticut at midday) was the waitress from whom I ordered my lunch. When I was done I’d written eight thousand words, the equivalent of eight Wall Street Journal drama columns, yet I barely noticed that I was writing them until I was through. I was thinking about the last eight years of Louis Armstrong’s life and turning my thoughts into words and sentences and paragraphs, and by then I was so deeply immersed in the process of finishing my book that I was all but unconscious of it….

Read the whole thing here.

“It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.”

Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 121 (May 14, 1751)

A very rare kinescope of a live performance of Filling Station, a 1937 ballet by Lew Christensen set to a score by Virgil Thomson. The lead dancer is Jacques d’Amboise. This performance was telecast as part of “Sunday in Town,” an episode of Max Liebman Presents directed by Liebman and originally telecast by NBC on October 10, 1954:

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

“It isn’t what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.”

Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold, screenplay for Humoresque

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the New York premiere of David Rabe’s Good for Otto. Here’s an excerpt.

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I can’t remember when I last saw a play or movie that was anything other than earnest and glib about mental illness in general and therapy in particular. That’s why I was betting hard against the New York premiere of David Rabe’s “Good for Otto,” a three-hour-long drama about a small-town mental-health center and the people who go there hoping for help.

Well, I lost. Or, rather, everybody won: “Good for Otto,” the latest offering of the New Group, which has previously produced Mr. Rabe’s “An Early History of Fire,” “Hurlyburly” and “Sticks and Bones,” is one of the best new plays to come along in the past couple of seasons. What’s more, it’s being performed by the very best ensemble cast in town, 14 actors led by Ed Harris and Amy Madigan who get all there is to be gotten out of Mr. Rabe’s heartfelt script….

The excellence of “Good for Otto” is all the more unexpected in light of its well-thumbed dramaturgy, which resembles that of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” The stage is decorated only by a battered piano and a couple of dozen chairs. Mr. Harris (who doubles as the Stage Manager-like narrator) and Ms. Madigan play Dr. Michaels and Evangeline, a pair of counselors at the Northwood Mental Health Center. Most of the other actors are patients, with a gaggle of ghosts thrown in for good measure. The action consists mainly of their therapy sessions, and their problems are the usual ones….

“Good for Otto,” which bills itself as being “inspired” by “Undoing Depression,” a book by Richard O’Connor, a practicing psychotherapist, is impeccably true to everyday life: I spent a year fielding calls on the suicide hotline of a community mental health center, and I’ve never seen a show that was as realistic in its portrayal of therapy and crisis intervention.

Such accuracy is no guarantee that the results will be watchable, still less enthralling. Yet Mr. Rabe has made them so, weaving together his tales of commonplace psychic woe so tightly and imaginatively that your attention never wanders….

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Read the whole thing here.