“Mr. Steel did what he thought he had to do, and he may well have been right–but for better or worse, his New York City Opera is now a thing unto itself, one whose success or failure will have nothing to do with the company’s celebrated past. It’s his baby now…”

“Were it not for their work, comparatively few of us would be able to enjoy the plays of Chekhov, Ibsen or Molière. They are our lifelines to the wider world of theater. Yet literary translators are the perpetually unsung heroes and heroines of literature. If you doubt it, try naming a half-dozen of them off the top of your head…”

“It’s not an ‘argument’ to suggest that anyone who advocates selling off the DIA’s masterpieces is an art-hating philistine. Even if they’re wrong, as I think they are, the sell-the-art crowd is making a morally serious case that can’t be countered by name-calling. How best can it be opposed–and who should be doing the opposing? Any argument to keep Detroit’s masterpieces in Detroit has got to make sense to Detroiters who think that pensions are more important than paintings…”

“Today it’s inordinately hard for a straight play, no matter how good it is, to run on Broadway for more than a few months, since the first ingredient in the modern recipe for theatrical success is the presence in the cast of a movie or television star. As soon as the star in question returns to Hollywood to resume his or her screen career, the show closes. Things really were different in the old days…”

“Why are music competitions so bad at singling out potentially major artists? Because the winners are chosen by juries. A jury is at bottom a committee–and a committee, as John le Carré famously said in ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,’ is ‘an animal with four back legs.’ They exist to generate and perpetuate consensus views. They can’t make great art, and it’s all but impossible for them to agree on great artists…”

“Is it possible to fix things after a debilitating, trust-destroying work stoppage? The good news is that the Detroit Symphony, which went out on strike for six months in 2010-11, seems to have found a way to do so…”

“Sure, it’s easier to stay home and fire up your television or stereo–but you’ll probably be the only one whooping. It’s a lot more fun to do it in a crowd…”

“Modernize the subscription model? Or scrap it altogether and try something completely different? If I knew, I’d start a theater company. But I do know that if regional theater wants to save its soul, it’ll have to find new ways to sell tickets…”