“I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.”

Anton Chekhov, letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)

“People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about.”

Anton Chekhov, “About Love”

Bruno Walter leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in a 1946 rehearsal of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony: 

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

“There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.”

Anton Chekhov, “The Teacher of Literature”

In today’s Wall Street Journal I write about the best theater of 2019:

On Broadway and across America, it’s the same old story: Large-scale musicals are in a long-term slump. I saw only two new musicals of quality, “Hadestown” and “Soft Power,” this past year, and both of them were distinctly unconventional small-scale productions (although “Hadestown,” like “The Band’s Visit” and “Fun Home” before it, did manage to make it to Broadway for a successful run). Too many of the rest were jukebox biomusicals and no-but-I-saw-the-movie commodity shows, none of which had much of anything to offer beyond expensive light amusement for the tourist trade.

Of distinguished new plays, by contrast, there were plenty….

Read the whole thing here.

From 2010:

Apropos of the front cover of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, James Breig, a reader of this blog, writes with a query: “Impertinent question: Is the cover photo reversed (Armstrong’s pocket handkerchief is on the right side of his jacket)? If so, was it done deliberately by the photographer or book designer, or inadvertently?”

My jaw dropped when I read this e-mail, and I immediately set to investigating….

Read the whole thing here.

“I saw all of my mother’s people, her sisters and brothers and their children that are left, that live here, crowding into the living room around Aunt Inez and her boys…and I thought of all that’s come to each of them, and I was filled with dread. How can human beings stand all that comes to them? How can they?”

Horton Foote, 1918

Richard Burton and John Gielgud in a scene from Hamlet. This production, staged by Gielgud, was filmed in 1964 at a Broadway performance:

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