Issues

The Chicago Lyric Opera plans to spend $23 million from its $173 million endowment this year, almost triple what it typically takes. It canceled its season in March, furloughed staff and cut salaries, but is still facing a huge deficit. “This is an unprecedented situation,” said Anthony Freud, the Lyric’s general director. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is drawing down $37 million from its endowment, more than twice what it would normally take. – The New York Times

Racists would love to co-opt the term “for their ethno-historical myths,” but that doesn’t mean historians and archaeologists have to abandon it altogether, argues one. “When researchers and educators today talk about the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, they aren’t discussing a ‘racial’ group. The terms don’t even encapsulate one thing, but rather seven centuries of change and very different kingdoms and communities, from Kent to Cumbria, from East Anglia to the Welsh borders.” (But will facts matter to white supremacists?) – Aeon

Kendrick Sampson of Insecure and The Flash was streaming LA’s protest on Instagram Live “when the officers began firing rubber bullets at protestors. He was also hit by police multiple times with a baton in a moment that was captured in a CNN live broadcast as well as on his Instagram.” Sampson wrote, “This was completely peaceful. All these folks started in a park, pouring libations, praying, and talking about what we can do to build up our communities. I was about to go home.” – Vulture

The current crisis has turned the industry’s cracks into chasms, exposing the ways in which it fails its workers almost by design. It has also raised the question of what restaurants will look like—and how they could survive—once this is all over. But a better question might be whether they should survive as they currently exist. What could restaurants look like if we threw out the old system and built something better?  – The New Republic

Earlier this month, 11 artists from a collective called the Consortium of Postartistic Practices carried a 46-foot-long letter about 1¼ miles to the Parliament building in Warsaw as lawmakers debated whether to hold a presidential election during the COVID lockdown. The artists were subsequently fined about $2,500 for violating social distancing rules — until a public outcry led officials to reverse that decision. – The Art Newspaper

“The European Commission announced an ambitious seven-year budget yesterday to bail out the EU’s 27 member states from the economic impact of COVID-19, but culture representatives say it fails to provide enough protection for their industry, which is one of the economic sectors that has been hardest hit by the pandemic.” In particular, the representatives say, “cuts to three programs — Erasmus+, Creative Europe, and European Solidarity Corps — send a ‘terrible message’ to the cultural, creative, and media sectors.” – Artnet

In ports of call known for their cruise appeal, the disappearance of boat-borne tourism has been greeted with mixed feelings. Many towns and cities depend in part on revenue from these vacationers. But the boats bring problems, too: Critics often cite the industry’s environmental record and dubious economic impact — study after study show that passengers on short stopovers contribute relatively little to the local economy. – CityLab

Many of the projects under Vulcan’s Arts + Entertainment division stemmed from Vulcan co-founder Paul Allen’s personal interests, and served as showplaces for his collections: his movie costumes and memorabilia at Cinerama; his vintage computer collection at the Living Computers: Museum + Labs; and his military aircraft, vehicles and artifacts at the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum. – Seattle Times

The former CEO of the Kennedy Center and his colleagues at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management are giving pro bono consultations to more than 400 organizations. “In phone calls with groups as varied as Mosaic Theater Company in [D.C.] and the Women’s Museum of California in San Diego, Kaiser tosses out suggestions as each outlet lays out its predicament.” – The Washington Post

“[The] Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom plan to open again on July 11, while Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will resume business on July 15. SeaWorld, meanwhile, will reopen to the public on June 11. … New requirements include temperature checks upon arrival, physical distancing, enhanced cleaning, hand-washing and sanitizing stations and ‘limited-contact enhancements,’ such as contactless payments and mobile orders at restaurants.” – Variety

The huge numbers reported in watching and listening to streaming performances are in stark contrast with “decades of dire warnings and disheartening statistics about shrinking classical audiences — because of aging patrons, changing tastes, and more competition for the entertainment dollar.” – San Francisco Classical Voice

“It is a very expensive art form, but it is crucial because it has such a worldwide impact… and so we have to find a way to make sure these marvellous people and organisations are going to survive through all this.” – BBC

Sponsors and donors’ valuation of our public culture is of an order very different from everyone else’s. For big oil, big pharmaceutical companies and the arms industry, it is not simply a case of doing good. For them, sponsorship of the arts is not charity; it is a strategic expenditure. – The New York Times

No specific program has been announced yet, but “look for some combination of performances presented online, outside, or in other ways that maintain social distance. The festival will continue [from Sept. 10] through Oct. 4, and organizers expect it to include eight to 12 curated works, as well as a virtual bookstore, artist talks, and independently presented works.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

How does a university with a $6-billion endowment and $10 billion in assets suddenly find itself in a solvency crisis? How is one of the country’s top research universities reduced, just a month after moving classes online, to freezing its employees’ retirement accounts? – Chronicle of Higher Education

“The UK’s largest arts and cultural organisation, the Southbank Centre, has warned that it will have used up its financial reserves by September, forcing its closure until April 2021 unless it gets further government support. The centre, which puts on more than 3,500 events every year” and contains three concert halls, an art gallery, and a library “and is home to eight orchestras, revealed details of the crippling financial pressures it is facing as a result of the coronavirus crisis.” – The Guardian

No, theatre and dance and opera and concerts won’t be returning in the autumn. “‘I am 100 percent confident that it is not happening,’ said Nancy Umanoff, Mark Morris’s executive director. For many dance companies, that means giving up on lucrative holiday season performances of The Nutcracker, a crucial best seller that, for example, brings in 45 percent of New York City Ballet’s annual ticket sales.” Here’s what may happen for dance, and all of the other performing arts as well. – The New York Times

Kazik Staszewski is a rock legend in Poland, and his song, “Your Pain Is Better than Mine,” hit a chord last week – or perhaps too many chords when it hit number 1 on a popular show. “Within minutes of the show ending, the results disappeared from the website of the show’s state-run broadcaster. Mr. Staszewski’s anthem had vanished, along with the rest of the chart.” One of the radio station’s many now-resigned hosts says, “even the Communist regime had more respect for the freedom of speech at Trojka than the current government has.” – The New York Times

With high profiles, comparatively secure government funding and established philanthropic networks, major arts festivals are in a position to make a difference. At one point in Getting Their Acts Together, Adelaide festival’s annual bill is placed at $20m – around four times the amount of money the Australia Council has scraped together for its Covid-19 resilience fund. And after months of cancellations and pushbacks there will be no shortage of compelling shows by Australian artists and companies looking to make up for lost time – and income – in 2021. – The Guardian

I’ve heard administrators insist that online instruction is just a “change in delivery system,” not a diminution of content. But this bureaucratic bromide wilfully ignores the wisdom of Marshall McLuhan, whose work I often teach. The medium is always the message. You can reduce a seminar to a distortion-addled screen, sure, but that will never substitute for being there. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

In mitigating the impact of the COVID19 crisis, the federal government swiftly responded with economy-wide measures as part of its immediate relief. It is in this roll out of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) that officials discovered the many gaps in addressing the labour force in the arts—the artist. More than the employment of the labour, it was what constituted their income that became the challenge and eluded the fit for an artist. – Georgia Strait

The issue discussed in a report just released by the Copyright Office is the DMCA’s Section 512, which lays out what social media companies and Online Service Providers (e.g., Spotify, YouTube) must do to remove pirated material and police copyright infringement. The Office says that the balance has shifted too far toward the OSPs, leaving creators whose material has been posted without permission to play “whack-a-mole.” – The Hollywood Reporter

The economy’s reliance on live events has been growing for years. When Disneyland opened in 1955, it sparked a boom in the theme park business. In recent decades, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Great Wolf Lodge water parks and more have emerged to compete for the attention — and money — of American families. – The New York Times

LA City Council unanimously approved two motions that repurpose arts fees paid by developers in support of now-canceled or planned cultural events as small-dollar grants to artists, arts organizations, and live performance spaces that have been negatively affected or threatened by the pandemic. – Hyperallergic

It includes $100 billion for rental assistance, another round of $1,200 direct payments to taxpayers, and sets aside 25 percent of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for nonprofit organizations. However, the bill, known as the HEROES Act, has little chance of passing in the Republican-led senate and President Trump has promised to veto it. – Artnet