|
|
|
|
Classical Music is Supreme Today at the Nation's Highest Court
By Anastasia Tsioulcas
• Deceptive Cadences (NPR) • Wednesday, May 16, 2012
This is a big week for classical music at the Supreme Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg provided Alex Ross at The New Yorker with a list of her favorite records. Not only does Justice Ginsburg have impeccable taste in opera — from Placido Domingo's classic Otello to the Nathan Gunn/Ian Bostridge Billy Budd — but her son, James Ginsburg, has become an important force in promoting Chicago-area musicians via his record label, Cedille...
To top it off, Justice Ginsburg — who has made cameo appearances in Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Fledermaus at the Washington National Opera — hosted last year's NEA Opera Awards.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Is audience development for the arts the answer?
By Shoshana Fanizza
• Audience Development Specialists Blog • Wednesday, May 16, 2012
To me, audience development is not just a method or technique of arts management, but an entire philosophy about how to run a business today. In an age where crowdsourcing and social media are popular, the days of us dictating art are no longer valid. Our business models of producing, marketing and fundraising without thoughts of our audiences are unraveling. It is not wise to fall back on old business practices, and instead, it is better to be creative, engaging and involving with the people around us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Where Opera Costumes Go to Die...
By Christie Connolley
• Operagasm • Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Artist E.V. Day’s incredible work appears in all the prestigious arts venue, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Art, the New York Library…. and most recently Southern Methodist University Meadow School of the Arts. The Texas-based University is hosting Carmen, Merry Widow and Hats, part of the fourteen suspended sculptures, which encompass Divas Ascending.The sculptures are fabricated from retired costumes from the New York Opera’s archives, a collection comprised from prominent international opera houses. Dresses from Carmen and The Merry Widow originate from the Metropolitan Opera and and New York City Opera, respectively. Hats is made up of pieces from numerous houses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Signs of Engagement
By Doug Borwick
• Engaging Matters • Wednesday, May 16, 2012
While I’m on a roll with posts dissecting the meaning and nature of engagement (Engagement Is, Audience Development “vs.” Community Engagement, Audience Engagement-Community Engagement), I’ve got some more issues to raise (or repeat). I have made much of the fact that substantive community engagement (as opposed to audience engagement) is extremely rare among established arts organizations. In an effort to stave off arguments about that, here are two questions to ask of any organization that considers itself to be practicing community engagement...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Coughy Talk
By Fred Plotkin
• Operavore (WQXR) • Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The problem of audiences coughing during musical performances is nothing to sneeze at. In a flurry of end-of-season performances in three of New York’s major halls, I had the chance to experience a range of expectoration far beyond anything I would have anticipated or desired. I have come to the conclusion that some people in certain settings will cough for reasons that have nothing to do with what some doctors refer to as "frictional stress of the airways."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Audra McDonald: Shaping 'Bess' On Broadway
By Staff
• NPR • Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Audra McDonald has starred in stage classics and on TV, where she played a leading role on the ABC drama Private Practice for
four seasons. But the actress might be better known for her stunning
voice and for her performances in the Broadway productions of Carousel, Master Class and Ragtime, which helped her rack up three Tony Awards before the age of 30. She won a fourth Tony for her performance in A Raisin in the Sun, putting her in the company of Broadway greats Gwen Verdon and Mary Martin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kid Rock, DSO concert raises $1 million, but also profile of orchestra with new audience
By Mark Stryker
• Detriot Free Press • Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Now that my ears have finally stopped ringing after Saturday night’s explosive collaboration of Kid Rock and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the Fox Theatre, I want to put an exclamation point on a truly extraordinary night for the orchestra. The concert sold out the 5,000-seat theater and raised $1 million for the cash-strapped DSO. But the money only begins to get at why Saturday was a landmark for the symphony and why, in the wake of last year’s divisive musician strike, last week served as a microcosm of how the orchestra is rebuilding and rebranding itself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lyric Opera draws on fiscal reserves to break even for year
By John von Rhein
• Chicago Tribune • Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Compared with just about every other company in the business, Lyric Opera of Chicago continues to ride above the economic turbulence that is buffeting so many of the nation's other not-for-profit performing arts organizations. Not soaring, but riding. The overall news coming out of the company's annual meeting Monday night was positive. The company exceeded its fundraising goal for fiscal 2012 and also scored impressive gains in ticket revenue, contributions and ticket sales that spoke to opera's central importance in the classical music life of the area — weak economy or not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The New Opera Audience
By Keith Cerny
• TheaterJones • Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Many leaders in the opera field, including myself, are regularly asked the question, "How can we develop the 'new' opera audience?" The questioner usually takes the view that the opera audience is too narrow, and aging out, and that the next generation is lagging in their commitment and interest. Implicit in his or her question is that this is a new phenomenon that current leaders in the field may not be addressing adequately. Consider, though, the following true stories:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Living Opera
Darren K. Woods, General Director, Fort Worth Opera
Original Content • 5/14/2012
Fort Worth Opera’s Darren K. Woods on setting a new festival agenda
I guess you could say that opera festivals are in my blood. My first opera job as a professional singer was as an apprentice artist for Santa Fe opera. I worked at Santa Fe most summers for the next 14 years, along with the festivals in Saint Louis, Chautauqua, Glimmerglass, Sarasota and several others, but eventually I retired from singing and became a general director. When I came to Fort Worth, the board charged me with breathing new life into our 60-year-old stagione company, and the idea of changing into a festival format was a natural leap for me — albeit an exciting and frightening one. It would necessitate altering our business model completely, trying something that had never been done in north Texas, and risking a patron base that was comfortable attending operas spaced out over the year. However, facing stiff competition from the hundreds of other arts organizations serving a population of over six million people in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, it was a matter of change or die.
|
|