"Like Callas, Ms. Scotto possessed a voice that was riveting without being traditionally beautiful. … Also like Callas, she was known for fully inhabiting her roles, bringing intense dramaticism to an art form in which singers had once been content to stand onstage and trill." - MSN (The Washington Post)
The company has cut this year's budget by about 20% and eliminated six positions. One of this season's productions, Joseph Bologne's The Anonymous Lover, is postponed to 2024-25, the Opera Philadelphia Channel (paid streaming) will be shuttered, and President David Devan will depart next summer. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
The state of Florida under Ron DeSantis certainly has come to resemble a parody of itself, and, well: "Students in a Florida school district will be reading only excerpts from William Shakespeare's plays for class rather than the full texts under redesigned curriculum guides." - NPR
Many viewers are, while not thrilled that their favorite actors, writers, and designers are out of work, relieved to have some time "to catch up after the breakneck pace of the so-called Peak TV era, when dozens of shows were premiering each month." - The New York Times
A collective called Looty "seeks to give people from former colonies who are unable to travel to the West three-dimensional replicas and knowledge of their stolen treasures. Their aim is to end Western museums' monopoly over the narrative and give the public a more complete picture." - The New York Times
In a country where nearly every iota of our psyches and our physical spaces has been captured for the purpose of generating a profit, the ongoing existence of public libraries feels not just radical, but astonishing. - Popula
There clearly is no buyer like Apple, which is sitting on $62 billion in cash and cash equivalents and has a $2.8 trillion market cap. And while it may be very true that Apple doesn’t want to buy a studio, maybe it would want to buy this studio. - The Hollywood Reporter
The play’s the thing that’s now in danger. America’s love affair with the stage – embodied by Lincoln and fellow presidential theatregoers such as Bill Clinton – is on the rocks. From coast to coast, the regional theatre movement is facing the biggest crisis in its 75-year history. - The Guardian
Actors who book multiple plays a year. Writers with rave reviews. Award-winning designers. These people are performing at a professional level while living like hobbyists, putting together a mishmash of odd jobs outside their art to provide for themselves while anxiously waiting for a next gig that may or may not come. - Toronto Star
"No clear economic reason for art criticism that is not glorified public relations to exist, so it barely does. While art is an extreme case in this regard, it’s also a leading indicator: as defender and judge of quality, the critic is an endangered species in many industries these days." - The Point
Hillary Simms, the first woman in the American Brass Quintet, would like to solve that by inspiring more girls and women - which involves ending the "token woman in brass" idea. "We are pitting ourselves against each other, which is the absolute opposite of what we need." - The New York Times
"I can’t put myself in the unisex Crocs of a young person exploring classical music for the first time, but Apple Classical strikes me as an oddly clumsy point of entry." - The New Yorker
Hollywood has a history of treating evolving consumer habits first as a threat to theatrical dollars and then as a tool to be co-opted in the pursuit of earning ever-greater profits. - The Atlantic
"Treemonisha experiments seem to be everywhere these days: Three very different versions have recently been presented, in the United States, Canada and France. Their timing is a coincidence, and all were envisioned before the widespread calls for diversifying the canon over the past few years." - The New York Times
Yasmeen Lari, who's spent nearly two decades creating and promoting architecture for the poor using inexpensive traditional materials and techniques, has designed improved, flood-resistant huts made of mud, rice husks, lime, and bamboo for thousands of villagers. Each costs less than $90. - The Guardian
"Barbie combines the rules of the movie musical ... with the investments of a Beckett or a Ionesco play. … (It's) a highly symbolic exercise where theoretical entities get to speak for themselves, and where real people get to tell anthropomorphized theoretical entities what effects they have on the human experience." - Literary Hub
How do you decide that the content you’re producing is actually generating value? That goes back to the question that we have about how to get the residual because if you can’t figure out what the value is going be, then how do you decide how to distribute the value downstream?” - The Guardian
"'It’s impossible not to be distraught about the state of the field,' said Christopher Moses, an artistic director of the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. 'It’s clear this is the hardest time to be producing nonprofit theater, maybe in the history of the nonprofit movement.'" - The New York Times
"With both the studios and unions expecting a drawn-out battle, everyone from makeup artists and costume designers to carpet dealers and foam sculptors is preparing to perhaps go for months without working, at a time when many are still recovering from the pandemic." - The New York Times
The floating psychedelic flowers of this season's Parsifal "are meant to provide the audience with 'sacred visions' of 'a world where wonder still exists,'" says director Jay Scheib. But this production also reveals a massive rift in leadership at the festival. - The New York Times
