Category: today’s top story

“Art is long and life is short, according to the old Roman saying, but sometimes art doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. The canvas warps, the metal bends, the paper turns brown…. [I]t’s not fully clear what responsibility artists bear to their completed work, especially after it has been sold.”

Charles McNulty: “The performance was remarkable for its sharp intelligence and moral clarity. But just as striking was the discipline Obama exhibited not to succumb to the feelings that were overtaking his listeners. The actor cannot melt into the swelling audience response; private emotions, even when fueling one’s real-life part, must be contained.”

“We have reason to believe we have an arts president. … Frankly, the Williams quartet [at the inauguration] was a bit hokey. For Obama to be an arts president he will have to think higher and even further out of the box. If he really wants change, he will have to have the courage to listen to artists who can’t be controlled, whose vision is greater than his and his handlers.” So here’s a list of some.

“So President Obama’s administration was ushered in with a new chamber music work by a living American composer. Classical singers have performed for inaugurations in recent decades. But to have a new instrumental piece played was most unusual, something that should gratify classical music lovers.”

“When Barack Obama takes the oath of office as president of the United States, Thomas Crawford’s ‘Statue of Freedom’ will preside over the event from its exalted perch atop the Capitol dome. Metaphorically, at least, the nation’s first African American president will complete something the statue’s artist originally planned to evoke.”

“As liberals around the world leap up and down with joy at the inauguration of Barack Obama, theatre-makers also have cause to celebrate: they can go back to making interesting political theatre. For the last eight years, seemingly everyone involved in making theatre has so violently disagreed with George Bush that it’s made for some very tedious work. (Yes, that includes Stuff Happens.)”

Dargis and Scott: “Of course, we had seen several black presidents already, not in the real White House but in the virtual America of movies and television… in the 47 years since Mr. Obama was born, black men in the movies have traveled from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list.”

“Andrew Wyeth, the most popular American artist of the 20th century, died early today at his home in Chadds Ford. The creator of such iconic paintings as Christina’s World and Wind From the Sea was 91. … The public loved his work, but many critics and scholars considered him an illustrator like his father, N.C. Wyeth, rather than a major artist. His work was often characterized as sentimental, the critical kiss of death.”

“[T]he Metropolitan Opera has been bludgeoned by the recession and now faces a ‘disaster scenario’ unless the company finds major cost cuts, including concessions from its powerful unions, the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, said on Thursday. Its once-mighty endowment of more than $300 million has dropped by a third, to a point where it cannot be drawn from; donations are down by $10 million this season; and ticket sales are expected to be off by several million dollars….”

A former banking executive, Adams took the reins of the SLSO in 2001; over six years, he saw the orchestra through the fatal illness of one music director (Hans Vonk), the recruiting of another (the coveted David Robertson), an all-too-close brush with bankruptcy and a bitter musicians’ strike – and the septupling of the orchestra’s endowment.