03.14.18 – Page 3 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Le Figaro Music Critic: How Symphony Orchestras And Conductors Are Changing

Christian Merlin (in part two of an interview whose first half dealt with changes in music criticism): “I think we’re living in an era, at least in the West, where the cult of an individual is no longer in fashion: rather, we’re looking for integration, collaboration, involvement of everyone. The first person to really embody this change was Simon Rattle. There are 128 musicians in the Berlin Phil, and Rattle would always say ‘I am the 129th’. That doesn’t mean that there were no tensions; there were enormous ones – perhaps precisely because the musicians had been used to a conductor who decides everything!”

Banksy Puts Up A New Work In New York: A Rat (Of Course)

It’s even more fitting than you think: not only has the world’s only celebrity guerrilla artist tagged the Big Apple with an image of its emblematic mammal, he’s made it represent the city’s emblematic metaphor for work and career. (Sorry, there’s no pizza.)

Pittsburgh Ballet Presents Seven New Works Choreographed By Its Own Dancers

“‘PBT: New Works’ marks the first time the company has mounted a full showcase of dancers’ choreography for a mainstage performance. However, nurturing emerging choreographers on PBT’s roster has been a mission for [artistic director Terrence] Orr for the past few years.”

Pittsburgh Ballet Dancers Talk About The New Pieces They’ve Choreographed For The Company

Corps member William Moore on his Weighted Affair: “I wanted to create a simple narrative – a dinner party with friends – to try to show the sometimes conflicting nature between what someone thinks as opposed to what they choose to actually portray in reality.”

How British Theatre Is Starting To Address Its Class Problem

For all the attention that’s now being paid to correcting the longstanding obstacles that women and minorities face in the field, a number of British theater workers (both onstage and backstage) argue that the barriers against the working class in a thoroughly middle- and upper-middle-class industry are worse. Lyn Gardner talks to a number of those workers about the class problem – and about what they’re doing to fix it.

Hungary’s National Opera And Ballet To Make Their First-Ever Visit To U.S.

“The Hungarian State Opera and Hungarian National Ballet will make their US debut by sending 350 musicians and dancers to New York with support from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing government. The October 30-November 11 performances at Lincoln Center will highlight Hungarian works including Bánk Bán, a signature opera of national anthem composer Ferenc Erkel, and Bluebeard’s Castle, the only opera of early 20th-century giant Béla Bartók.”

Orchestras Aren’t The Only Ones Who Need To Get Over The ‘Maestro Myth’ – Theatre Companies Do, Too

“It’s not [Nicholas Hytner’s] fault that during his 12-year tenure at the National Theatre he wildly discombobulated expectations of what artistic directors could do. But that is what happened, because … in the wake of Hytner, it’s assumed that a single figure can be as brilliant directing as they are a chief executive, ultimately responsible for everything.” Steven Atkinson, himself artistic director of a theatre company, argues that it’s high time that the demands and expectations of the job be rethought.

Stephen Hawking, 76

“The image of Stephen Hawking … in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination, as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter. As with the Delphic oracle of ancient Greece, physical impairment seemed compensated by almost supernatural gifts, which allowed his mind to roam the universe freely, upon occasion enigmatically revealing some of its secrets hidden from ordinary mortal view. Of course, such a romanticised image can represent but a partial truth.” An obituary by Hawking’s Cambridge colleague Roger Penrose.

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