What’s Theatre Like In Right-Wing Hungary After A Cultural Crackdown?

Frankly, it’s a bit more boring – and less dangerous in an overt sense, though it’s certainly dangerous for some of the theatre-makers. “Independent-minded leaders of scores of theatres and other cultural organizations across the nation have been replaced by apparatchiks—including at the emblematic National Theatre, where popular actor-director Robert Alfoldi was sacked in 2013 after being outed as gay and decried for ‘treason’ and ‘inciting and discrediting Hungarians.'”

The Unlikely Friendship That Produced “The Night Before Christmas”

“On one hand, we have a man of inherited wealth, his way greased by the power and position of his family, but also a man who believed in the public good (even if he didn’t like city hall telling him what to do with his property) and believed in helping struggling artists—and a man, yes, with enough twinkle in his soul to write the world’s most famous poem about Santa Claus—in the spirit of Christmas, let’s be generous and assume he was the author. And then you have a man on the run from his creditors and the law, a toothless, middle-aged immigrant who arrived in this country with little more than a beat-up violin and a few words of broken English.”

Top AJBlogs Posts From The Weekend Of 12.24.17

Merry Christmas: The Annual Gift
My Christmas painting for RCA readers this year is Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Nativity from the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University. It’s dated c. 1492 and was bequeathed to the museum by Charles Brinsley … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2017-12-24

Brownlow’s Christmas Music, By Request
When we posted this visit with Jack Brownlow a couple of years ago, response was enthusiastic and dozens of readers asked if we planned to make it an annual feature. I’m not … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-12-24

Three Christmas Albums
For some reason, this year did not bring the wide collection of celebratory albums that usually flow into Rifftides headquarter during the holiday season. But here are acknowledgements, if not full-fledged reviews, … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-12-23

The Case of James Levine: Taking Stock
When a pianist plays the piano, when a violinist plays the violin, when a conductor conducts an orchestra, the performer channels music through a network of personal traits. This should be self-evident. It has … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered QuestionPublished 2017-12-22

Jeanine Durning was the Best Thing Ever in 2017
In 2017 I wasn’t able to get out to the theater often (so I reviewed film and book and other events as well). I maybe saw 10 concerts, including the big bubbly premiere of American Balllet Theatre’s “Whipped … read more
AJBlog: Fresh PencilPublished 2017-12-22

How Can Universities Convince Students That, In Reading Hard Texts, The Difficulty Is The Point?

Requiring attendance and the passage of an exam, for instance, can help. But still: “There is only one way to go on, as I tell students – and that is to go on. This is the first and greatest difficulty they face. There’s no reason for them to continue reading. There is so much else to read that is shorter, and not just aimed at them, but, in the case of their Facebook feed, tuned to their experience. Marketed to them. Why would they bother reading something that was neither for them nor about them?”