Reuniting Ballet With Opera At The Met

“The two arts, once inseparable, have grown apart. The Metropolitan Opera, however, has been making a concerted effort to improve this situation under … Peter Gelb. … I can think of no dance company that has been able [as the Met has done] to commission new work by three of the biggest names in choreography today: [Mark] Morris, [Alexei] Ratmansky and [Christopher] Wheeldon.”

TV Revenues Plummet In 2009

“Network television revenue fell 21.5 percent, and syndicated television stumbled a relatively benign 7.2 percent, according to a report from the Television Bureau of Advertising. Local broadcast television, stung by the absence of political advertising in a nonelection year, plummeted 28.1 percent in the third quarter.”

A Movie That “Gets” Dance

“La Danse is the only film I know that successfully conveys what it feels like, physically, to be a dancer–to get inside a step or a phrase and to make it work on your own body–but also to live, as dancers do, absorbed in the repetitive, ritualized, and seemingly timeless practices of their art. None of this is monkish or self-sacrificing, as it is often portrayed. It is simply what dancers do: it is their work.”

Is The Boston Symphony Losing Its Way?

Jeremy Eichler has a “lingering concern is the state of James Levine’s and the BSO’s larger artistic vision. Across the country, orchestras are updating their approaches to programming with the goal of engaging listeners – current and potential – more broadly, deeply, and imaginatively. They are also experimenting with new ways of bringing select composers and performers into the mix, assigning them key roles not only in making music but also in artistic planning and community engagement. In these departments, Levine and the BSO are notably lagging behind the curve.”