previously
La Cieca thanks a particularly loyal member of the cher public for pointing out the most recent bit of hard-hitting arts coverage in the Wall Street Journal, as copied and pasted by that hardest of all arts hitters, Terry Teachout. La Cieca says “copied and pasted” because in this piece Teachout manages to blather on for over 800 words without introducing a shred of new reporting or even a sliver of fresh observation.
For those of you who have not been paying any attention at all to what’s been happening at the New York City Opera since, oh, around the time the last woolly mammoth died out in these parts, La Cieca takes the liberty of emulating the Teachout’s reporting technique and pasting here a few choice snippets:
New York’s second-biggest opera company is closing up shop — temporarily. Lincoln Center’s New York State Theater, home of the New York City Opera, will be undergoing major renovations throughout City Opera’s 2008-09 season. The company had originally planned to present a series of concert opera performances in various locations around the city, then decided to trim costs by cutting back. . . .
. . .the repertoire will consist of six 20th-century operas. No Handel, no Mozart, no Puccini — just [list of operas]. All of these works are widely admired, but none has ever been mistaken for a box-office draw.
Gérard Mortier . . . has said that New York needs “a new vision in opera,” and his first season definitely fills the bill. . . .
. . . the State Theater [was] built with dance, not opera, in mind. Among other things, the house was designed in such a way as to deaden the sound of dancing feet — the opposite of what should happen in an opera house, where the goal is to make the singers on stage more audible, not less. . . .
In Europe [Mortier] has long been identified with ultratrendy, government-subsidized updates of familiar operas, most notoriously a “Fledermaus” in which Johann Strauss’s lovable characters snorted cocaine and got beaten up by Nazis. . .
. . the Metropolitan Opera, City Opera’s neighbor at Lincoln Center, has changed its once-stodgy theatrical ways. Under Joe Volpe, the Met offered a steady diet of blandly staged warhorses spiced up with an occasional dash of Eurotrash. But Peter Gelb, his successor, is bringing in stage-savvy directors like John Doyle and Bartlett Sher. . .
. . . . Mr. Mortier may be remembered as the man who turned out the lights at the New York City Opera — for keeps.
As La Cieca’s tipster comments, “How resourceful of him to publish a piece that summarizes the previous 267 articles already written on the subject without a single new insight. So very saving of labor.”
>Brooklynpunk> wrote about Teachout: >What do you expect?–anyone who can’t get a better writing gig than the Wall Street Journal…and Commentary Magazine (oy gevalt…) , with an occassional bone thrown to him from the neanderthals at The New Criterian, has to be living in a time-warp to begin with—Terry probably doesn’t know what century he is living in, right now!<
Oh my dear, NO ONE has EVER asked you to write about ANYTHING for free, let alone for a fee. It’s entirely obvious why. WSJ is read internationally by a different public than the Times. Mr. Teachout matters far more than you have ever or will ever matter. Rave on here under a pseudonym and on Opera Hell under your real name — no one even has to flush the toilet to be rid of you in cyber space, as they must in life.
Yes, and I am so sick of regietheater haters always always always pointing out the it state-supported in Europe. I am not a regie fan, but the lumping together of regie, government sponsorship of the arts, and gritty, leftist political themes evident in regie is sick-making.
Mark, La Cieca is not sure she follows your logic here. It does seem almost certain that Einstein on the Beach will sell very well indeed for its scheduled run. The NYCO is not planning (so far as I know) to revive the work, so it’s really irrelevant to compare it to Boheme or Aida — any more than you should compare the previous NYCO’s programming of (say) Partenope. In fact, Einstein and the NYCO Handel productions are comparable cases in that each plays to a decent number of well-attended performances in one season.
As for the more familiar works like Pelleas and Mahagonny, Teachout is right that their recent stage history cannot be called box office success. I do think that there is an audience for provocative new productions of these works, particularly in the debut season of a new intendant when the public will be curious.
It seems to me that there is no particular virtue in repertory opera programming, especially when there is another opera house right across the plaza doing repertory. A stagione system works something like a festival which (ideally) means higher artistic standards and more attention by the company to each work in turn. I have my doubts whether out-of-towners were flocking to NYCO’s Boheme and Carmen in such great numbers anyway.
My complaint with Teachout’s piece is not that he said anything untrue, but rather that he didn’t seem to be thinking very much about the issues in question. To characterize Mortier’s entire career with that single festival production Fledermaus is misleadingly reductive. What’s more, I can’t imagine that Teachout is so ignorant that he doesn’t realize it’s misleading, which suggests to me that he’s simply pandering to the bourgeois anti-art prejudices of the WSJ‘s audience.
I’ll just choose to disagree with you, La Cieca.
The Festival idea is a good one but I’ve never heard of a successful festival anywhere where they only do one work during the festival. It just won’t work
My point is that NYCO has done no research on any of thses subjects. They are just jumping in the deep end which seems shortsighted to me.
I don’t live in New York City. I come to New York 4 times or so per year. Under the old system I could see 80% of NYCO’s season on those four visits. Under the new system, I will probably only be able to see 25% if that.
I buy two subscriptions of 15 performances or so there each season. Now I will just buy a couple of single tickets because I won’t be able to come to NYC 12 times per year to see their entire season.
I know at least 30 or 40 people around the country who do the same. Not a single one said they would renew if that had to keep coming back to see single productions, one at a time.
So I guess NYCO will truly become NYCO — for New Yorkers only. That’s a shame.
I also know people who buy tickets to multiple performances of the same work because they want to see it more than once. They have told me … I’d see something 3 times in a month or six weeks but I’m not going to see the sometime 3 times in the space of 2 weeks.
That’s what Baker (big surprise) and Mortier are missing. There have been a series of meetinss (I was invited to one) in which these questions were put to both of them and you get blank stares or PR blather.
They clearly have not thought any of this through which is why I have only cause for pessimism as much as I want to see innovative works and interesting productions.
And you are completely wrong about the so-called “anti-art” prejudices of the WSJ audience. All of the arts lovers I know read both the Times and the WSJ. And, lately, some of the WSJ arts coverage has been far better than the Times which continues as a cheerleader for New York arts orgs and doesn’t ask tough questions.
Case in point. Alan Gilbert’s appt at the New York Phil. I have yet to see a single word in the Times that doesn’t make you think this is the second coming of Leonard Bernstein when if you ask arts people around the country what they think and they say “safe choice, second rate hack, uninspiring.”
You won’t read that in the Times because Pravda is just towing the line from the Politburo.
Well, I guess since 30 or 40 people around the country won’t buy season tickets, NYCO must truly be dying.
As for Lincoln Center’s architecture, I might point out that the World Trade Center towers were pretty reviled when they were built, but are still sorely missed in the skyline. I know that when I travel over the Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridges, or down the West Side Highway, I still scan the skyline expecting to see them. I didn’t like them, but they were part of NYC. When I go down to the Upper West Side, I expect to see Lincoln Center. I do think, however, that the revitalization of the Center is not going far enough. I think tearing down the walkway over the street is a great improvement, but I wish the plan for the glass canopy over the plaza had been approved. DOes that mean I couldn’t appreciate a facility like Gehry’s in LA? Of course not. And Lincoln Center isn’t really any worse than The Kennedy Center; both were built at roughly the same time and in roughly the same style, which unfortunately hasn’t aged well. And I think I think we live in a disposable society where when something becomes outdated, we tear it down. There are occasions when it’s appropriate. The Time Warner Center is no great beauty, but it’s a vast improvement over the Coliseum. NYC has bigger fish to fry at the moment than tearing down and rebuilding Lincoln Center… like maybe finally building something in the pit at the World Trade Center site. If only the folks behind Yankee Stadium were in charge…
Mr. Teachout matters far more than you have ever or will ever matter.
But is his writing any good? Just because somebody has a high-profile platform doesn’t mean his writing’s any good. And I for one have yet to read anything by Teachout that would persuade me that his writing is worth its platform. Really, why must we have so much reverence for critical authority?
Indiana Loiterer 111, your point is well taken and I don’t disagree. I thought the arrogance of the person I snarked at appalling, since ‘his’ implication was that ANY FOOL can get paying work writing about the arts, except HIM. Teachout is just typical, well connected and in his case political. He’s not a fool or even inept, but he is hardly inspiring or insightful. But I look around and see no one compelling being published and he is far from the worst. There is a difference between understanding that someone is a professional, and an anonymous blogger implying that ‘he’ somehow knows better. Teachout doesn’t have to be Virgil Thomson to disprove that.
i’m going to don my flameproof jammies and rise to the defense of terry teachout. (before anyone asks: i’m not terry teachout. i don’t know him; i don’t know anyone who knows him. i read his reviews; that’s all.) first, the wall street journal’s readership isn’t following every twist and turn in nyco’s programming; it’s a national publication for business people. what may be a thrice-told tale to opera buffs in manhattan is actual news to folks in the great beyond. second, teachout is primarily a theater reviewer; his regular readers are likely not conversant with gerard mortier’s career in opera. third, i enjoy teachout’s generosity of spirit — no one writes a better rave, and he’s not afraid to say drop-everything-and-see-this-show even about relative obscurities and regional theater. i’ve never seen any evidence that he’s pandering to the (presumed) “bourgeois anti-art prejudices” of his readers. his writing is lively and direct, he generally knows what he’s talking about, and he certainly hasn’t earned the abuse being heaped on him here.
High c’s pirate:
My abuse towards Mr. Teachout stems from his often-times extremely political right-wing comments in his writings(not being a regular WSJ reader, I can’t vouch if they appear in his columns there, as often as they do in his other published works)
Unlike his fellow conservative critic for the NEW YORK SUN (a rabidly right-wing paper)-whereas that reviewer at least seperates his political opinions from the artistic matter at hand, Teachout more times than not, doesn’t.
Teachout has also been a Bush appointee to the NEA, and has mouthed the Party line concerning government funding (or the lack therof) for the Arts.
In discussing or critiquing the Arts, It isn’t essential to me to be as left-leaning as I am, as long as your political opinions don’t enter into the discussion, which unfortunately for Teachout happens more times than not.