Culture and the Arts - ArtsBeat Blog

Theater Mar 13 12:00 pm

A Cast of Children for York Theater’s ‘Charlie Brown’

The York Theater Company has a new(ish) philosophy for “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”: Cast it with children.

The show, of course, has been widely staged with performers of all ages since it was a hit off Broadway nearly 50 years ago. But the big New York productions — the original was on Broadway (briefly) in 1971, and a revised version (with Tony-winning performances by Roger Bart and Kristin Chenoweth) in 1999 — have been done with adults.

Now the York, saying it was inspired by a concert version at Feinstein’s/54 Below using child actors drawn from the casts of Broadway shows, plans to try to replicate that casting approach in a limited run starting May 24 and ending June 26. Casting is not yet completed, but the theater said it was seeking the “authority only possible from performers close in age to the characters they are portraying.”

The show, with book, music and lyrics by Clark Gesner and additional material by Andrew Lippa, will be directed by Michael Unger, who is the associate artistic director at York. The musical is adapted from the long-running “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz.

Jennifer Tepper, the programming director at 54 Below, said the production would be the first conceived for 54 Below that then had an Off Broadway run.

Classical Music Mar 11 3:24 pm

Met Opera’s Credit Rating Left Unchanged by Moody’s

Michael Cooper

The Metropolitan Opera is seeing “some softness in box office revenue” this year compared to what it had budgeted, but continues to benefit from “uncommonly high donor support,” Moody’s Investors Service said in a report issued Friday.

Moody’s, which downgraded the Met’s credit rating in 2014 after the company reported a $22 million deficit that year, kept its rating steady Friday at Baa1, with a negative outlook, even though the Met reported that it had ended its last fiscal year with a $1 million surplus after winning wage concessions from its unions and seeing a rise in contributions.

The Met, which had a $308 million budget last year, averages $148 million in annual donations, Moody’s said, and the company has embarked on a campaign to cut costs and to double the size of its endowment. But Moody’s warned that the company still faced liquidity problems that leave it reliant on an operating line of credit, as well as large pension liabilities.

“The potential return to a stable outlook will likely require increased donor support for endowment, ongoing improvement in operating performance, and improved unrestricted liquidity,’’ Moody’s said in the report.

Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, said in an interview that he believed that “certainly, our success in continuing to balance our budgets will influence them positively in the coming years.”

Attendance has been a concern in recent seasons, not just at the Met but also in a number of other opera companies around the nation and the world. The Met took in only 69 percent of its potential box-office revenue last season, and the Moody’s report said that there was “some softness in box office revenue as compared to budget” this season, including after two prime Saturday performances were canceled by a snowstorm in January.

Mar 11 10:31 am

What’s on This Week Around the World

Christopher D. Shea

Paris

Carambolages
Grand Palais

Through July 4

The title of this playful exhibition refers, in French, to a shot in billiards when a ball bounces off another object, ricocheting into a winning hole. Artists like Rembrandt, Man Ray and Giacometti are on view alongside video art and sculptures from Papua, New Guinea. The works are grouped associatively, with each work connected by ideas or visual patterns to the works that appear next to it.

Yale Rep to Debut Works by Amy Herzog and Sarah Ruhl

Michael Paulson

Two well-reviewed American playwrights, Amy Herzog and Sarah Ruhl, will debut new works in New Haven as part of the next season at Yale Repertory Theater.

The theater, which is at the Yale School of Drama, said Friday that its 2016-17 season would include three world premieres as well as productions of shows by Stephen Sondheim and August Wilson.

The new play by Ms. Ruhl, “Scenes From Court Life, or the Whipping Boy and His Prince,” is about two political dynasties — the Stuarts of 17th-century Britain, and the Bush family of the contemporary United States, and will be staged from Sept. 30 to Oct. 22. Ms. Ruhl has twice been a Pulitzer finalist, for “The Clean House” and “In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” and is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

The new play by Ms. Herzog, “Mary Jane,” is about a woman caring for her ailing son, and will be staged from April 28 to May 20, 2017. Ms. Herzog was a Pulitzer finalist for “4000 Miles.”

The Yale Rep season will also include the world premiere of “Imogen Says Nothing,” by Aditi Brennan Kapil, as well as productions of “Seven Guitars,” by Mr. Wilson, and “Assassins,” with music and lyrics by Mr. Sondheim and a book by John Weidman.

Books Mar 11 9:28 am

Stephen Greenblatt Wins Holberg Prize

Jennifer Schuessler

Stephen Greenblatt, the Harvard literary scholar best known for his studies of Shakespeare, has won Norway’s 4.5-million kroner (about $531,000) Holberg Prize, which is awarded annually to scholars who have made outstanding contributions to research in the arts, humanities, the social sciences, law or theology.

In the announcement the awards committee cited Mr. Greenblatt’s “distinctive and defining role in the field of literature and his influential voice in the humanities over four decades.” Mr. Greenblatt is widely seen as the founder of the school of literary studies known as New Historicism, which seeks to understand works of art through study of their historical context, and in turn to use works of art to understand broader intellectual history.

Mr. Greenblatt’s more than a dozen books include the best-selling biography “Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare,” and “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern,” a study of the 15th-century rediscovery of the ancient Roman poet Lucretius, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. He is also the general editor of “The Norton Shakespeare” and “The Norton Anthology of English Literature.”

In a statement Mr. Greenblatt described his lifelong goal as “opening literary studies to the historical, cultural and, in the broadest sense, anthropological energies that course through great works of art.” He is currently working on a book about the story of Adam and Eve.

Mar 10 2:22 pm

Simon & Schuster to Publish Writings of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Alexandra Alter

“My Own Words,” a collection of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s writings, will be published by Simon & Schuster in January. The book will include her writing and speeches on a variety of subjects, like her Jewish identity, gender equality, interpreting the Constitution, and the way lawyers and the law are depicted in opera. It will have an introduction by Justice Ginsburg, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993.

“Justice Ginsburg is one of the most important and articulate legal thinkers and interpreters in the country,’’ Alice Mayhew, the vice president and editorial director of Simon & Schuster, who acquired world rights to the book, said in a statement. “She is also a witty and engaged writer and speaker, and I am personally delighted to have another opera lover on board.”

Ms. Mayhew, who has edited books by President Jimmy Carter, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bob Woodward and others, has also acquired Justice Ginsburg’s authorized biography, which is being written by the Georgetown Law professors Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams.

Ms. Harnett and Ms. Williams will select the writings compiled in “My Own Words,” and will write introductions to each of the chapters, with biographical information and other context.

Justice Ginsburg, 82, was the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor. She has taken up gender-based discrimination as one of the signature issues of her legal career. She has already become a pop-culture phenomenon, as captured in the Tumblr blog-turned-book, “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” The book, written by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, is a chatty biography that features fan art of Justice Ginsburg in the form of nail art, shoulder tattoos, cartoons and baby Halloween costumes. It has more than 145,000 copies in print, and is in its seventh printing.

At a public lecture in Italy earlier this year, Justice Ginsburg was asked what she thought about the images collected in the book and fans’s extravagant displays of devotion.

“In the words that the current generation uses, it’s awesome,” she said. “It’s quite unbelievable that at age nearly 83 everyone wants to take a photograph with me.”

“As for the mugs and the T-shirts that is fine,” she continued, “but the tattoo… that is a bit much.”

Classical Music Mar 10 12:00 pm

Thomas Adès Joins Boston Symphony as Artistic Partner

Michael Cooper

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced Thursday that it had named the highly acclaimed British composer Thomas Adès to the newly created position of artistic partner, a three-year post that will showcase his work as a composer, conductor, pianist and teacher.

The partnership, announced as part of the orchestra’s 2016-17 season, will bring Mr. Adès to Boston in the fall to conduct his monumental “Totentanz,” accompany the tenor Ian Bostridge on the piano in a performance of Schubert’s “Winterreise,” and play the piano with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. The following season the orchestra will give the world premiere of his piano concerto, which it commissioned, with Kirill Gerstein as the soloist.

Mr. Adès will also play a prominent role at Tanglewood, where he has been named director of the Festival of Contemporary Music in 2018 and 2019, and where he will work with the fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center, the orchestra’s summer academy.

Andris Nelsons, the music director of the Boston Symphony, said in a statement that he looked forward to working with Mr. Adès , whom he called “one of the most creative souls in the world of classical music today.” Mr. Adès, for his part, said that from his first rehearsal with the Boston Symphony five years ago, he “knew that we shared a musical wavelength.”

Mar 10 10:49 am

Rembrandts Emerge Into Public Eye, in Paris and Maastricht

Doreen Carvajal

PARIS — Two rarely seen Rembrandt wedding portraits made their public debut in Paris on Thursday at the Louvre, the start of a permanent rotation of the works between the Netherlands and France, which jointly purchased them last year for 160 million euros, or about $179 million.

Among the first to view the works were President François Hollande of France and King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who studied the two enormous paintings at a presentation ceremony, along with the directors of the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The works, full-length portraits of Marten Soolmans and his wife, Oopjen Coppit, dating from 1634, have only been displayed once in public, in Amsterdam in 1956. Since 1877, they have been part of the private collection of the Rothschild family, which kept them in their Paris mansion, according to Sébastien Allard, the director of the Louvre’s department of paintings.

According to the agreement between the two governments, the works will remain in the Louvre for three months, until June 13, and will then shift to Amsterdam for three months before an undetermined period of restoration to smooth their varnish. The two portraits will then move for five-year rotations between Amsterdam and Paris, followed by eight-year rotations.

The accord prevented a bidding war between the two countries, with France drawing on financial support from the national Banque de France to make the costliest acquisition in the history of the Louvre. The two countries have set up a commission of eight experts to act as consultants during the restoration.

“Here you see the power of Rembrandt,” Wim Pijbes, the director of the Rijksmuseum, said during the presentation, noting that the melancholy portrait of Oopjen Coppit in a sumptuous black dress and white lace was sometimes referred to as the “Mona Lisa of the North.”

The artist’s star power was also evident this week at the Tefar art fair in Maastricht, where a newly rediscovered Rembrandt oil is on display after it was uncovered at a small auction house in Bloomfield, N.J., last September. The work was thought to be a 19th-century painting and was initially valued at about $800. It was bid up to $870,000 by dealers who suspected its real origins. It is now owned by the American collector Thomas S. Kaplan.

The 8.5-inch-by-7-inch painting, “The Unconscious Patient,” is also known as “Smell.” Experts believe that it was painted by Rembrandt in his late teens.

Theater Mar 9 1:55 pm

Neil Patrick Harris’s Latest Trick: A Magic-Themed Immersive Theater Project

Joshua Barone

Neil Patrick Harris is collaborating with the producers behind the immersive theater spectacle “Queen of the Night” on a new, magic-themed nightlife project.

One of those producers, Randy Weiner — whose production credits also include “Sleep No More” and “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812″ — said in an interview that the currently untitled project with Mr. Harris’s Prediction Productions was in the works, with an opening aimed for the fall. (Mr. Harris will not be performing in the show.)

Mr. Harris has performed magic at a variety of venues, including the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, where he served as president of the board. Mr. Weiner said the collaboration had come about casually. Mr. Harris wanted to work with him on an immersive theater project, he said, and Mr. Weiner reached out when he decided on a magic theme for his next one.

Details are scant but Mr. Weiner did say that the production, which has no opening date, would involve “totally transforming” 311 West 57th Street — which his company, Variety Worldwide, is to lease when the event space Providence leaves it this year. The site is the former home of the nightclub Le Bar Bat.

“Magic is at the core of this venue” for the production, Mr. Weiner said, adding that the space would be made to look like a mansion and that there would be dance, variety acts and one-on-one interactions. As with “Queen of the Night,” there will be a meal, which he said would be “an unexpected culinary experience.”

Mr. Weiner said he was in the final stages of securing collaborators for set design, choreography and cuisine. Workshops for the production are scheduled to begin this summer.

Mar 9 11:29 am

Orsay Museum President Is Reappointed, but to a Shortened Term

Aurelien Breeden

PARIS — The French Culture Ministry announced on Wednesday that Guy Cogeval, the president of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris since 2008, would be reappointed to his post – but for only one year rather than the expected three.

In a statement, the ministry praised Mr. Cogeval, who is also the head of the Musée de l’Orangerie across the Seine, noting that he had helped to develop and renovate the Musee d’Orsay and that recent exhibits there, like one on the artistic depiction of prostitution, had been met with “repeated critical and public success.”

But Mr. Cogeval’s governance came into question last month when half a dozen curators at the Musée d’Orsay anonymously contacted the newspaper Le Monde to oppose his reappointment, arguing that he was “neither physically, nor psychologically, nor scientifically able to run a museum of this stature.”

Mr. Cogeval, 60, suffered a stroke in 2014. The anonymous curators said his health problems had left him unfit to manage the museum, calling his decision-making “irrational” and his programming “extremely fluctuating.”

Several high-profile curators have recently left the institutions under Mr. Cogeval, including Sylvie Patry, who left the Musée d’Orsay last November to become chief curator and deputy director for collections and exhibitions at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

In an open letter addressed to Le Monde, Mr. Cogeval dismissed the anonymous criticism as rumors fostered by rivals vying for his job and denied the stroke had left him impaired.

Although the statement did not specify why Mr. Cogeval’s term would only last for only one year, the ministry said he would step down in March 2017 to head a center dedicated to the study of a movement of painters known as Les Nabis, which he specializes in.