Opera News, 76 years old and one of the leading classical music magazines in the country, said on Monday that it would stop reviewing the Metropolitan Opera, a policy prompted by the Met’s dissatisfaction over negative critiques.
[several paragraphs deleted]
“As of the June 2012 issue, Opera News is not reviewing Metropolitan Opera productions,” F. Paul Driscoll, the magazine’s editor in chief, said in a terse telephone interview. He declined to elaborate but acknowledged that no other opera company had been banished from its pages.
Translation: Peter Gelb's displeasure over the negative Ring reviews and some some comments by Brian Kellow mean that Opera News's 100,000 subscribers won't get to read reviews of Met productions in ON. Instead, they'll have to rely on the NY Times, the WSJ, the New Yorker, the Daily News, and, of course, the blogosphere.
Dear Peter, when messengers from all over deliver the same message, perhaps it's time to ponder that message a bit.
Dear Peter, when messengers from all over deliver the same message, perhaps it's time to ponder that message a bit.
See also (in the order in which I found them, more or less):
- Alex Ross on his blog and an article mincing no words on TNY's web site
- La Cieca and her follow-up
- Brian at Out West Arts, who discusses the news cycle in a follow-up posting
- Superconductor
- Oboeinsight
- Musical Toronto
- Slipped Disc (Lebrecht gets some kind of award for the best headline). Lebrecht suggests a boycott on reviewing the Met.
- Philip Kennicott
- Terry Teachout (former ON reviewer!)
- "Lenny Abramov," writing at Parterre Box (see Zerbinetta for some commentary on this piece)
- Tim Mangan
- Anne Midgette
- David Scott Marley
- Zerbinetta
- Alex Wellsung
- Justin Davidson
- John Marcher, late but with a defense of the Met Ring. (I thought SFO's Siegfried far superior to the Met's.)
- William Madison, ON reviewer and former editor of the opera review section
- ....and the right Google Blogsearch search gets you even more hits.
The combination of thin skin and tone-deaf arrogance boggles the mind. How can he possibly believe this is acceptable, let alone a good idea?
ReplyDeleteWriting mine right now. Damn the torpedoes.
ReplyDeleteI warned him: all things must pass away, including multi-million dollar productions and bad publicity! Surrender the Ring! In his arrogance, he did not listen! And now he is doomed by the Ring's curse!
ReplyDeleteLovingly, Erda
For Patrick J. Vaz -- And to change legends somewhat, What has it got in its pocketless?
ReplyDelete