Monday, May 04, 2020

Summer Festivals


Bronze, grave of sculpture Baltasar Lobo
 (A kneeling male, collapsed in grief and bent over, clutching an upright cane with a curved handle.)
Cimetière du Montparnasse
February, 2019
Photo by Lisa Hirsch


As a friend said to me at the end of March, I have little hope for the summer festivals that haven't already canceled, including:

Grand Tetons (MD Donald Runnicles, for local and distant fans of the conductor) and West Edge have optimistic notes on their web sites. Do I think that Gavin Newsom and Alameda County are going to lift state and local SIP restrictions in time for WEO's rehearsals and performances? Also, Andrew Cuomo, for the NY State events.

Everything at Lincoln Center has been canceled - I don't have a press release, but there's a banner on the web site of Mostly Mozart dated today that leads to a page with a letter from Lincoln Center.

2 comments:

Geo. said...

Interestingly, with regard to Santa Fe, the 3 main summer groups there have distinctive activities right now regarding COVID-19, which makes for an exercise in contrasts:
1. Santa Fe Desert Chorale has already announced cancellation of its summer season.
2. Santa Fe Opera is in a "wait and see" / "we'll keep you posted" mode, as you've noted.
3. The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival has, as of through today, not uttered a single word about COVID-19 that I can find, even about keeping a watch on the situation with the by-now standard boilerplate text that every arts organization now uses on COVID-19.

Your prediction about Santa Fe Opera announcing a cancellation of its summer season is very likely to come to pass. This is totally understandable on health and safety grounds, if still obviously a tremendous disappointment when it happens. I was looking forward to M. Butterfly and Tristan, just speaking for myself, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Maybe SFCMS thinks that it can do something like Aspen, and announce a truncated season as they go, except that Aspen cancelled, of course, which must be a great disappointment to a friend here who goes to Aspen every year for the festival (haven't yet talked with her about it). One hopes that Marc Neikrug and his peeps are actually keeping an eye on things, and that they're just being ultra-mum about it.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Apologies for the belated reply! Yes to all - I presume by now that the Chamber Music Festival has canceled, but I'm not on their mailing list. I think I paid cash for tickets the couple of times I have gone.

I'm very sad to miss Tristan and Rusalka.