The DL Arts: What’s going to happen to Concerts?

packed *in* like well-dressed sardines

They'll come back but not as part of all these initial reopenings. Some may start with more spread out seating, but a concert venue won't be packed like before until there's a vaccine.

I love live music, so this sucks.

I was just thinking about this earlier and feeling really glad that I saw a lot of great bands over the last couple of years.

Thats all shit the "2 percenters" enjoy who cares

They are going to have to hold nude performances in order to lure skittish audiences back.

As a huge fan of the opera and ballet companies in the nearest big city... I hope to fucking fuck that their rich donors carry them through!

But as with businesses, it's the small companies that will fold first, they're always one step away from crumping at the best of times. The world-class companies can cut budgets and bring in society women and gays to hit on the 1% of the big cities, small performing arts organizations in smaller communities won't have many options.

All concert need stopped and banned until a vaccine is available.

Best to just cancel.

They'll be back, but I also think it'll be like what they're proposing with movie theaters and only selling a portion of the auditorium and roping off every other seat or couple of seats.

Those crooks were charging way too much for tickets. Even if they do come back, no one is going to be paying $900 for floor seats to Lady Gaga.

I wonder what's going on with the financial side of the popular music performance industry. With all performances everywhere cancelled, every performer from the Rolling Stones to Lizzo will be filing claims at once, so will the venue owners, and there's no way in hell the insurance companies are actually going to pay out to an entire industry.

So, what happens? Does everyone get stiffed, and half the acts and venues file for bankruptcy? What's the upshot of that?

Typically r11 contracts and insurance policies have kill clauses that mention acts of God and pandemics. I’m sure the really big stars will get some kind of cancellation fee, but they’re likely the only ones.

I'll go. I will be wearing my mask, but I will be there. Poor starving artists need to make some money.

[Quote] Poor starving artists need to make some money.

LOL! Sure, Jan.

I hope that the fall opera season is on, I'm perfectly willing to go in an N95 that matches my shirt!

But I also hope that the old money patrons-of-the-arts donate, because I've only got a few bucks to give right now,, and they're going to the local food banks and Doctors Without Borders.

wouldn't you think that performances that skew old to very old (symphonies and opera) would be especially impactful. Lizzo might not have trouble selling tickets. Older educated people who like opera know they shouldn't be going to densely populated performances in poorly ventilated theaters.

[quote] Older educated people who like opera know they shouldn't be going to densely populated performances in poorly ventilated theater

Santa Fe Opera is the answer! They’re open air.

Someone will invent a way to record sound and sell these recordings to the public so they listen in their home.

Fuck you, R14.

Imagine having a tour as shitty as Madame X being your last?

As far as movie theatres go, they were overpriced anyways. Nowadays, you really can get very close to the same quality on a nice 4k tv.

The David Archuleta tour was postponed from Spring to the Fall. I will be there.

I'm guessing most DLers are viewing this problem as concertgoers rather than as performers. I'm a symphony performer, principal keyboard for a professional symphony in a medium sized city. Yes, we are all out of work for the rest of this season, and quite likely next year's season too which is a deeply demoralizing thought and a terrifying thought from a financial viewpoint.. But for those thinking symphony members can play for some recorded medium to keep audience interest and perhaps raise money, you're forgetting that symphony players are in close proximity to one another and have to be. String players share a single stand and score part and are within 2 feet of one another. Wind players are literally spraying the entire stage with droplets with every note and they play at the rear of the symphony. 2 oboes, three flutes, 2-3 clarinets. 2 bassoons, 4 french horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba player ALL spewing aerosols. One of the big outbreaks of the virus in Washington state was a single choir of 70 members. 45 tested positive for the virus after ONE rehearsal, because singers, like wind players, breathe deeply and spew droplets much further than a casual person talking. The players desperately want to work, BUT they also recognize that they cannot work in the time-honored traditional set up until there is a vaccine or widespread herd immunity.

Ouch. That hurt, r19.

There will be a transitional phase of some sort, but eventually it will all be back.

I don’t know why anyone goes to see an orchestra perform. Just get a good sound system and listen to a recording. Most people in the audience don’t have an ear for it.

^ I think people enjoy the live event aspect of it, being in the space with all those people, not just the music.

I will still go the ballet and opera. Life goes on.

What r27 said. My favorite seat in the house isn't the audiophile-approved ten or fifteen rows back in the center, but rather the right first balcony overhang. I love to [italic]watch[/italic] the musicians play, and that's as close as I can get.

I can't imagine being in a concert hall that size. Those days are over. I'm glad I was able to experience it. That beautiful architecture will never exist again and the coronavirus will never allow us to sit that close.

The Rona won't be around forever. Concerts will be back, but not immediately.

I'll be back within the year to give my "Farewell Tour" concert.

The thing is general admissions should be and need to be retired. I never understood why they were ever allowed. You can't fucking move, you can't go to the washroom, you can't go get a drink. People breathing on you, you can't escape.

Assigned seating for everybody. If that means outdoor concert shows cannot go on, so be it.

Remember after 9/11, or after any major terrorist attack, when leaders proclaimed that life must go on even if there was risk? What happened to that?

I’m having contracts canceled and renegotiated well into 2021. I can pretty much guarantee that Lincoln Center will not have a season, and that includes the Met, NYCB, and the Philharmonic. You can include Carnegie Hall on this list. The announcements will be made mid summer. Everyone who works in classical arts knows it’s coming, but hopes it won’t. Theaters will not be able to be filled for a long time in NY. Also, of my colleagues, most of who work internationally, NO ONE wants to travel or go to an airport or get on a plane.

I would imagine Broadway is in a similar predicament. And I bet that there will be no Broadway well into 2021.

👩‍🚀Hazmat gear will the outfit of choice for well dressed concert attendees.

Life will eventually go back to normal.

I sing in a chorus in a large city. Most arts organizations and nonprofits still rely heavily on performances/ticket sales in addition to fundraising. Singing is thought to be a superspreader of aerosol droplets, along with loud talkers.

I don;t see us performing safely in the next 9 months. I wish it were not so. The danger for performers is even greater than audience members, as exhibited by the church choir in the Seattle area.

The truth of the situation is starting to come out. Nothing on stage until next year. This is what we’re all unhappily anticipating.

"Remember after 9/11, or after any major terrorist attack, when leaders proclaimed that life must go on even if there was risk? What happened to that?"

I'm so fucking sick of all the comparisons to 9/11. The truth is that everywhere except New York recovered from the shock within a couple of days. Life went on as normal, with little to no disruption of life previous to the incident. You could not talk to someone face to face and have a plane fly into you.

[Quote] Remember after 9/11, or after any major terrorist attack, when leaders proclaimed that life must go on even if there was risk? What happened to that?

It's a pandemic? What is it you don't understand? It's a totally different situation, hon. But you knew that.

r14, that should be Sure Jan(et).

Major classical agency (Opus 3) just fired a major portion of their people. Only kept top agents. Only two other major classical agencies left, and they’re both in the exact same position and will be firing the same amount or shuttering completely in the next few weeks. Boutique agencies are also in dire straits, though some have been able to get loans and stay afloat.

[quote] The opera, the symphony, even ballet?

The pretentious queens who attend those will home drinking fancy cocktails

Neanderthals who think of classical music and ballets as “pretentious” suffer from a terribly low selfesteem

With the Met’s Gelb saying this weekend in the Times that physical distancing is impossible at the house, he is basically announcing that there will be no season. Once it is officially announced, most other opera houses and orchestras all over the country will announce the same thing. Lincoln Center will not be open in any real capacity this season, and possibly until there is a vaccine. We are effectively looking at the total death of the classical arts in this country.

I will mention that it’s not just the house seating area that’s the problem, it’s impossible to work backstage, downstairs in the basements and anywhere in the offices with physical distancing in place. Singers cannot scream in each other’s faces for hours at a time during rehearsals. It’s just not going to happen until something concrete is in place for health protection.

we are all in this together, rock and pop concerts will suffer the same fate as grand opera and ballet. no funding, no possibility of capacity crowds at all. thus as I've pointed out, the ONLY performances that will survive at all int eh next two years will be:

very very small

very very cheap and intimate (think a person's living room)

very very tech savvy

everything else will be too dangerous for the audience or the performers or funders

From the American Theatre article "Theatre and the last pandemic", this passage regarding 1918:

----

Theatres were so important that people did not lightly forgo attendance. Their closure remained a great public frustration, even as people were dying. The Seattle Daily Times observed on Oct. 6 that “Theatre Patrons Find Doors Shut, City’s Influenza Prevention Edict Results in Thousands of Disappointments.” Even when people knew in advance the closures were imminent and that deaths were surging, they didn’t relinquish theatregoing easily. In Minnesota, The Minneapolis Morning Tribune reported on Sunday, Oct. 13, that “theatres were packed last night with patrons who took advantage of their last chance to see a performance until the ban is lifted. Long lines of men and women waited in front of the motion picture and vaudeville theaters during the early hours of the evening.” The risk must have seemed worth it.

----

And I’ll also mention that at this point a majority of NY artists who work in the classical industry are resigned to the fact that most everything will be closed and not functioning country-wide. It’s the press and audiences that don’t get it yet.

nope, not at all in fact

Sign, say it ain’t so! I would love to go to the symphony right about now. I’d even sit and listen to Wagner!

Pack me, Leon! I am just waiting to be packed!

[quote]I would imagine Broadway is in a similar predicament. And I bet that there will be no Broadway well into 2021.

Hence, Gay TikToks.

[quote]I’d even sit and listen to Wagner!

Last week, the Wiesbaden State Theatre in Germany staged "Tristan and Isolde".

In 1918 there was no entertainment in the home by professionals except on the victrola. No radio or TV. It is a very different world to day. We do not need it as we once did. Of course it is a very different experience not being in a large communal gathering with great artists but for the most part we gave up all of it a long time ago going to sound films instead of the theater and staying home and watching TV instead of going to movie palaces. People continued going to theater and film but on a much reduced scale.

The disease seems to be getting worse and I can't imagine performers working face to face or audiences crowded together as they have done since the beginning of civilization perhaps for a couple of years if a vaccine isn't proven to be safe and effective. Perhaps this is the end of civilization. We all knew it had to happen sometime. We just weren't expecting to be there when it happened.

The Met announces cancellation of its fall. Won’t reopen until New Year’s Eve. Expect all other arts institutions to follow suit in NY. All of Lincoln Center and Carnegie.

Thanks for that r57. Sigh 😔

Damn. And I had just got my mojo back for writing and my passion back for working in live performance in the last six months, after some five or six years of walking depression that led me to a banal career away from the Arts (that I deeply rue).

I really did envisage the next decade as my second-wind effort to get into script and libretto-writing for real. Is there any hope or any chance of that ever happening, now?

no end in sight. public performances from now on will have to be very very small, in scope and audience, likely online, and tech-savvy. the Met or broadway will have to reconfigure in ways they have never dreamt of

for the record, germany is having performances, but players and singers are throughly screened.

R59, it might be a good time to focus on writing. Especially if you can get involved with anything that might be suitable for streaming.

Hold them in auditoriums line my recent flop shows and sit four people per row of fold-up chairs.

fuck her

[quote] performances from now on will have to be very very small, in scope and audience, likely online, and tech-savvy.

We’ve got you covered!

NYCB's endowment is $190,000,000! They will probably not reopen until Winter/Spring sesaon 2021.

In the meanwhile, what will Gia Kourlas of The TIMES have to review? At least, we won't have to read her endless mentions of Peter's abusive bahaviors in her reviews of City Ballet.

I hope the donors for the Metropolitan Opera come through. There is no other house in the US like the Met. Its performances are spectacularly staged and produced. We can't lose it. What will all those performers do? Can they continue drawing unemployment?

Opera and ballet are dead. Like vaudeville Rose.

They aren’t dead, but getting a large staged event like opera, that requires weeks of prep, where people work very close to each other for hours and hours, and having septuagenarian audience stuck in a crowded theater, until the virus is gone, this isn’t going to happen.

R4. Feed me Hostess.

And now the Philharmonic announces closure until 2021.

simply the worst thing ever to happen to the performing arts

The only constant in life is change. What could possibly elicit the notion that such moribund venues as the opera, ballet, and philharmonic would be destined to proliferate into future generations? As previously mentioned, it is the septogenarian/octogenarian contingent that is sustaining the fading pulse of these once ebullient media, while all involved know they are basically experiencing necrophilia for an art form well into oblivion for younger generations. Ask your average millennial if they could begin to identify 20th century luminaries such as Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby. You will receive an incredulous glare, condescending retort, and negative affirmation. How can they respond otherwise when their impotent, Fagaleh fathers and Karen mothers consider acts like Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin the touchstone of great music? How can the progeny of baboons appreciate and embrace the nuances of Wagner’s Tristan Und Isolde, Olga Smimova, and Anna Netrebko when their template for greatness is 50 cent, Ariana Grande, and the WWE? As for the Broadway theater, let us continue our journey into the abyss. Over the past half century, we have witnessed the de-evolution of an innovative, interpretative, and frequently artful medium, which spawned universal appeal and affordability, to a Las Vegas, Disney-soaked, techno-asphyxiating musical revue center which does little more than extol the non-virtues of boy-girl bands, rock schlock, inept revivals, and platforms for cloned, robotic, entitled, and vapid performers with technical acrobatics, but no soul whatsoever, and at prices that could extinguish the credit rating of the average consumer. Perhaps, these events serve a purpose. Perhaps, they are karma to a price-gouging, self-aggrandizing system that has long been in need of reconstruction. The positive footnotes might be a well-needed diversion from the performing arts and a rerouting to artistic areas buried amidst the 21st century technical and electrical Leviathans. Does anyone remember painting, sculpting, writing? Literature! My word! Putting down the phone and picking up a book! Now that, my friends, is innovation…

Pray for us, Lord.

R71, how quickly you forget Stacey Q.

[quote]e. What could possibly elicit the notion that such moribund venues as the opera, ballet, and philharmonic would be destined to proliferate into future generations? As previously mentioned, it is the septogenarian/octogenarian contingent

mentioned wrong, that generation supports as season subscribers. and season subscriptions have been going down a lot in recent years, doesn't mean that younger audience isn't there

surely your jonathan swiftian prose can better suit something you've better familiar with. Burning everything to the ground though is trump's job, either join him in the white house of kindly fuck off

R23, I’m so sorry to hear that you’re going through this horror.

After the fake vaccine is applied and we are left with the flu again, we’ll go back to normal.

The Berlin Philharmoniker, and I suspect other orchestras, are already planning live concerts in a concert hall again from September, I believe. Musicians and audience will be spaced well apart.

A number of classical music festivals will be held as scheduled this summer, in Italy, Austria and no doubt elsewhere and with suitable social distancing. Good on them, we should not let this virus defeat us and the music will never stop!

The only way that can happen in Europe is because they are heavily subsidized by the government, R77. That does not happen here and without the donor class and ticket sales, classical in America will be completely dead within six months, irrevocably so within a year.

indeed, literals nothing but private subsidies now here in north america. and after financial crises it will be even less likely that they can invest in the arts.

Sounds like the blues are about to make a roaring comeback in America.

Columbia Artists Management, the biggest US arts management just went belly up. Liquidation. CAMI has been sliding for awhile, but it’s a huge blow. Everyone will be talking about it in low panicked tones. Expect other major announcements from all of Lincoln Center and Carnegie canceling their full seasons in the coming weeks. Covid is killing what was left of classical music.

Dancers in ballet companies must dance to retain their skill. Worse, their performing lives, like athletes’, are relatively short.

Most companies haven’t the cash to survive long without performance revenue. And the most reliable audiences won’t be buying many tickets = little or no revenue. Without experienced talent to train the next generation, the art form itself could soon die.

The season opener for the Berlin Philharmonic yesterday was excellent--Webern, Mendelssohn, Brahms, with Kirill Petrenko conducting--it was the first live performance since last spring--everyone was spread out as far as was practical, as was the audience--lots of space between patrons, seated in every section of the auditorium--even "heaven" up near the organ. No masks, except for one man in the front row. Excellent performance, as usual! I have a streaming subscription that I love in lieu of being in Berlin. It's going to be very interesting going forward to see how everything & everyone holds together!

the contrast of berlin and NYC is stark

What Berlin did is not sustainable in the US. They are supported by government money. We are not. We rely on donations and ticket sales. 25% capacity will not work. It’s that simple. Period. The end.

Major organizations like the Met and NY Philharmonic as a tiny local NY example will be dead within a year if things aren’t turned around.

And they won’t ever come back or recover to the form they were only six months ago.

pretty much

the only survivors in a year will be the very small (string quartets anyone?) the cheap (same string quartet doing six performances for the price of one) and very tech savvy (quartet selling webcasts and human interest segments to performance hungry patrons)

The Met has just announced total cancellation of this season, as I said they would. They have announced they plan to reopen in Sep. of 2021, but they’ll easily have lost more than half of their staff and orchestra chorus and backstage to retirement, moves out of NY, or to other work. The Met will never come back to what it was.

It was not surprising but it does not bode well for the future of the Arts (and many other things.... terribly depressed today)

No it does not. I’ve now had almost 2 full years of contracts canceled. I’m almost suicidal.

same here

this is terribly sad news for anyone in the arts. how can we survive?

over a quarter of a MILLION jobs lost, all in one weekend

[quote] can the progeny of baboons appreciate and embrace the nuances of Wagner’s Tristan Und Isolde, Olga Smimova, and Anna Netrebko when their template for greatness is 50 cent, Ariana Grande, and the WWE?

Just because you don’t get the latter examples, doesn’t mean they’re not legitimate performance arts demanding great skill, or that they are meaningless trash unworthy of a thinking soul.

Wrestling, in particular, is derived from an ancient form of high-culture homoerotic ritual performance. It’s contemporary progenitor includes elements of carnivàle, guignol, and melodrama utilising popular music and character archetype to create a highly-emotional and physical stage show. Now, what does that sound like....

indeed, sports in arenas is also disallowed, like opera and lieder recitals.

The NY Philharmonic has cancelled its entire 2020/2021 season due to the virus. the first time in its 173 year history

Online probably

online probably what?

Online performances I meant. Zoom, socially distanced filming maybe with more cast members. There are possibilities though I admit it might not be that appealing compared to what we’re used too. Better online than nothing though....

Wigmore Hall is doing that. Online combined with live/social distancing. Chamber music might survive in ways full orchestras cannot.

Cheap, small and tech savvy, otherwise the medium won't survive at all

If Covid goes on past 2021 (and let's face it, it could) we'll lose a mini-generation of talent. There's such a short timeframe to break in and build a career in the arts and when things return established artists will be used to lure back the public. It won't be the time to give an unknown a shot. We'll see dancers retire. It's a real shame.

it's a tragedy

How would that work for opera, r100?

I know the arts in the US aren't publicly funded, but that doesn't explain why they can't put on concerts now. The lack of public funds seems to me even more reason to try to keep something going at present.

La Scala has been back in action for a couple of months, currently they have a production of Aida with a new, recently discovered chorus that Verdi had written. Masks and social distancing - yes, it can be done, and it's even easier to do for the audience.

no will, no money

This situation is awful, for everyone in the industry across the board. Can’t imagine how devastating it is to have your livelihood and passion of decades torn from you so suddenly and cruelly, without a safety net. It’s beyond unfair that other non-essential sectors are getting bailouts that the arts have never had (and it seems never will). There ought at least to be emotional support services made available cheap or free to those affected. Can we volunteer or donate anywhere, in that regard?

As for me personally - guess I’m lucky because I hadn’t yet started my journey in the arts. Still, I feel hurt by it; this is the year I had at long last (after a long apathetic depression) geared myself up to finally start writing and shopping plays, as well a putting together a post-grad theatre troupe. Finances & funding, distancing, restrictions on travel, and general malaise have largely shelved these plans, though, and now my depression is creeping back. The timing is terrible.

Maybe I should write a screenplay or two instead? Or plan some live readings on Zoom? I’m not sure where else to go from here, given that like so many others my only ambition and interest in life has been brought to a halt or even prematurely strangled.

The musicians are not socially distanced in that photo. And considering how forcefully one must sing on stage the distance between the singers is negligible. And what about the chorus? Maybe the arts and many of us must live with this in the sense of trusting to medical care and herd immunity. If we wait for a vaccine that is safe and enough people will take it the time is going to be a very very long. And then the virus mutates. We'll simply have to do what humans have always done but which we with contemporary hubris thought we would never have to. The old and those with co morbidities will have to isolate themselves. It is not worth the years, possibly decades, of such a loss. And outside the arts how long socially can we survive without major breakdowns in necessary services. If cockroaches like Trump and his administration can survive it we'll all have to be braver and build a much larger and capable medical infrastructure. This is where the money must be spent.

[quote]The musicians are not socially distanced in that photo.

it's jamie levine,dearie, so this was a few years ago, clearly.

Did you look at the La Scala photos on instagram? There is no social distancing. Dancers will not dance and singers will not sing except in isolation? And what about young performers who are coming up and learning? We're looking right now at a year at least of atrophying and arrested talents. That's a very big loss. And it's just right now a best case scenario.

La Scala is ENTIRELY government funded. It’s not possible for the Met to rehearse in their theater or play in the pit. There are hundreds and hundreds of people backstage in a very tight area. It’s not happening. Please stop. America is not Europe.

R108, actually it was 6 days ago at La Scala in Milan and some of the musicians are wearing masks. I'm not sure where you see James Levine (the conductor is Riccardo Chailly), but Levine will apparently be conducting in Florence in the 2020-2021 season.

R110, La Scala is not entirely government funded (partly, yes, but they also sell tickets and have sponsors) and the Met orchestra only needs to have one or two rehearsals prior to an opening concert, but what does La Scala's funding have to do with how the Met rehearses?

All the more reason for the Met, etc. to put on some live performances, if they don't receive any government/municipal funding. The problem in the US is a lack of imagination.

the octogenarian audience would go

R111, the only photo I see is OP's

Please stop? Why? So everyone should just roll over and rot? What's wrong with you?

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU SUGGEST?????

I'm a musician with no work, i know thousands of other musicians with NOTHING in their calendars, what the FUCK do you suggest?????????

Hopefully, all the people that bathed in stink-ass colognes were the first to catch covid. After they passed it on to the non-stop yakkers.

OP, people are dying. Time for actors to get real jobs.

[quote] I'm a musician with no work, i know thousands of other musicians with NOTHING in their calendars, what the FUCK do you suggest?????????

Get another fucking job, Einstein. Go wait tables. It’s not society’s fault you picked a bad career.

[quote] If Covid goes on past 2021 (and let's face it, it could) we'll lose a mini-generation of talent.

Talent??! Oh, my sides. Anyone can upload a video to YouTube or make their own music and upload it SoundCloud all for free. Cut the crap, MARY!!!

Up until now, Italy has been in a much much better position than we are with the virus. After the unimaginably horrible spring they had, the populace took it very seriously and they had a lockdown much more severe than we ever had. They got the virus much more under control and my Italian friends all went on vacation this summer, at in restaurants, and yes, performed in and went to live concerts. The US is in a MUCH WORSE position than Europe is. My friends in Germany are also performing live. Europe is not the US. We are in a terrible place because of our asinine imbecile in the White House. Now with the cold weather, cases are starting to go up again in Europe but up until now Europe has been able to live somewhat normally for a few months now.

FUCK YOU to the poster who says to "get a real job." Seriously, you're a fucking asshole and I've blocked you.

Sometime folks on DL are asses just for the sake of being obnoxious R121. Don't let it get to you. I'm sorry you are suffering the way you are right now. We all have to hang on and get to the other side of this. Please try to stay as positive as you can and know that the majority of your fellow DLers are wishing you well and keeping a good thought for you.

I already had him on block, r121. Che stronzo!

Che Stronzo indeed. blocked him long ago

R113, I presumed that r107 was talking about the photos in the link at r104, since he mentioned singers and there are singers in those photos:

[quote]The musicians are not socially distanced in that photo. And considering how forcefully one must sing on stage the distance between the singers is negligible. And what about the chorus?

R118 must be the idiot responsible for this British government "retraining" campaign.

which is idiocy

La scala just shut down. As has music in France and the Netherlands for the next month. Covid is spiking all over Europe. Do you really think Italy, a fucking Covid death trap at best, is going to allow La scala start up when the country is still living in mortal terror? It’s not happening.

You are 100% full of shit, R111 I’m quite sure of that. So fuck off. The Met is NOT going to rehearse and perform during this pandemic. It’s not happening. PERIOD. So shut the fuck to about it. You Trump cunts are so fucking obnoxious. We are not going to die to keep you idiots entertained. Blocked and ignored. So tired of this shit.

If you think what goes on at the Met is entertaining you certainly have a strange idea of what constitutes entertainment. Maybe 40 years ago and before but now it is pure obligation. And suffering.

You’re a jackass. Plus, the music world is a duck lot more than “what goes on at the Met” all ballet, opera, symphony orchestras, choirs, chamber music, theater and well broadway are completely cancelled.

The guy was talking about the Met you donkey brain and that's what I was responding to. And City Ballet after Martins gutted it is a joke. Clearly you are completely uninformed about the arts in NY if you know nothing about two of its most important institutions.

I am happy to report that so far the Berlin Philharmonic is going ahead with their season; there are precautions being taken & the concert hall is not at full capacity. As far as I can tell, the orchestra musicians are OK, haven't noticed any obvious holes anywhere. Streaming quality at 4K is excellent!

I really do think that other similar companies should take note of exactly they are doing as a template going forward until things resolve (if ever).

So grateful for this option when not in Berlin!

I can't form my own orchestra, what now?

A full 1/3 of the Met orchestra has left the city, and they most likely won’t return, according to the musicians. The chorus is paid less and of those I know, I would estimate that about half have had to leave. The Met is pretty much finished.

the largest opera house in the world flattened in a few months

Asking the artists and musicians on this thread. Are there any reputable funds or types of assistance that are going directly to help? I’d like to donate but I want the money going to the chorus, players etc not the company CEO!

I’ve been watching live performances on-line. Some are pay-per-view, and I’m happy to support the musicians.

I will not go into a public venue. No way.

[quote]. Are there any reputable funds or types of assistance that are going directly to help? I

many. they aren't awarding very much, but I've received at least well, a thousand dollars from various sources

Thanks R139 I’ll donate. Any other funds people know of please post links.

there are actually many organizations. I'll look and ask further with my colleagues

Finnish National Opera and Ballet for the win!

COVID FAN TUTTE (final performance tomorrow in Helsinki)

Don't miss their own rendition of the famed vocal Trio. Libretto is in Finnish. Music is (mostly) by Mozart. An opera company is set to perform Wagner's Valkyrie, but corona strikes in. English subtitles available.

oh, dear!

Soave sia il social distancing?