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      Gustavo Dudamel, superestrella de la música clásica, dirigirá la Ópera de París

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      En una jugada maestra, la venerable compañía ha contratado como su próximo director musical al excepcional artista clásico que también ha conquistado la fama en la cultura popular.En un golpe maestro de la venerable Ópera de París, fundada en 1669 por Luis XIV, la compañía anunció el viernes que el conductor superestrella Gustavo Dudamel será su próximo director musical.Dudamel, líder musical de la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles desde 2009 e inusual artista clásico que ha cosechado un estatus de celebridad de la cultura pop, solo ha dirigido una única producción en París: La Bohème en 2017. Y, aunque en Los Ángeles ha jugueteado con el repertorio operístico, tanto en la Ópera Metropolitana como en otros escenarios, es más conocido como conductor sinfónico.Pero para quienes han seguido de cerca el ascenso constante de Dudamel en los últimos 15 años, no será sorpresa otro gran nombramiento. El nuevo puesto es un hito en la magnífica carrera de un artista que se hizo renombre como niño prodigio con las orquestas en Norte y Sudamérica y que ahora, a los 40 años, tomará las riendas de una de las compañías de ópera más antiguas de Europa. Ocupará el cargo a partir de agosto, en principio por seis años, superpuestos en gran parte con su trabajo en Los Ángeles, donde su contrato actual llega hasta la temporada 2025-26.Dudamel —nacido en Venezuela en 1981 y formado ahí por El Sistema, el programa gratuito subsidiado por el gobierno que enseña música a los niños en las zonas más pobres— ocupa una posición única en el mundo de la música. Lo asedian las principales orquestas, entre ellas la Filarmónica de Berlín y la Filarmónica de Viena.Pero también ha actuado en un espectáculo de medio tiempo del Súper Bowl, apareció como Trollzart en el filme animado Trolls Gira Mundial, dirige la música en la próxima versión fílmica de Steven Spielberg de West Side Story e inspiró un personaje desmelenado en la serie de Amazon Mozart en la Jungla. En 2019 recibió una estrella en el Paseo de la Fama de Hollywood.Sin duda, su renombre será una inyección de energía para la Ópera de París que, como otras organizaciones artísticas, contempla cautelosamente volver a presentarse ante su audiencia tradicional tras el largo cierre pandémico al tiempo que busca captar nuevos asistentes. Con un generoso subsidio del gobierno francés, la compañía —cuyo director Alexander Neef, asumió el cargo el otoño pasado— ha expandido su audiencia en los últimos años, pero aún enfrenta la presión de los agitados debates sobre la representación racial y la relevancia de las costosas formas artísticas clásicas.Ya no se acostumbra —especialmente fuera de los países germanohablantes— que los directores musicales de ópera inicien como pianistas y entrenadores de voz y asciendan el escalafón de la compañía, tal como hizo el antecesor de Dudamel en París, Philippe Jordan, de 46 años. Aunque Dudamel no cuenta con esa preparación, no es un desconocido para las principales casas operísticas. Debutó en la Scala en Milán en 2006, cuando tenía veintitantos años y al año siguiente se presentó en la Ópera Estatal de Berlín. Su primera actuación en la Ópera del Estado de Viena fue en 2016 y en la Met en 2018 con Otello de Verdi. El miércoles concluyó una temporada con Otello en Barcelona.Durante su trabajo en Los Ángeles, ha contribuido al sólido programa educativo de compromiso con la comunidad, en especial con la Orquesta Juvenil de Los Ángeles, un programa inspirado en El Sistema que se fundó en 2007. También sigue ocupando el cargo de director musical de la Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, pero después de criticar al gobierno de Venezuela en 2017, el gobierno canceló la gira internacional que estaba programada. A pesar de que no ha podido actuar con la Simón Bolívar desde entonces, aún trabaja de forma remota con la agrupación y, en ocasiones, se ha reunido fuera de Venezuela con grupos de sus integrantes.El nombramiento de Dudamel sucede dos meses después de que se dio a conocer un reporte sobre la discriminación y la diversidad en la Ópera de París, enfocado en los cambios al repertorio, el proceso de admisión de la escuela y la composición racial y étnica de su compañía interna de ballet.Pero alrededor del mundo, las compañías de ópera también han sido llamadas a diversificar su personal, elenco artístico y repertorios. Junto con Ching-Lien Wu, la recién nombrada maestra del coro de la Ópera de París, la contratación de Dudamel forma parte de un esfuerzo por cambiar el rostro de las filas ejecutivas de la compañía y su enfoque hacia la diversidad y la igualdad.Zachary Woolfe ha sido el editor de música clásica desde 2015. Antes fue crítico de la ópera en The New York Observer. @zwoolfe More

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      A Malcolm X Opera Will Get a Rare Revival in Detroit

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      Michigan Opera Theater announced the return of indoor performances and named an associate artistic director: the star soprano Christine Goerke.When Anthony Davis’s sprawling, genre-blending biographical opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” premiered in 1986 at New York City Opera, it drew a notably diverse audience and was considered a commercial success. Yet it has rarely been revived.A new production is coming, though, as part of Michigan Opera Theater’s 2021-22 season — the first under its new artistic director, Yuval Sharon. Opening in May 2022, “X” will be directed by Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”) and star the bass-baritone Davóne Tines, who will also be the season’s artist in residence.“My first interview for this job was shortly after the murder of George Floyd,” Sharon, who is also an innovative stage director, said in an interview. “I thought: This is a moment for change. Casting singers of color is really easy, but my focus has been on composers, librettists, conductors. I’m thinking about this season as a statement of principles, and that’s what I hope for going forward.”As part of the season announcement, on Tuesday, Michigan Opera Theater also said that Christine Goerke, a reigning Wagnerian soprano who sang the role of Brünnhilde last fall in “Twilight: Gods” — Sharon’s drive-through abridgment of “Götterdämmerung” in a Detroit parking garage — would join next season as associate artistic director.In an interview, Goerke said that her family would be moving from New Jersey to Detroit, where she has relatives. But, aware that the news of her appointment might surprise fans of her performances, she clarified that she didn’t plan to reduce her performance schedule any time soon.“I’m not stepping away from singing,” she said. “I’m stepping toward what’s going to come eventually.”“I’ve been doing this for 27 years,” she added. “We’re always thinking about what’s next. And I want to be on the other side of the desk. My relationship to opera is not going to end when I’m done singing.”The soprano Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde in “Twilight: Gods” last fall at Michigan Opera Theater, which has named her its associate artistic director.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesAll of the productions next season come with backup plans, as the course of the coronavirus pandemic appears hopeful yet is still uncertain. But what Michigan Opera Theater unveiled on Tuesday puts off a return to live indoor performances at the Detroit Opera House until at least April 2022.Until then, productions will be staged outdoors, or at unconventional venues. The season will open on May 15 with a concert performance of Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana,” with Goerke making her role debut as Santuzza. It will be presented at the Meadow Brook Amphitheater in Rochester Hills, Mich., and conducted by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra music director Jader Bignamini.In September, Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s opera “Blue,” about a family in Harlem navigating the American Black experience, will receive a new production, by Kaneza Schaal, following its premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2019; Daniela Candillari will conduct. The location and timing have not yet been determined, but the following production, staged by Sharon, will be “Bliss,” Ragnar Kjartansson’s marathon performance piece that loops the same three minutes from Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” for 12 hours.Michigan Opera Theater will return indoors on Feb. 26 for Robert Xavier Rodríguez and Migdalia Cruz’s “Frida,” conducted by Suzanne Mallare Acton, the company’s assistant music director. It will be a revival of Jose Maria Condemi’s 2015 staging, performed at Music Hall in downtown Detroit.Then the company will return to its theater, the Detroit Opera House, on April 2, for Sharon’s production of “La Bohème,” conducted by Vimbayi Kaziboni. The concept is something Sharon has discussed in interviews before: He will present the four acts of Puccini’s opera in reverse.“The reverse order means that we’re starting with death, and ending with love and hope,” he said. “We’ll all be coming from a place of death — at least I hope that this will be post-Covid. And I love that this thing everyone is hearing, the first thing in the theater in two years, is something they’ve never heard.”“X,” in a newly revised score by Davis, will bring the season to a close in May, conducted by Kazem Abdullah. Writing for The New Yorker after Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for Music last year, the musicologist Ryan Ebright noted that the opera had received only one full revival, at Oakland Opera Theater, in 2006. San Francisco Opera once suggested that “X” be staged as part of its inner-city parks performances, and Davis countered by asking whether they would put on Philip Glass’s “Einstein on the Beach” in a park.“I tried to make them realize,” Davis told Ebright, “that it’s about time that America got over thinking of Black art as being what’s done in the playground, or what’s basically the social-service part of culture.” More

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      Klauss Dörr Quits Volksbühne Over Sexual Harassment Allegations

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      Klaus Dörr resigned as head of the Volksbühne after 10 women accused him of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment.The director of the Volksbühne theater in Berlin quit on Monday after accusations of sexual harassment, creating a hostile work environment and humiliating older actresses were published in a German newspaper. Klaus Dörr had led the Volksbühne, one of Europe’s most influential theaters, since April 2018.His resignation, which the theater confirmed in an email, came just days after Die Tageszeitung, a daily newspaper, said that complaints against Dörr by 10 women were being investigated by Berlin’s culture ministry, which oversees the playhouse. The women said Dörr had stared inappropriately at women who worked at the theater, made sexist comments and sent inappropriate text messages, the newspaper reported.City officials received the complaints in January and were investigating them, the ministry confirmed in a statement released on Saturday. Dörr was interviewed as part of this process at the start of March, the statement added.“I take full responsibility, as the artistic director of the Volksbühne, for the allegations made against me,” Dörr said in a statement released by the theater.“I deeply regret if I have hurt employees with my behavior, words or gaze,” he added.A spokeswoman for the theater declined to comment further.Dörr’s resignation is only the latest scandal to hit the storied Volksbühne. In 2018, Chris Dercon, its previous director and the former leader of the Tate Modern museum in London, quit just months into the job after widespread protests over his appointment. Those included an occupation of the theater by left-wing activists; at one point, someone left feces outside his office.The activists, who included members of the theater’s staff, accused Dercon of trashing the company’s tradition of ensemble theater, in which a permanent company of players creates a rotating repertoire, and turning it into a space for visiting international performers to mount their shows. Many saw the strife around Dercon’s appointment as a proxy for debates about gentrification in Berlin.Dörr was meant to be a stabilizing, if temporary, force at the theater until a new permanent director could be found. In 2019, René Pollesch, an acclaimed German playwright and director, was named as the new leader, set to take up the role in summer 2021.The latest problems at the Volksbühne emerged at a time of focus on the behavior of male leaders in Germany toward female members of staff. On March 14, Julian Reichelt, the editor in chief of Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, took a leave of absence after women who worked at the paper accused him of misconduct.A law firm is investigating the allegations, which have so far not been specified. Reichelt denies all wrongdoing.Jagoda Marinic, an author who has written extensively about the #MeToo movement in Germany, said in a telephone interview that she saw Dörr’s resignation as a watershed. That the revelations in Die Tageszeitung concerned a group of women, rather than an individual accuser, was significant, she said, adding that the case was also the first time someone in Germany had resigned so quickly after a complaint became public.“My hope is it spurs other people to speak out,” Marinic said.On Tuesday, the Volksbühne’s ensemble expressed its “unreserved solidarity” with the women who spoke out against Dörr, in a message posted on the theater’s Instagram account. “Our industry suffers under outdated power structures,” the message said. “This discourse must not end with Klaus Dörr’s resignation.” More

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      Shakespeare Troupe to Go Without an Artistic Director

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyShakespeare Troupe to Go Without an Artistic DirectorAmid severe budget cuts and complaints about his leadership, Ethan McSweeny, who had run the American Shakespeare Center since 2018, will not return.John Harrell and Jessika D. Williams in the American Shakespeare Center production of “Othello,” which was overseen by its former artistic director Ethan McSweeny.Credit…Lauren ParkerFeb. 19, 2021The American Shakespeare Center in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley claims to have the world’s only replica of the indoor venue where Shakespeare’s company performed. And now it’s going to attempt another Shakespearean structure: an actor-led company.The nonprofit announced Friday that its artistic director, Ethan McSweeny, had stepped down eight days earlier. The theater did not offer an explanation; McSweeny cited financial strain caused by the pandemic, but he was also facing complaints about the workplace climate from some employees.“While the pandemic crisis metastasized this past fall, I increasingly found myself trying to conceive of an ASC that would enter 2021 tabula rasa, preparing to reshape itself for rebirth into a massively changed arts ecosystem and national economy,” McSweeny said in a statement on Facebook. “It turns out that part of what became necessary to give the company a truly blank slate was to erase myself as well.”He declined to comment on the complaints, which were voiced in a letter submitted to the theater last fall, other than to say “it is a factor, but not a cause.”The theater, in Staunton, Va., said its “actor-led theater model” would be in place at least for the immediate future, which is expected to include productions of “Macbeth,” “Henry V” and “All’s Well That Ends Well” this summer.The chairman of the theater’s board, G. Rodney Young II, said that he could not comment on the specifics of McSweeny’s departure, but that the theater is addressing its workplace culture and “moving away from a top-down, vertical approach to producing plays.”“We are committed to focusing on improving how we work with each other, how we communicate with each other, and how we respond to the challenges that many of those who work for us are experiencing — and by that I’m talking about people of color,” he said. “We’re aware that in the theater world there are challenges to a traditional, hierarchical structure, and we think that this new model we’re going to pursue will in some ways address those concerns.”The company, founded in 1988 and a destination for Shakespeare lovers, has, like many arts nonprofits, had a challenging year.The theater, in a rural area with a low number of Covid-19 cases, decided to continue presenting plays — indoors, outdoors and streaming — using a variety of safety measures, but without the blessing of Actors’ Equity, the national union of stage actors. Several actors left Equity in order to be able to continue working at the theater.The theater has nonetheless contracted financially, from about a $4.2 million organization before the pandemic to a $1.8 million organization now. The theater is currently dark and much of the staff is on furlough.McSweeny began at the theater in 2018 after a freelance directing career that took him to Broadway (“A Time to Kill” and “The Best Man”) and around the world. He oversaw the development of an ambitious strategic plan that was finished last March, just days before the pandemic prompted theaters around the country to close.“The catastrophic impact of the last eleven months of pandemic has resulted in a significantly changed trajectory for ASC,” McSweeny wrote. “As the new year dawned, the Board and I determined that within the financial constraints of the foreseeable future, ASC could still thrive without my leadership. Accordingly, I offered my resignation and will not be returning from the current companywide furlough.”The theater’s managing director, Amy Wratchford, announced her departure in October, but has continued to help balance the books as an interim controller. “They have a lot of figuring out to do, but they’ve got the financial stability to take the time to figure it out,” she said on Friday. “They’re not swimming in cash, but they’re not on death’s door, and I definitely think the company can and will survive.”She said the new leadership structure is an opportunity to try a new way of operating.“We’ve been saying for decades that the nonprofit theater model is broken,” she said. “They have an opportunity to create a truly new model. I’m excited to see where they go.”Jessika D. Williams, one of the actors who left Equity to continue performing at the theater this summer, said American Shakespeare Center had been working for some time on director-less shows. Its 2020 production of “A Christmas Carol,” for example, was developed and run by actors.“We had been starting to plan this actor-manager model, learning the ins and outs of administration and development and education, so we could have more agency and input moving forward,” she said.Williams, who was not among those who signed the letter about the workplace environment, has left the company to pursue a career in film and television.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Second City Is Sold to Private Equity Group

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySecond City Is Sold to Private Equity GroupThe comedy company has faced intense criticism over race and had committed to restructuring. The new owner, ZMC, said it would not abandon this plan.Second City, in Chicago, also has outposts in Hollywood and Toronto. “We are very excited to partner with management and the incredible talent at The Second City to grow the brand and build a diverse organization,” ZMC said in a statement.Credit…Danielle Scruggs for The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2021Updated 4:02 p.m. ETSecond City, the storied comedy theater, which for more than half a century has helped define American humor, was sold to a private equity group on Thursday, the company said in a statement. The group, ZMC, run by Strauss Zelnick, invests in media entities; Zelnick is also the chief executive of Take-Two Interactive Software, the video game conglomerate behind Grand Theft Auto.It is the first time Second City, which is based in Chicago and has outposts in Hollywood and Toronto, has changed ownership since the 1980s, when Andrew Alexander, a producer and former head of the Toronto location, took over as co-owner and chief executive. Since it opened in 1959, Second City has helped ignite the careers of Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Keegan Michael-Key. Pre-pandemic, it was almost certainly the largest live comedy business in the nation, with more than 700 full- and part-time employees, and an Actors Equity stage contract. The sale price was not disclosed but was estimated at around $50 million, according to The Financial Times.In the statement, Steve Johnston, the president of Second City (also known as The Second City), said, “We are thrilled to work with ZMC as we continue to transform the company into an equitable and thriving environment while delivering world-class comedy to our audiences.”The move comes as Second City is grappling with a business drop-off caused by pandemic shutdowns. It curtailed its in-person shows, tours, classes and corporate workshops — a big part of its business — though the theater aimed to rebound with online comedy and digital content. When Alexander announced that he was looking for buyers last October, he said it was “time for a new generation with fresh ideas to take the company to the next level.”Second City also has been trying to restructure itself after intense criticism over its handling of race. Alexander, who had been involved with the theater for nearly 50 years, stepped down abruptly last summer after Black performers publicly detailed their experiences of being stereotyped and demeaned. A series of open letters from artists and staff members of color then outlined complicated and expensive steps for the theater to combat institutional racism, and Second City leadership agreed to make wholesale changes.“We are prepared to tear it all down and begin again,” the theater’s leaders wrote in an open letter. They appointed a new interim executive director, Anthony LeBlanc, the first Black leader in the company’s history, and took many other measures, even as its performance spaces remained closed.The announcement of the sale suggested that ZMC would not abandon this plan. “We are very excited to partner with management and the incredible talent at The Second City to grow the brand and build a diverse organization that elevates all voices,” Jordan Turkewitz, co-chief investment officer and managing partner at ZMC, said in the statement.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Boston Symphony Orchestra Names First Woman Chief Executive

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBoston Symphony Orchestra Names First Woman Chief ExecutiveGail Samuel spent nearly three decades at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, part of a management team that helped make it the envy of the orchestra world.“There is no other orchestra in the world that I would have left to be part of,” Gail Samuel said of leaving the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.Credit…Emily Berl for The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2021, 9:30 a.m. ETThe Boston Symphony Orchestra announced Thursday that Gail Samuel, the chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, would become its next chief executive, making her the first woman to lead the institution in its 140-year history.In picking her, the orchestra looked west, to one of the most successful American orchestras of recent years, for its choice to succeed Mark Volpe, who led the Boston Symphony for 23 years. Samuel will be responsible for steering the organization out of one of its most dire crises: The pandemic has left the Boston Symphony, one of the nation’s wealthiest orchestras, struggling after months of lost revenues and deep uncertainty around when live audiences will return.Samuel will become Boston’s president and chief executive in June. By the time she leaves Los Angeles, she will have worked at the Philharmonic for nearly three decades. She said in an interview she had not imagined leaving Los Angeles until she started having conversations with the Boston Symphony.“There is no other orchestra in the world that I would have left to be part of,” Samuel said in an interview. The company is exceptional for its breadth of activities, she said, which include the core symphony orchestra; the Boston Pops, its lighter alter ego; and Tanglewood, its thriving summer music festival in the Berkshires.Samuel was part of the management team that helped make the Los Angeles Philharmonic the envy of the classical music world. She was named the orchestra’s acting president and chief executive when Deborah Borda, its longtime leader, took a brief sabbatical in 2015 to teach at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and she was given the acting position again after Borda left to take over the New York Philharmonic. Samuel had hoped to succeed Borda, but the Philharmonic’s board went outside the organization, choosing Simon Woods, who had led the Seattle Symphony. (When he stepped down in 2019 after less than two years in the post, the Philharmonic elevated Chad Smith, who had been its chief operating officer.)She is also president of the Hollywood Bowl, the band shell that serves as the Philharmonic’s lucrative summer home, supplying much of its revenue.Samuel grew up in Los Angeles in a musical family; her parents were public school music teachers, and the violin became her instrument of choice. She studied music and psychology at the University of Southern California, where she later got an M.B.A.Although she spent the vast majority of her career on the West Coast, Samuel has a strong connection to Tanglewood. She remembers stopping there on a family road trip in 1986 and seeing a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. That concert became famous when the violinist Midori, then 14 years old, had to swap instruments twice after the E string broke on her violin, then again on the borrowed violin.“I fell in love with that place,” Samuel said. She soon sought a way to return, and found her way back there one summer as a student, and two summers as a staff member.In Boston, Volpe leaves behind a legacy of financial stability, despite the struggles of the classical music industry, and artistic evolution. During his tenure the orchestra’s endowment — the largest in the classical music field — more than tripled, to $509 million. Its music director, Andris Nelsons, is among the most sought-after in the world.But when the orchestra returns to performing live in the concert hall, it will be in a different world: The musicians there have already agreed to steep pay cuts that will only revert to normal if the orchestra meets financial benchmarks.“This is a difficult time for everyone and I think every organization is going to be thinking about how to come out of this,” Samuel said. “It’s a long path, but there’s also an opportunity to think about things differently.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Kirill Serebrennikov Is Fired as Director of Gogol Center

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMoscow Fires Theater Director, Adding to Fears of a ClampdownThe director, Kirill Serebrennikov, is known for productions with thinly veiled criticism of the Russian government. His contract at the Gogol Center was not renewed.Kirill Serebrennikov in 2018. “Make sure that the theater remains alive,” he wrote in an Instagram post announcing his firing.Credit…Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSophia Kishkovsky and Feb. 9, 2021One of Russia’s most prominent theater directors has been fired, a move widely seen as an attempt to clamp down on artistic freedom in the country.The director, Kirill Serebrennikov, who led the Gogol Center in Moscow, said on Tuesday in an Instagram post that the city’s culture authorities had told him that his contract would not be renewed when it expired on Feb. 25.“The Gogol Center as a theater, and as an idea, will continue to live,” Serebrennikov wrote, “because theater and freedom are more important, and therefore more tenacious, than all kinds of bureaucrats.”Serebrennikov was appointed head of the Moscow theater, which receives city funding, in 2012, and he transformed it into one of Europe’s most vibrant playhouses. His productions often contained thinly veiled criticisms of life under President Vladimir V. Putin, and sometimes featured nudity and sexual imagery that ran contrary to the Russian government’s promotion of family values.Serebrennikov’s work was nonetheless embraced by elite Russian arts organizations. In 2017, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow staged a ballet about the life of Rudolf Nureyev, which Serebrennikov directed. The production, which highlighted the dancer’s homosexuality, prompted much speculation. (Endorsing homosexuality is a crime in Russia.)But the backing of such institutions was not enough to stop the authorities from targeting the director. In 2017, Serebrennikov was put under house arrest after being accused of embezzling more than $1 million in state funding from the Gogol Center. He continued working from his Moscow apartment, directing a movie selected for the Cannes Film Festival and operas in Zurich and Hamburg, Germany. His case also attracted the attention of Western artists and human rights groups.Last June, Serebrennikov was sentenced to three years probation and a $11,000 fine.His firing comes as Russia cracks down on political opposition in the country following widespread demonstrations in support of Aleksei A. Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic. Last week, Navalny was sentenced to over two years in prison.Several artists were detained during those protests, including Oxxymiron, a popular rapper, and members of Pussy Riot, the political arts collective.Serebrennikov’s firing had been expected, after an article published last week by TASS, the state news agency, quoted an anonymous source in the Culture Ministry saying that Serebrennikov’s contract would not be renewed. Prominent figures in Russia’s theater world intervened to try and stop it: On Sunday, the Association of Theater Critics sent an open letter to City Hall in Moscow calling for Serebrennikov to remain. “The Gogol Center is impossible without Serebrennikov,” it said, adding, “Moscow in the 2020s is impossible without the Gogol Center.”“What is happening today in Russia as a whole, and in its cultural space, is a very sad picture, with less freedom and more violence by the authorities,” Ludmila Ulitskaya, the internationally acclaimed Russian novelist, said in an email. “My honor and respect to Kirill Serebrennikov,” she added. “He is a worthy representative of Russian culture.”Theater figures outside Russia also condemned the move. “This is a clear message that artistic freedoms are being reduced to zero,” said Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of the Schaubühne theater in Berlin, which has hosted Serebrennikov’s productions on tour.Neither Serebrennikov, nor a spokesman for Moscow’s culture department responded to requests for comment.Ostermeier said he feared that the Moscow authorities would bring in an outsider to lead the Gogol, and that their choice would turn it into a “boring, safe, conventional space.” But Russian state media reported on Tuesday that Aleksey Agranovich, an actor and director from within the company, would take charge. A spokesman for the theater did not respond to a request for comment.Marina Davydova, a theater critic, said in an emailed statement before Agranovich’s appointment that an internal candidate would be best the solution as they could “preserve the theater, its troupe and its top ranking repertoire.”“Life is still buzzing here,” she said, “and artistic, creative achievements are possible.”Serebrennikov’s Instagram post did not say what he planned to do next, but it did contain a message to his colleagues at the Gogol Center and his many fans. “Try to make sure that the theater remains alive,” he wrote. “You know what needs to be done.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Metropolitan Opera Hires Its First Chief Diversity Officer

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Metropolitan Opera Hires Its First Chief Diversity OfficerMarcia Sells has been brought on to rethink equity and inclusion at the largest performing arts institution in the United States.Marcia Sells, who has been hired as the first chief diversity officer in the Metropolitan Opera’s history.Credit…Eileen BarassoJan. 25, 2021Updated 1:32 p.m. ETMarcia Sells — a former dancer who became an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and the dean of students at Harvard Law School — has been hired as the first chief diversity officer of the Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts institution in the United States.Her appointment, which the Met announced on Monday, is something of a corrective to the company’s nearly 140-year history and a response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020. It’s also a conscious step toward inclusivity by a major player in an industry in which some Black singers, including Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman, have found stardom, but diversity has lagged in orchestras, staff and leadership.Since last summer, cultural institutions across the country have made changes as the Black Lives Matter movement drew scrutiny to racial inequities in virtually every corner of the arts world. The Met was no exception: The company announced plans to open next season with Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” its first opera by a Black composer, directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Brown, who will become the first Black director to lead a production on the Met’s main stage. It also named three composers of color — Valerie Coleman, Jessie Montgomery and Joel Thompson — to its commissioning program.But to make broader changes at the Met, an institution with a long payroll and a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Met is turning to Ms. Sells. As a member of the senior management team, she will report to Peter Gelb, the general manager. The human resources department will be brought under her direction, and her purview will be broad: the Met in its entirety, including the board.“Sometimes horrible events like the killing of George Floyd catalyze people, and they realize this is something we need to do — at the Met and across the arts,” Ms. Sells said in an interview about her plans to make the Met a more inclusive company that values the diversity of its staff and the audiences it serves.Mr. Gelb described Ms. Sells as an “ideal” candidate. “Not only does she have a history of accomplishment, but she also has a knowledge of the performing arts, having been involved in them herself,” he said in an interview. “And she loves opera, which is definitely a plus.”Ms. Sells began dancing as a 4-year-old in Cincinnati, an arts-rich city where she found herself both onstage and in the audience of the storied Music Hall, and where she saw a young Kathleen Battle sing as a student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.“It had been part of my growing up to experience art,” she said.She later joined Arthur Mitchell’s company, Dance Theater of Harlem, then remained in New York to attend Barnard College and Columbia Law School. Ms. Sells described herself as “an affirmative action baby,” and said that as both a dancer and a law student she had encountered racism, both overt and insidious, that made her feel unwelcome.Ms. Sells recalled, for instance, a judge in the mid-1980s who told her that witnesses had to wait outside the courtroom. She said that she was actually an assistant district attorney, and he replied, “Wow, things have changed.”Diversity has been at the fore of her work as an administrator — at places including Columbia, the N.B.A. and eventually Harvard Law, where she has been the dean of students since 2015. Her mandate at the Met won’t be too far from that of Harvard, another institute often perceived as elite to the point of exclusivity.“It’s not just that you want to get it right,” Ms. Sells said. “There are a lot of eyes on you, but it’s a huge opportunity to show the way, as well as learn from other organizations that don’t have as big a name, are not as well known, and help shine a light on that work and on them.”She plans to start at the Met in late February. Among her early tasks will be to conceive a diversity, equity and inclusion plan that could be implemented across hiring, artistic planning and engagement; she will also examine structural inequities at the Met, and work with the marketing and development departments to broaden the company’s audience and donor base.The Met has been shut down because of the pandemic since last March, and most of its workers have been furloughed without pay since April. It is facing a major labor dispute with its unions, as well as more than $150 million in lost revenue from the theater’s closure. But Mr. Gelb said that the company hopes to receive assistance for diversity-related costs from foundations.What those costs are will become clearer as Ms. Sells settles into her new job. She said that she was ready, and motivated by the company’s recent recognition “of how structurally or historically the Met has not felt welcoming to people of color” and the range of possibilities for change.“I truly believe,” Ms. Sells said, “that this is the Met’s moment.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More