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    In ‘Black Sabbath: the Ballet,’ Heavy Metal, on Pointe

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    Carlos Acosta’s first major commission as the leader of Birmingham Royal Ballet celebrates a local band and the hard-rocking genre it invented.On a recent afternoon, 18 members of Birmingham Royal Ballet spun, pirouetted and leaped across a rehearsal room, with all the grace and skill associated with classical dance. Yet the music blaring out of the sound system wasn’t by Tchaikovsky or Ravel. It was by Black Sabbath.When the dancers finished the sequence to the Ozzy Osbourne-fronted band’s pounding track “Iron Man,” Pontus Lidberg, the lead choreographer for the company’s new production, “Black Sabbath: The Ballet,” nodded approvingly. Then he decided he needed movement more suited to the aggressive music.“Shall we try a stage dive?” he said.In 2020, Birmingham Royal Ballet — based in England’s second most populous, but often overlooked, city — grabbed the British dance world’s attention when it appointed the Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta as its artistic director. Now, Acosta said, he hoped that the Black Sabbath Ballet, which has its premiere Wednesday, would gain the company global attention, too, as well as help the company find a wider audience at home.A mural celebrating Black Sabbath in their hometown of Birmingham.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesA preview performance on Saturday attracted a mix of Black Sabbath and ballet fans.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesThe second part appears to be working. An eight-show run at Birmingham’s vast Hippodrome theater is sold out, as are runs in London and Plymouth, England.Acosta said he had chosen Black Sabbath for his first major commission at the company because the heavy metal band was one of “Birmingham’s jewels.” Before forming, the group’s four members worked in the city’s factories and abattoirs, but soon after they came together in 1968, they began mixing lyrics influenced by horror movies with hard rock, in a style that was eventually christened heavy metal. Over the following decades, most major metal bands, including Iron Maiden and Metallica, cited Black Sabbath as a key influence, and the band sold over 70 million albums.Acosta noted that Birmingham has a canal bridge named for Black Sabbath, but otherwise, he said, the city hadn’t done enough to celebrate the brand or the genre it created.Birmingham Royal Ballet’s artistic director, Carlos Acosta, said he hoped that “Black Sabbath: The Ballet” would gain the company global attention and also help the company find a wider audience at home.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesThe idea of melding heavy metal music and dancing on pointe was initially met with some confusion, Acosta said, including from Black Sabbath’s members. Tony Iommi, 75, the band’s guitarist, said that when he heard about the project, his first thought was: “Dancing to Sabbath! How’s that going to work?”Still, Iommi agreed to meet Acosta and was won over by the dancer’s enthusiasm for the band and a shared background: Acosta came from a poor part of Havana, Iommi said, while Black Sabbath’s members hailed from rough districts of Birmingham, where street brawls were common and ballet lessons nonexistent.“Carlos had such a belief in what he was doing,” Iommi said.It took Acosta several years to work out how to stage a full-scale ballet to the band’s music. Ben Ratcliffe, writing in The New York Times in 1993, described the ideal Black Sabbath song as “slow and low, loud and long.” Lidberg, the ballet’s lead choreographer, said that the repetitive, angry riffs of the group’s most famous songs, like “War Pigs” and “Paranoid,” at first seemed more suited to contemporary dance.Acosta and Black Sabbath’s guitarist Tommy Iommi collaborated on the show. “Carlos had such a belief in what he was doing,” said Iommi. “The whole band signed it off.”Drew TommonsIt was only with a deep dive into the band’s catalog that the creative team realized there were other songs — including the psychedelic “Planet Caravan” — that had gentler moods. The final ballet will contain orchestral versions of eight Black Sabbath tracks, as well original music by a team of composers. A metal guitarist will play onstage, too.Although the piece is no story ballet, it does feature scenes based on real events, including an industrial accident Iommi suffered in 1965 that was key to the development of Black Sabbath’s sound. The guitarist, then aged 17, was working a shift in a Birmingham sheet metal factory when he caught his right hand in a machine. It tore off the tips of two fingers, leaving bloody bones sticking out.To continue playing, Iommi fashioned new finger tips out of dishwashing soap bottle caps, then slackened his guitar strings to ease the pressure as he pressed down on the fretboard. Those changes helped create Black Sabbath’s — and so metal’s — signature booming sound.Five years later, when Black Sabbath released its self-titled debut album, critics hated it, but fans flocked to the band’s concerts. Black Sabbath made headlines throughout the ’70s for its drug-fuelled antics as much as for its music. (The sleeve notes for the band’s fourth album, recorded in Los Angeles in 1972, thanked the city’s drug dealers.) But even for Black Sabbath, Osbourne went too far, and in 1979, the band’s other members fired him. In the solo career that came after, Osbourne once bit the head off a live bat onstage.The ballet features “head banging, air guitars, and moshing,” according to its lead chief choreographer, Pontus Lidberg. Ellie Smith for The New York TimesLidberg said that he had toyed with including many strange, real-life moments in the ballet, including the bat biting, but, ultimately, the show would be thematic, rather than specific. The first act centers on how Birmingham’s clattering factories influenced heavy metal’s sound, he explained, and the third act is about the band’s fans.Lisa Meyer, a Birmingham music promoter, is credited as the ballet’s “metal curator,” tasked with ensuring authenticity — but it remains to be seen what metal fans will make of it.Barney Greenway, the Birmingham-born lead singer of Napalm Death, a band that pioneered the metal subgenre of grindcore, said he hoped the dancers didn’t rely on “metal stereotypes, like throwing the ‘devil horns,’” a hand gesture often seen at rock concerts. Nonetheless, he said, his interest was piqued.Iommi predicted one subset of fans that would likely appreciate the ballet: Black Sabbath’s original followers from the 1970s. “They wouldn’t want to go to a rock concert anymore,” he said. “Some are in their 80s!” This show would be perfect for them, Iommi added: They can watch it sitting down. More

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      Steven Knight Isn’t Ready for ‘Peaky Blinders’ to End

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      The cult British show’s final season is now on Netflix, but its creator has plans for a spinoff movie and says he wants to follow the Shelby family into the 1940s and ’50s.LONDON — Steven Knight knew something special was happening around “Peaky Blinders,” his TV crime drama, a few years ago, when the rapper Snoop Dogg asked to talk with him.The pair met in a London hotel room, Knight said in a recent interview, and for three hours discussed the show, which is based on the real-life Shelby family that operated in Birmingham, in central England, in the shadow of World War I. “Peaky” reminded the rapper of how he got involved in gang culture in Los Angeles, Knight said.“How the connection occurs between 1920s Birmingham and South Central, I don’t know,” Knight, 62, said. “I think you just get lucky with some projects and it resonates with people.”Since premiering in Britain in 2013, the tumultuous fortunes of the Shelby family, headed by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), and set against the backdrop of the political and social tumult of the interwar years, has resonated with many.Devotees hold weddings themed around the show’s early-20th-century aesthetic and cut their hair like the characters. The official “Peaky” brand extensions have been diverse, weird and wonderful, including an official cookbook, despite fans noting that Tommy is never seen eating; a Monopoly board game; a virtual reality game; and a dance show which premieres in Britain this year.The tumultuous fortunes of the Shelby family, headed by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), are set against the backdrop of the political and social tumult of the interwar years in Britain.Robert Viglasky/NetfilxNow, after six seasons, the cultural hit is drawing to a close, its final outing dropping on Netflix on Friday. (The season aired in Britain earlier this year.) While Season 6 is the official conclusion of the show, Knight has trailed a spinoff movie and other projects, framing the final season as “the end of the beginning.”In a recent video interview, he discussed the development of “Peaky,” and what he has planned for the future. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When did you first have the idea to dramatize the story of the Peaky Blinders?These stories were told to me when I was a kid by my parents because they grew up in Small Heath in Birmingham, and so they sort of experienced that world. When they told me stories, I always thought it would make a great drama.I first thought about doing it as a TV series probably 20 years ago, and I’m really thankful that it didn’t happen then because I don’t think there was the technology to have done it justice. Then I was off writing movies and, when television started to become what it is now, someone said, do you have any television ideas? It was an idea that I had sort of in the bottom drawer.Why did those stories resonate with you as a child, did you see them as heroes?Yes. My dad’s uncles were illegal bookmakers known as the Peaky Blinders, so he was in awe of them as a kid — whenever he saw them he was terrified and impressed, they were heroes to him. He would see them in immaculate clothes with razor blades in their hats and drinking whiskey out of jam jars.And I know those streets, I know the pubs, I know the Garrison pub — the real one — and when I wanted to do “Peaky” I decided to keep the mythology rather than be like, what was it really like?I wanted to keep it as if they were being viewed through the eyes of a kid. The horses are all beautiful. The clothes are all magnificent. I was a big fan of westerns; it’s like a western, and that’s how I wanted to keep it.“My take is that Season 6 is asking the question: Can Tommy Shelby be redeemed?” Knight said.NetflixDo you think the show has changed how Birmingham is viewed? In Britain at least, the city and the accent have often been maligned.Part of the challenge in the beginning was to try and make Birmingham — which was a blank canvas at best before — cool. To give it a story. Liverpool has the Beatles and Manchester has the nightclub scene, Birmingham never really had anything.There was a suggestion in the early days of moving the story to London or another city, and I said no. I think the fact that Birmingham was a blank canvas helped because there were no preconceptions.According to people I know from Birmingham, when they go abroad and they speak, instantly people mention “Peaky Blinders.” And it’s not a bad thing, it’s always good. I think it has given Birmingham an identity that perhaps it didn’t have, purely in the media.The show could easily have been ahistoric, but you weave contemporary social movements and political goings-on throughout the seasons. Why was that important to you?If you’re setting something in the 1920s, if you look at what was really going on historically, it gives you an enormous amount of material to use.I didn’t look at history books because I think they, first of all, don’t really tell the history of the working class anyway, and also they tend to look at trends and patterns that eventually made everything that happened seem inevitable when it wasn’t.If you look at newspapers and wherever you can get word-of-mouth testimony about the way life was, it’s so fascinating. And if you can bring that into the work, it just gives it — even though this is very heightened and mythological — a real base.The show takes place in a similar time frame to “Downton Abbey.” As in that series, British period dramas usually show working-class characters as servants.Servants or figures of fun or whatever. What I wanted to do was have these working-class characters where we’re not looking at them and saying, ‘Isn’t it a shame? Wasn’t it awful? Wasn’t their life so dreadful?’ Their lives are amazing and romantic and tragic.An abiding critique of the show is its portrayal of violent masculinity. What do you think about claims that “Peaky” glorifies violence?I think there’s lots of things going on. First of all, you’re depicting life in the ’20s and ’30s and it was very different — to suggest that people behaved the way they behave now, would be the same as saying they didn’t smoke. But also, the way that I look at it, any act of violence in “Peaky” has a very big consequence. If they get scarred, they stay scarred.There’s a scene in one of the early series where Arthur [a Shelby family member] is in a boxing ring and kills someone because he loses his temper. In the next season, that boy’s mother turns up at the Garrison with a gun and wants to get revenge for what happened. In other words, it’s not like this is parting violence. All violence has a consequence.The show is coming to an end, but you have spoken of spinoffs, including a movie. Why do you want to keep returning to the show’s world?It’s partly to do with the fact that it seems to be going up and not down in terms of audience. And I’m interested in concluding during the Second World War. So the film will be set during that war, and then the film itself will dictate what happens next.But I’m quite interested in keeping that world going into the ’40s and ’50s and just seeing where it goes because as long as there’s an appetite, then why not do it? I probably won’t be writing them all, but the world will be established.“Tommy doesn’t think there’s a point, he doesn’t think there’s a goal, he doesn’t think there’s a destination,” Knight said of the lead character. “He just does these things.”Robert Viglasky/NetflixTommy Shelby is a deeply complicated character. How did you want his story to end?I always imagine that before Episode 1 of Season 1, he put a gun to his and decided, ‘Well, I’m not going to kill myself, I’m just going to do whatever I want.’ There’s a great Francis Bacon quote about how, since life is so meaningless, we might as well be extraordinary. Tommy doesn’t think there’s a point, he doesn’t think there’s a goal, he doesn’t think there’s a destination, he just does these things.Then over the six seasons, he, bit by bit, comes back to life. It’s like something that’s frozen is thawing out, but obviously that process is very painful. My take is that Season 6 is asking the question: Can Tommy Shelby be redeemed? And I think that question is answered in the last 10 minutes. More

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      in Music

      Terence Wilson, Key Part of Reggae Band UB40, Dies at 64

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      As Astro with a popular racially diverse British group, he added rap vocals to hits like “Red Red Wine.” As Terence Wilson, a.k.a. Astro, told the story, he and his reggae band, UB40, didn’t even know whose song they were covering when they decided to record what became perhaps their biggest hit. They’d been smitten by a ska version of the song “Red Red Wine,” which was recorded by Tony Tribe in 1969.The seven-inch vinyl carried the credit “N. Diamond,” Mr. Wilson said, and he and his bandmates assumed that it referred to a Jamaican artist named Negus Diamond.“You could’ve knocked us out with a feather when we found out it was actually Neil Diamond,” he told Billboard in 2018.The song was included on UB40’s 1983 album of covers, “Labour of Love,” and a pared-down version released as a single became a modest hit. Then, five years later, the longer version became an even bigger hit. Ali Campbell is the main vocalist on both, but the longer version includes Mr. Wilson’s distinctive toasting, or rapped vocals, which begin, “Red red wine, you make me feel so fine; you keep me rocking all of the time.”How popular did that rendition become? So popular that Mr. Diamond took to performing the song — which he’d originally rendered as a glum ballad — with a catchy reggae beat and including a toasting section in which he imitated Mr. Wilson’s cadence. “Red red wine you make me feel so fine, hear it on the radio all of the time,” Mr. Diamond sang in Buffalo in 1989. “I don’t care if the words are all wrong; I don’t care ’cause they’re playing my song!”Mr. Wilson died on Nov. 6, Mr. Campbell announced on social media. He was 64. No cause of death was given, and the posts did not say where he died.Mr. Wilson joined Mr. Campbell and six others in UB40 in 1978 in Birmingham, England. None had extensive music backgrounds, but they developed their own sound and style; Mr. Wilson was the toaster, trumpeter and percussionist.The eight were a racially diverse group, unusual for the reggae genre, most of whose stars were Black; Mr. Wilson was one of two Black members. But they were united by one thing when they came together: All were unemployed. The group’s name came from a bit of government paperwork, Unemployment Benefit Form 40.Soon UB40 was famous and touring the world. Interviewed in 2005 by The Dominion Post of New Zealand on the occasion of the release of the group’s 23rd album, Mr. Wilson put his change in fortunes simply: “It is like winning the lottery every week.”Terence Wilson was born on June 24, 1957, in Birmingham. His nickname came long before he thought of being in a reggae group.“As a kid I used to run round with four or five other kids wearing these Doc Martin boots,” he told The Dominion Post, “and the actual model name was Astronauts.”Mr. Wilson was an out-of-work cook when he joined the band, which had already begun rehearsing, in 1978. He and the others bucked the trend of the moment — punk — and instead tried making the music they listened to and loved.“We knew we had something fresh that hadn’t been heard before,” Mr. Campbell told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 2019.Starting out by playing clubs, the band by 1980 was opening for the Pretenders on tour, raising its profile considerably, especially in Britain. Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders’ vocalist, had heard the band and become a champion; in 1985 she was a guest on another of the group’s best-known songs, a cover of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.”Much of the group’s popularity rested on covers — among its other biggest hits was its version of a song made famous by Elvis Presley, “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” released in 1993. But the band also recorded original material, much of it with a political edge. An early signature song, in 1981, was called “One in Ten,” the title referring to unemployment statistics.Mr. Campbell split from the original group in 2008 in a dispute over management. Mickey Virtue, the keyboardist, joined him soon after, and Mr. Wilson joined them in 2013; they continued to perform as UB40 Featuring Ali, Astro and Mickey. (Another group continued on as UB40.) Mr. Virtue left the splinter group in 2018, but Mr. Wilson and Mr. Campbell continued to perform and record.Information on Mr. Wilson’s survivors was not immediately available.Although the original UB40 lineup eventually fractured, Mr. Wilson said his musical goals remained constant.“We’re still on our same mission, which is to popularize reggae music around the world,” he told The Dayton Daily News in 2017, when he and Mr. Campbell brought their version of UB40 to the Rose Music Center in Huber Heights, Ohio. “We’re all pleased the genre is now an international language everybody understands.“It’s played around the world, and not everybody has English as their first language,” he continued. “They don’t necessarily understand what’s being said, but everybody understands a good bass line and a drum beat. I think a bass line can say more than 1,000 words ever could.” More

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      in Music

      Graham Vick, Director Who Opened Opera’s Doors, Dies at 67

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      The British director was no stranger to the prestige houses, but his calls to make opera more inclusive and available to everyone eventually found their moment.LONDON — Graham Vick, a British opera director who worked at prestigious houses like the Metropolitan Opera and La Scala while also seeking to broaden opera’s appeal by staging works in abandoned rock clubs and former factories and by bringing more diversity to casting, died on Saturday in London. He was 67.The cause was complications of Covid-19, the Birmingham Opera Company, which he founded, said in a news release.Mr. Vick spent much of the coronavirus pandemic in Crete, Greece, and returned to Britain in June to take part in rehearsals for a Birmingham Opera production of Wagner’s “Das Rhinegold,” Jonathan Groves, his agent, said in a telephone interview.Mr. Vick was artistic director at the company, which he saw as a vehicle to bring opera to everyone. His productions there, which were in English, often included amateur performers. And he insisted on keeping ticket prices low so that anyone could attend, and on hiring singers who reflected the ethnic diversity of Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city. His immersive production of Verdi’s “Otello” in 2009 featured Ronald Samm, the first Black tenor to sing the title role in a professional production in Britain.The company never held V.I.P. receptions because Mr. Vick believed that no audience member should be seen as above any other.Ronald Samm was the first Black tenor to sing the title role in “Otello” in a professional production in Britain.Peter Roy“You do not need to be educated to be touched, to be moved and excited by opera,” he said in a speech at the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards in 2016. “You only need to experience it directly at first hand, with nothing getting in the way.”Opera makers must “remove the barriers and make the connections that will release its power for everybody,” he added.Oliver Mears, the Royal Opera House’s director of opera, said in a statement that Mr. Vick had been “a true innovator in the way he integrated community work into our art form.”“Many people from hugely diverse backgrounds love opera — and first experienced it — through his work,” he said.Graham Vick was born on Dec. 30, 1953, in Birkenhead, near Liverpool. His father, Arnold, worked in a clothing store, while his mother Muriel (Hynes) Vick worked in the personnel department of a factory. His love of the stage bloomed at age 5 when he saw a production of “Peter Pan.”“It was a complete road-to-Damascus moment,” he told The Times of London in 2014. “Everything was there — the flight through the window into another world, a bigger world.”Opera gave him similar opportunities to “fly, soar, breathe and scream,” he said.Mr. Vick studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, intending to become a conductor. But he turned to directing and created his first production at 22. Two years later, he directed a production of Gustav Holst’s “Savitri” for Scottish Opera and soon became its director of productions.With Scottish Opera, he quickly showed his desire to bring opera to local communities. He led Opera-Go-Round, an initiative in which a small troupe traveled to remote parts of Scotland’s Highlands and islands, often performing with just piano accompaniment. He also brought opera singers to factories to perform during lunch breaks.Mr. Vick became director of productions at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1994. That same year he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with a raucous staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” the first time the company performed the opera. He also directed Schoenberg’s “Moses und Aron” and “Il Trovatore” at the Met.Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times called Mr. Vick’s “Moses und Aron” “a starkly modern yet poignantly human staging.”Mr. Vick put on his first production at La Scala in Milan in 1996, directing Luciano Berio’s “Outis.” In 1999, after a multiyear renovation and expansion, he reopened London’s Royal Opera House with Verdi’s “Falstaff.”Mr. Vick with the cast of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” at the Birmingham Opera in 2019.Adam FradgleySome of his productions received mixed or even harsh reviews. “Stalin was right,” Edward Rothstein wrote in The Times in reviewing “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” in 1994, calling Mr. Vick’s production “crude, primitive, vulgar,” just as Stalin had done with Shostakovich’s original. Just as often they were praised, however.Despite Mr. Vick’s success at traditional opera houses, he sometimes criticized them. “They’re huge, glamorous, fabulous, seductive institutions, but they’re also a dangerous black hole where great art can so easily become self-serving product,” he told the BBC in 2012.Mr. Vick’s work at the Birmingham Opera Company, which he founded in 1987, was celebrated in Britain for its bold vision. Its first production, another “Falstaff,” was staged inside a recreation center in the city; other productions took place in a burned-out ballroom above a shopping center and in an abandoned warehouse.Mr. Vick decided to use amateurs after rehearsing a Rossini opera in Pesaro, Italy, in the 1990s. It was so hot and airless one day, he recalled in a 2003 lecture, that he opened the theater’s doors to the street and was shocked to see a group of teenagers stop their soccer game and watch, transfixed.“To reach this kind of constituency in Birmingham, we decided to recruit members of the community into our work,” he said. People who bought tickets should see reflections of themselves onstage and in the production team, he added.Mr. Vick kept returning to Birmingham because, he said, it was only there, “in the glorious participation of audience and performers,” that he felt whole.The company was praised not only for its inclusivity. Its 2009 staging of “Otello” “gets you in the heart and the guts,” Rian Evans wrote in The Guardian. And Mark Swed, in The Los Angeles Times, called Mr. Vick’s production of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Mittwoch aus Licht” in 2012 “otherworldly.” (It included string players performing in helicopters and a camel, and was part of Britain’s 2012 Olympic Games celebrations.)“If opera is meant to change your perception of what is possible and worthwhile, to dream the impossible dream and all that, then this is clearly the spiritually uplifting way to do it,” Mr. Swed added.Mr. Vick, who died in a hospital, is survived by his partner, the choreographer Ron Howell, as well as an older brother, Hedley.In his speech at the Royal Philharmonic Society awards, Mr. Vick urged those in the opera world to “get out of our ghetto” and follow the Birmingham example in trying to reflect the community where a company is based.People need to “embrace the future and help build a world we want to live in,” he said, “not hide away fiddling while Rome burns.” More

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      in Music

      Scrapped Plans for London Concert Hall Sour Mood for U.K. Musicians

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyScrapped Plans for London Concert Hall Sour Mood for U.K. MusiciansThe decision comes as classical musicians struggle to deal with the impact of the pandemic and Britain’s departure from the European Union.A computer-generated rendering of the proposed London Center for Music, by the architects Diller Scofidio & Renfro. London authorities announced Thursday that the project would not go ahead.Credit…Diller Scofidio + RenfroFeb. 19, 2021, 11:11 a.m. ETLONDON — Back in 2017, London music fans had high hopes for a reinvigoration of the city’s classical music scene.That year, Simon Rattle, one of the world’s most acclaimed conductors, became the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the architects behind the High Line in New York, were appointed to design a world-class 2,000-seat concert hall in the city.Now, the situation couldn’t be more different.On Thursday, just weeks after Rattle announced he would leave London in 2023 to take the reins at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, London officials announced that plans for the new hall had been scrapped. Rattle had been the driving force behind the project.In a news release announcing the decision, the City of London Corporation, the local government body overseeing the proposal, did not mention Rattle’s departure; the new hall would not go ahead because of the “unprecedented circumstances” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the release said.The announcement was not unexpected. Few private funders came forward for the project, and Britain’s government was reluctant to back the project, which critics had decried as elitist, after years of cuts to basic services.But some musical experts say the news is still a blow to Britain’s classical musicians, already suffering from a pandemic-induced shutdown of their work, and Brexit, which has raised fears about their ability to to perform abroad.“It’s a further confirmation of the parochialization of British music and the arts,” said Jasper Parrott, a co-founder of HarrisonParrott, a classical music agency, in a telephone interview.The mood among musicians was low, Parrott said, especially because of changes to the rules governing European tours that came about because of Brexit. Before Britain left the European Union, classical musicians and singers could work in most European countries without needing visas or work permits, and many took last-minute bookings, jumping on low-cost flights to make concerts at short notice.Classical musicians now require costly and time-consuming visas to work in some European countries, Parrott said. Changes to haulage rules also make it harder for orchestras to tour, he added: Trucks carrying their equipment are limited to two stops on the continent before they must return to Britain.Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said on Tuesday during a parliamentary inquiry into the new rules that she had been “inundated with personal testimony from musicians as to the work that they have lost, or are going to lose, in Europe as a result of the new visa and work permit arrangements.”A British musician who wanted to play a concert in Spain would have to pay 600 pounds, or about $840, for a work permit, she said, adding that this would make such a trip unviable for many. She called upon the government to negotiate deals with European countries so cultural workers could move around more easily.Parrott said he expected many British classical musicians would retrain for other careers, or move outside Britain for work, if the rules were not changed.High profile departures like Rattle’s have only contributed to the impression of a sector in decline. On Jan. 22, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, a young Lithuanian conductor seen as a rising star, announced she would leave her post as music director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2021-22 season. “This is a deeply personal decision, reflecting my desire to step away from the organizational and administrative responsibilities of being a music director,” she said in a statement at the time.Manuel Brug, a music critic for Die Welt, the German newspaper, said in a telephone interview that, viewed from the continent, classical music in Britain seemed in a bad way, “with all this horrible news.”The new London concert hall “was always a dream, but at least it was a dream,” he said.Given recent developments, many British musicians and singers may have to consider moving to Europe if they wanted to succeed, he said.Yet not all were downbeat about the future. British musicians could cope with the impact of the coronavirus, or Brexit — but not both at the same time, unless the government stepped in to help, said Paul Carey Jones, a Welsh bass baritone who has campaigned for the interests of freelance musicians during the pandemic.“British artists are some of the best trained, most talented and most innovative and creative,” he said. “But what we’re almost completely lacking is support from the current government. So we need them to grasp the urgency of the situation.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Theater

      A Theater Serves as a Courthouse, Provoking Drama Offstage

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Theater Serves as a Courthouse, Provoking Drama OffstageBlack artists and activists in Birmingham, England, say the city’s largest playhouse has sold out by leasing its auditoriums to the criminal justice system.Before the dispute, the Birmingham Repertory Theater had long been praised for its efforts to engage people of color.Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesJan. 18, 2021BIRMINGHAM, England — One recent Monday, Sarah Buckingham walked into an auditorium at Birmingham Repertory Theater, strode up some steps to a platform and looked out at her audience. She was in full costume, with a wig, and everyone rose to their feet.It might seem like a star’s entrance, but Ms. Buckingham is not an actress; she is a judge, overseeing a criminal trial.Three national lockdowns in Britain, as well as tough social distancing guidelines, have hampered the business of England’s court system this past year, creating a huge backlog of cases. Since July, the country’s courts service has been renting suitable spaces — like theaters, but also conference centers and local government buildings — then turning them into temporary courtrooms.“I believe a large number of you are familiar with this building for reasons unrelated to crime,” Ms. Buckingham told the jury, before the case began. About 30 feet away from her stood Rzgar Mohammad, 34, a delivery driver who was accused of smashing a glass hookah pipe against another man’s head, then hitting him repeatedly with a pole. He was pleading not guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.Britain’s theaters have been in financial crisis since the coronavirus pandemic forced them to shut last March. Although a few have hosted performances for socially distanced audiences, most have only survived through a combination of crisis grants and layoffs. Given that, the Birmingham theater’s decision to lease space to the courts service is perhaps unsurprising. Another theater, in the Lowry arts complex in Manchester, has been hosting trials since October. The interior of a theater at the Lowry arts complex in Manchester, reconfigured as a court.Credit…Nathan ChandlerTrials have been taking place at the Lowry since October.Credit…Nathan ChandlerBut the move has angered theatermakers in Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city, who claim the courts and the police have historically targeted communities of color, and that theaters should be kept as spaces for creativity. Jay Crutchley, a Black director, said in a telephone interview that the Rep — as the theater is known in Birmingham — had “just endorsed probably the biggest systematic oppressor of Black people in this country.” Young Black men are disproportionately represented in Britain’s prisons, he added, and many people growing up in Birmingham — white and Black — have bad experiences with the police. “I’ve had close friends go through the court system,” he said, “and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped and searched.” The Rep’s decision to host a court was turning the theater into a potential site of trauma, Mr. Crutchley added. “There’s a line for me where ethics gets in the way of money,” he said. On Monday, the theater announced two online meetings to listen to the feedback of anyone concerned about its decision. “We are committed to hearing your thoughts directly,” it said.Birmingham is one of Britain’s most diverse cities — at the time of the last census, in 2011, more than a quarter of its population was Asian, and around 9 percent was Black — and the Rep has long been praised for its efforts to engage people of color. Its latest season would have included several plays by people of color, if coronavirus had not forced its closure. Those included the premiere of Lolita Chakrabarti’s “Calmer,” directed by the Black actor Adrian Lester. Mr. Lester is a trustee of the Birmingham Rep’s board and is also married to Ms. Chakrabarti.But just days after the Dec. 14 announcement that the playhouse would be used to hear trials, Talawa — a leading Black theater company — canceled a scheduled season of plays at the Rep on the theme of “Black joy.” The Rep’s move “does not align with Talawa’s commitment to Black artists and communities,” the company said in a news release. (A spokeswoman for Talawa declined to an interview request for this article.)A 2018 production of “Guys and Dolls” by the Talawa theater company. The company pulled out of a collaboration with the Birmingham Repertory Theater after it leased space to the courts service.Credit…Manuel HarlanThe organizers of More Than a Moment, a Birmingham-based cultural initiative aimed at promoting Black artists, also removed the Rep from its guiding committee.The theater, whose spokesman declined an interview request, said in a blog post that the deal with the courts was needed to secure its financial future. Yet Rico Johnson-Sinclair, the manager of SHOUT, an L.G.B.T. arts festival that holds events at the Rep, said in a telephone interview that the Rep was not in immediate danger and had money to keep running until April. In October, Britain’s culture ministry gave the Rep £1.3 million, about $1.8 million.“If they’d been transparent and said, ‘We need to do this or we’re going to go under and they’ll be no more Birmingham Rep,’ I think the Black community would have been more forgiving,” Mr. Johnson-Sinclair said. “But I still don’t think it’s the right course of action.”In interviews outside the theater, six Black passers-by expressed divergent views about the situation. Three said they understood the complaints, but were supportive of the theater becoming a court. “What else can they do to survive?” said Elliot Myers, 30, the owner of a marketing agency. “Needs must,” he added. Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesBut three were opposed. “I know they’re desperate for money, but surely we can find another way?” said David Foster, 47, a street cleaner. Philip Morris, 37, a barber said, “You don’t want to be going to the theater thinking, ‘Court system.’” He added that the theater would be “just more for the European white now.”In the makeshift courtroom on Monday, the proceedings did sometimes have the air of a theatrical courtroom drama. Mr. Brotherton, the prosecution’s lawyer, outlined his case, then showed the jury a video capturing part of the incident. Everyone paid rapt attention. But in real life, trials unfold at a less than gripping pace. Just as things were getting exciting, the judge stopped the proceedings for lunch and so clerks could find an interpreter for one of the witnesses. But when everyone returned to the auditorium, the interpreter was still nowhere to be seen. The lawyers spoke among themselves, marveling at the lighting rig above.After another 50 minutes, the interpreter still hadn’t arrived, unable to find the theater. It was the type of event that delays many court proceedings in Britain, even outside a pandemic.“All right, I’ll admit defeat,” Judge Buckingham said after learning the news. She called the jury back into the room, and sent them home for the day. The 12 men and women shuffled out, stage right, but with little sense of drama or spectacle. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More