Happy listening and joyous viewing

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

In August of 2020 Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that performing-arts venues would be allowed to reopen in the near future, in a limited capacity, with strict health guidelines in place. “To give arts organizations the opportunity to begin planning for performances, interior venue attendance will be capped at 15 percent of their fixed-seated capacity or 300 people,” a statement read.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that it will likely be more than a year before people feel comfortable returning to theaters and concerts. “If we get a really good vaccine and just about everybody gets vaccinated, you’ll have a degree of immunity in the general community that I think you can walk into a theater without a mask and feel that you’re not going to be at risk. But as long as there is infection in the community, you do not want indoor spaces with crowds.”

As it stands right now, few arts organizations in Cincinnati are up and running. The College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati continues to conduct its main activities as an educational institution. But its public performances of recitals, concerts, plays, musicals, ballets and musical theatre shows, many of which used to generate substantial revenues, are at a stand-still. Notable exceptions are the excellent free on-line performances of orchestral and chamber music concerts, about which one can learn more at https://ccm.uc.edu.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra continues its series of on-line performances (some free, some pay-per-view) in addition to socially-distanced, reduced attendance live performances. For details:  www.cincinnatisymphony.org.

Outside Cincinnati there are organizations now offering on-line performances, some free of charge, some pay-per view. Among those, there is the Metropolitan Opera, which continues to offer free nightly broadcasts of archival performances. See: www.metopera.org/nightly-met-opera-streams

On You Tube (www.youtube.com) there is a variety of choices to be had: orchestral concerts, chamber music, dance concerts, many of recent vintage, many priceless archival performances.

There are easily accessible archival performances from the legendary Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires with its  interesting English language site (www.teatrocolon.org.ar/en/culturaencasa) and Sweden’s invaluable Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra  (www.gso.se/en) also with an English language website.

The choices are many, and while they will not provide an alternative to the joys of live music and theatre, they offer a safe substitute to the up close performances of which Covid-19 continues to deprive us.  So, until safer new normal times come around, here’s wishing all of us happy listening and joyous viewing.

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”