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2 weeks ago | 
wsj.com | Eric Gibsom
New YorkIt’s the same. Only better. $13.75/Week $1.75/Week Includes unlimited digital access to The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron’s and Investor’s Business Daily $9.75/Week $1/Week Includes unlimited digital access to WSJ's unrivaled journalism. Already a subscriber? Sign in
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2 months ago | 
wsj.com | Eric Gibsom
ClevelandThe best-kept secret of the current art season—at least to judge by the absence of prior national news coverage—is “Picasso and Paper” at the Cleveland Museum of Art, through March 23. Note that it’s “and,” not “on,” paper.
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Jan 16, 2025 | 
wsj.com | Eric Gibsom
On April 15, 1958, a fire broke out in the Museum of Modern Art. Smoke quickly filled the building and it took firefighters an hour to contain the blaze. A retrospective of Post-Impressionist pioneer Georges Seurat was installed on the third floor at the time, the centerpiece of which was his masterpiece “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” (1884), borrowed from the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Eric Gibsom |Tess Lewis |Anthony Daniels
I went to the Metropolitan Opera last night somewhat nervous. Onstage would be Tosca. In two of the main roles would be veteran stars: Sondra Radvanovsky (Tosca) and Bryn Terfel (Scarpia). They have given so much, for so many years. Would they have much left to give? They have a lot, yes. They were good. In fact, stupendous. From her opening cries of “Mario!” (three of them), Radvanovsky was sovereign. She was una vera Tosca, a true Tosca. Italian, mercurial, and smart, smart, smart.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Eric Gibsom |Karen Wilkin |Anthony Daniels
I will put the bottom line in the first line: last night’s concert by the New York Philharmonic was very good. First-rate. What makes a first-rate orchestra? Personnel, of course—but the conductor too. First-rate personnel plus a lesser conductor equals . . . a concert a little gray, maybe? The Philharmonic was conducted last night by Daniele Rustioni, a Milanese born in 1983.
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Jan 8, 2025 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Karen Wilkin |Anthony Daniels |Eric Gibsom
Last night, the New York Philharmonic was conducted by Kevin John Edusei, a German born in 1976. He cuts a dashing figure onstage: shaven head, trim physique, long coat, in the old style. Does it matter, what a conductor looks like? No—but there’s an element of theater in the concert business. The program began with a work by Samy Moussa, a Canadian born in 1984. I will discuss this work later—in a chronicle for the print magazine.
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Jan 8, 2025 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Karen Wilkin |Anthony Daniels |Eric Gibsom
In his introduction to Hugo Charteris’s Pictures on the Wall, newly reprinted by the independent publisher Michael Walmer, David Lodge, who reviewed the novel in The Spectator when it was first published in 1963, mentions that Charteris was called in his time “essentially a writer of our day.” Lodge also notes that Charteris was praised during his career as a writer of “exceptional skill and sensitivity.” Charteris was decorated during in World War II for holding off a band of enemy soldiers...
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Anthony Daniels |Karen Wilkin |Eric Gibsom
Teatro alla Scala has picked many operas to open a new season, an event of perennial importance on the international classical-music calendar and one of great social prominence as well. Yet when the work in question is by Giuseppe Verdi, the occasion has a special aura, thanks to the unique relationship the Milan theater has had with this supreme composer.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Karen Wilkin |Anthony Daniels |Eric Gibsom
In 2003, when results came in for the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (sppa), Dana Gioia took action. The survey was designed by the National Endowment for the Arts, where Gioia served as chairman from 2003 to 2009; the Census Bureau administered it. The purpose of the survey was to determine how often American adults patronize different arts: visiting museums, going to the symphony, reading novels, and so on.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Sarah Ruden |Eric Gibsom |Tess Lewis |Anthony Daniels
An obolus is a small silver coin the Greeks placed under the tongues of the dead so they could pay Charon as he ferried them across the river Styx to the underworld. Andrew Rickard named his Montreal-based publishing business Obolus Press because he translates and publishes works of literature by dead French and German writers that have never appeared in English.
