Ring Up The Curtain
THE PERFORMING ARTS COME BACK TO THE STAGE FOR LIVE AUDIENCES. BY LEE CULLUM And there was only one way out—the artist had to fling himself into the abyss in the belief that when he reached the bottom, he would not be dead, but would be newly born. –El Lissitzky
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nd so the abyss is where they are now, those actors, musicians, dancers, and singers, flinging themselves onto the stage, hoping for an audience, hoping to keep their health, hoping to make a living, hoping to survive as artists. The times are surreal, but Suzanne Césaire, anti-colonial French activist, and writer from Martinique, said in 1943, “Surrealism is the tightrope of our hope.” Mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato, who sang spectacularly in a recital for The Dallas Opera earlier this year, put it like this: “We are going to have to create our way out of this pandemic.” As Hemingway put it, “Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?”
From left: The Barber of Seville. Photograph by Cory Weaver for Minnesota Opera; Madame Butterfly. Photograph by Terrence McCarthy for San Francisco Opera; Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Fabio Luisi. Photograph by Sylvia Elzafon.
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