In Thursday’s (11/7) Wall Street Journal (subscription required), arts critic Terry Teachout writes about recent upheaval at several major performing arts organizations. “What we’re seeing here is not a string of isolated high-culture horror stories but something far more significant—something that requires a different kind of response. Everyone who keeps up with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation in the Arts data knows that high-culture attendance numbers have been shrinking across the board for more than a decade. Opera, theater, dance, symphony orchestras, even big-city art museums: All are drawing smaller crowds. … Might it be possible that some of them should disappear? In 2010 … I asked whether regional orchestras still make artistic sense. ‘For a fast-growing number of Americans, the answer is no,’ I replied, arguing that many such orchestras were in the process of being rendered obsolete by digital downloading, which makes it possible to hear the classics whenever and wherever you want.… Is the situation hopeless? By no means. But how many older fine-arts organizations are capable of the radical innovation that’s necessary to survive in a world of ceaseless competition? … In order to survive, such institutions will have to constantly re-examine their missions and adapt to the brutal challenges of American culture in the 21st century.”
Posted November 8, 2013
