In Sunday’s (6/1) Washington Post, Anne Midgette writes about Virginia’s Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, where Arvind Manocha is in his second year as director. “Remember the days when Wolf Trap used to present groups like the Philadelphia Orchestra? They’re back (on June 28). Remember when the National Symphony Orchestra used to play there with major soloists? Welcome, Jean-Yves Thibaudet (July 18) and Yo-Yo Ma (Aug. 2).… I’ll be … hoping that Manocha can continue to lead Wolf Trap back to more of a centrist balance between the trashy and the artistic…. I’d be excited if it could represent more of a cross-section of the artistic spectrum, and this summer it seems to be taking steps in that direction…. Those delightfully trashy pop performances that I never actually let myself go to … take Fantasia … I am surely not alone in, every time I hear Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, remembering the dinosaurs.… One of the pleasures … is seeing those handcrafted animation cells, luminous and with a particular quality of depth and character I think none of today’s computer-animated films can touch, flow together and unspool with a level of craft that parallels the music. You call it watered-down entertainment. I call it an introduction to art.”
Posted June 5, 2014
