Articles about Performing Arts Center opening
Ten Ideas For Improving the AT&T Performing Arts Center
Feel free to criticize them or add your own over here.
The Arts District’s Future: Focus on Festivals
For all the hoopla surrounding the AT&T PAC opening, there are a few things the Arts District doesn’t do well yet: fostering organic use, serving as a common urban space/park, interacting with the surrounding neighbourhoods (or lack thereof). But the district’s opening did prove that it is very good at playing the role of gathering place — a festival ground.
A month or so ago, TITAS executive director Charles Santos spoke to an audience at the DMA about his hope that the Dallas Arts District would foster more coordination and cooperation among Dallas’ arts groups and institutions, such as organizing multi-disciplinary festivals. Now, indirect encouragement comes from Down Under, where The Australian reports that that country’s love of arts festivals has helped foster the kind of innovation and risk taking that would distinguish Dallas as a cultural center.
The big-city arts festivals are invitations for local patrons to try new and different tastes, and audiences take up the offer with enthusiasm. People attend shows they might never otherwise think of seeing, and strike up lively debates with strangers afterwards.
Festivals are where local and international companies get to flaunt their ambitions. Large-scale events or pushing-the-boundaries art are often called “festival shows,” because with the legitimising stamp of a festival they can attract audiences eager for the new, the controversial and the different.
Arts District boosters should take note and begin work on a potential niche for Dallas in the international arts scene.
WSJ Does a Double Whammy on AT&T PAC
D Magazine contributor Willard Spiegelman sure gets around. Today, he can be found in the Journal, where he critiques the architecture and setting of new performing arts center. While Willard looks at the outside, Journal opera critic Hollie Waleson focuses on what’s happening inside.
One nice benefit of having the nation’s major critics in town for the PAC opening is that Dallas opera music director Graeme Jenkins and his orchestra are finally getting the due they deserve after toiling for years in the sound-eating Music Hall. From Waleson’s review:
The most exciting musical experience came from the orchestra, expertly led by Mr. Jenkins. It filled the hall with a rich, full-bodied sound, whipped up the furious opening storm and projected melting, pianissimo tenderness in “Già nella notte.” The glittering antiphonal trumpets that heralded the arrival of the Venetian ambassador in Act III rang out brilliantly, and the plaintive woodwind opening passages of Act IV breathed out into the hall with warmth, definition and character.
New York Times on the Winspear and Otello
Anthony Tommasini adds his opinion this morning to our own Willard Spiegelman’s about the new opera house and its first production. On the Winspear:
Several bigger, more significant American companies are going to envy the Dallas Opera its new home.
On Otello:
At times, especially in Act I, the performance of the orchestra and chorus was insecure and shaky. Jitters on this momentous opening might have been a factor. Also, the set that dominates this production, an intriguing, starkly modern staging by the British director Tim Albery that is filled with militaristic imagery, may have made it harder for the performers to follow the conductor and hear the orchestra.
Local Talks About Being in First Production at Wyly
Our friends at Oak Cliff People have a wonderful story about Cedric Neal, one of the cast members of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It begins tomorrow at the Wyly. The cast is made of locals, who are more than elated to be in the first production at the new theater. Judging from the story, Neal is quite a character. I especially liked his quote about how great the theater is.
“Now here comes the Oak Cliff in me,” Neal said. “It’s the bomb. It is a thing of beauty, and I just don’t know what angels and spirits were so kind to me that I get to be part of this first show in this wonderful new building.”
If you want tickets, go here. But be forewarned: at some point, fairies will be fighting with Nerf balls.
Scenes From the AT&T Performing Arts Center ACT III Gala
Saturday night was a star-studded affair, with Patti LuPone and Kristin Chenoweth performing. Fine folks like Tracy and Jill Rowlett (pictured) attended. Jeanne Prejean has a more official recap of the party over on SweetCharity, and Tim posted a recap as well. I’m just the girl who’s posting the link to our party pics.
45,000 People Turned Out to Yesterday’s PAC Gig
You can read the full release for yourself after the jump. But the Performing Arts Center folks are guessing 45,000 people showed up yesterday, raising the DMN’s published number of 25,000. Of course, no one really knows, which is why I’m officially putting the number at 500,000.
Willard Spiegelman Finds a City in the Arts District
I ran into the good professor Spiegelman yesterday in the Arts District. He was just leaving a performance at the DSO and was aglow (as always). His observations on the day:
The gorgeous weather cooperated with various artistic enterprises at the giant civic open house yesterday at the AT&T Performing Arts Center. There must have been tens of thousands of people spilling in and out of all the Arts District’s venues. It was a carnival atmosphere. No — even better — it was a great manifestation of democracy in action. Walt Whitman would have felt at home. People lined up in front of the Wyly and waited patiently for an hour (or more?) for their chance to take a 10-minute tour. Kids frolicked in the little water element in front of the Winspear. At Booker T, students performed for friends and families. The DSO gave a brilliant and moving interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth. I couldn’t even get into the Nasher.
For the first time in almost 40 years of living in Dallas, I finally had the sense that I was living in a CITY instead of a vast sprawling network of suburbs. I doubt that there have ever been so many people gathered together here for something that was neither a rock concert nor a sports event.
A good time, as I believe the old cliche has it, was had by all. Certainly by me. But it’s a good thing I didn’t have to find a bathroom anywhere, or some food. I heard of difficulties in those two departments.
More Scenes From the Arts District
Okay, any sore feelings over the food situation down here were just erased by that great fireworks show, a call-and-response number with the pyrotechnics launched from the roofs of the Wyly and Winspear. Splendid.
Scenes From the Arts District
Left to right: 1. The monks finished their mandala today. A week of arranging all that sand — and then they dump it in Turtle Creek. Let’s hope the prayer works. 2. These guys were called Zero Gravity, I think. Some very serious trampoline work. 3. My daughter was more impressed with the ballet. 4. As predicted, the reflecting pond in front of the Winspear is VERY popular with the kiddos. 5. I’ve got one gripe: they didn’t think through the food thing. There’s one place to buy it. The line is long. The food is expensive. I wound up instead getting a cup o’ corn from one of the street vendors by the Cathedral. And guess what store decided to stay closed today? Yup, the 7-Eleven at One Arts. Oh, and one more thing: If you’re going to have 30,000 or so people down to the Arts District, they might need to pee. Or worse. Portable bathrooms were not in abundance, and the one I did find was a disaster. 6. People who need to pee. 7. The line to tour the Wyly is about 500 people deep. They will all be assimilated.
Kristin Chenoweth Wows Em at the Winspear
Last night was the culmination of Act III, the three nights of performances that opened the AT&T Performing Arts Center. The finale was billed as “an evening of Broadway,” and it was topped off with a rocking party. First, the singing and dancing, then we’ll get to some pictures, including one of a celebrity who is my new best friend.
Notes From the the Norman Foster Talk at the Nasher
Krista and I just returned from the luncheon and talk given by Norman Foster at the Nasher. He said a few things of note about his Winspear Opera House, but the real action was at our table, whereat were seated Marion and Nash Flores and Kevin Moriarty. We discussed fashion, drinking in downtown, and rock and roll. Notes after the jump.
Morphoses Dazzles at Winspear Opera House Opening
Willard Spiegelman already mentioned the performances of opera superstars Thomas Hampson and Denyse Graves at the AT&T Performing Arts Center ACT III Gala last night, but I wanted to praise the ballet element of the event. Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses ballet company blew me away. I’ve heard the dancing described as “dreamlike” before, and that’s exactly what the sequences seemed like, to me. The first act, a dance with just a male and female dancer, was so lovely and intimate and definitely different from any ballet I’d seen before (though admittedly, I haven’t seen much more than the Nutcracker). I loved the second (or third?) act with the men and women in tutus, which was whimsical, pretty, and a little bit funny. Overall, the dancing was the highlight of my evening.
I’ve also got a tip for people heading to ACT III tonight: have dinner or a drink at One Arts Plaza beforehand and valet your car there. It’s just a short walk and a much shorter valet line.
Willard Spiegelman on Denyse Graves at the Winspear
D Magazine contributor and SMU professor Willard Spiegelman went to his first performance at the Winspear last night. Thomas Hampson and Denyse Graves performed. The good professor sends us this report:
The audience was all smiles and eagerness as its filed into the Winspear Opera House last night. Margaret McDermott was on the arm of Olivier Meslay of the DMA. Other local dignitaries and philanthropists were joined by ordinary people. A whole battalion of lanky women in spaghetti-strapped black dresses and headsets acted as ushers and crowd controllers.
The event was the kind of mixed bag that one often gets at fundraisers and celebrations. There were glitches. The streets were blocked off. The entrance to the theater is small and creates something of a bottleneck. Intimacy (a good thing) can blend into claustrophobia (a bad thing).
In the McDermott Hall itself, the new chandelier looked fabulous, the seats were comfortable, the sight lines excellent. Best of all, the acoustics made you realize as if for the first time how awful the Music Hall at Fair Park has been for the natural transmission of the human voice. Still, there were times when the orchestra (still getting used to the hall) overwhelmed Thomas Hampson and Denyse Graves; and poor Lord Foster, who tried to make his gracious remarks with a hand-held microphone, was less than audible and his words were garbled. He might have done better had he simply spoken with no amplification, in his street voice. Street voices are perfectly audible from the stage.
The stage proved itself capable of quick changes in backdrop and lighting, and equally hospitable to ballet (Christopher Wheeldon’s troupe, in various combinations), vocal solos and duets, and larger choral pieces.
The audience was delighted. The real test will be next week’s opening of Verdi’s Otello.
New York Times Reviews Wyly and Winspear
We were remiss in not mentioning Nicholai Ourroussoff’s interesting and detailed critique today, so here it is. Bottom line:
The no-nonsense approach of these buildings — one cautiously experimental, the other more backward looking — should fit nicely in our new era of cautious restraint, even if they were designed when the excesses were still not over.
Cautious restraint? The description may be accurate, but did you ever think those words would be applied to Dallas?
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