In Saturday’s (12/17) New York Times, Zachary Woolfe reflects on the deaths of Olga Bloom, founder and organizer of the New York chamber-music series Bargemusic, and Amato Opera founder Anthony Amato, who died Tuesday. “Two scrappy institutions; two idiosyncratic, unforgettable spaces. The passing of their longtime leaders is a moment to think about the arts and where they live. It’s a point when the traditional model—if you have an opera company, you have an opera house—is changing, and even major groups like New York City Opera and the Brooklyn Philharmonic are trying to spin their lack of permanent homes as an advantage. … One major new arts building opened this year, the gleaming DiMenna Center for Classical Music, which is the headquarters of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, providing offices and rehearsal space for that ensemble and many others. It’s a beautiful, useful place, but it’s the great exception, and it’s not intended as a performance space; the orchestra will still have its concerts elsewhere. The idea of arts institutions’ having stable homes, however eccentric they might be (the Amato’s stage was 18 feet wide and lacked wings), is becoming a thing of the past.”
Posted December 19, 2011
