In Sunday’s (9/23) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin writes, “Is there enough wealth in and around Philadelphia to support the great Philadelphia Orchestra? Will its current leadership destroy the ensemble as we know it, or save it? In view of everything that has transpired in the last two decades, have we built an arts center while putting its orchestra at risk? The Philadelphia Orchestra is out of bankruptcy, and bankruptcy could solve only so much.” The above issues still face the orchestra, Dobrin argues, but often overlooked is that the ensemble itself “continues to operate at a superlative level. Review after review is a rave. … There are compelling reasons for Philadelphia to step up with enough support to put the orchestra on firm footing once and for all. … [Philadelphia Orchestra Board Chair Richard B.] Worley, Mayor Nutter, and new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin listed some—the orchestra is an economic engine, a city ambassador in Asia and Europe. … Let me just say high up that I believe the orchestra will succeed—not because it finally has its house in order (it doesn’t, quite), but because, in a sense, there is no choice. As a metaphor for what civilization can build when disparate elements come together to achieve something bigger, nothing in culture can touch an orchestra. No great city in the Western world exists that does not have a great one.”
Posted September 25, 2012
