Kennedy Center reopens to audience

Kennedy Center reopens to audience

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norman lebrecht

September 16, 2020

press release:

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces the first performance in front of a live audience on one of the Center’s famed stages in more than six months. Featuring two of America’s most celebrated vocalists, Renée Fleming and Vanessa Williams, the concert launches the innovative On Stage at the Opera House series, designed to safely bring back live performing arts to the National Cultural Center. The configuration of the theater has been re-imagined to place the artists on a 30 x 24-foot stage extension built over the orchestra-level seating area. An invited audience of 40 people will enter through the wide loading doors on the Center’s front plaza and will sit in physically-distanced pairs on the stage facing the iconic red interior of the hall.

Comments

  • Le Křenek du jour says:

    The *former* “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts”.
    Soon the be renamed “The Angela Davis People’s Hall of Anti-Elitist, Non-Privileged Intersectionality”.
    Any Day Now.

    • Alank says:

      You are not off base. The KC is run by Deborah Rutter who holds total disdain for the western art music . She is well on her way to transforming the KC into a mass entertainment center with an emphasis on the hip hop genre. All of the NSO players I know despise her.

  • Possibly offended.. says:

    “An invited audience ”?

    Oh my!!

    Sounds highly discriminatory as they are chosen. Must they be rich or another dog whistle label??

  • Gregg says:

    40 in the audience? Why bother? There’s more children in my son’s classroom during pre-covid times.

    • LG says:

      DC is still in Phase 2, which limits public gatherings to 50 people. In this case, I imagine that has to include the artists and any stage crew on-site. Classical Movements is hosting socially-distanced backyard concerts with a similar audience size. This seems to be an effort to bring live performance back, to the extend that it can be done safely.

  • Fernandel says:

    Let’s hope the pianist is not a white male…

  • Barbara Bear says:

    How are the 40 audience members being selected?

  • Guest says:

    Ahem. “Rules — When posting on Slipped Disc, please observe the following simple rules: 1 No abuse 2 No defamation 3 No personal attacks. 4 You may post anonymously or under a pseudonym, but only under one name. Rule violators will be spammed out.”

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