“A Home for Art” and “Closer Look at Turner’s Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening,” at the Frick Collection, New York (May 2): If you’re thinking of swinging by the newly reopened Frick Collection sometime this May, try this Friday evening, when two talks will add an extra dollop of learning to your visit. “A Home for Art,” beginning in the Library Gallery, will trace how the mansion of Henry Clay Frick became what we know today, the Frick Collection (those eager to study up ahead of time can turn to Ian Wardropper’s “The Fricks at home,” featured in our March issue). Or head to the West Gallery for a discussion of J. M. W. Turner’s Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening (1826), a virtuosic, golden scene on the Rhine with stripes of russet clouds overhead. And have no fear, you can indeed fit in both—each talk will take place twice, once at 6:30 and once at 7:30. —SM
Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel, performed by the Blue Hill Troupe, at El Teatro of El Museo del Barrio, New York (April 30–May 4): Founded in 1924, the Blue Hill Troupe has a long tradition of cycling through all of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas in annual charity runs on the New York stage. This week the troupe returns with the final, fourteenth work of G&S’s musical partnership: The Grand Duke, which premiered at the Savoy Theatre in 1896. Although well received by initial audiences, The Grand Duke became a critical and financial failure over its 123-performance run. In its review of opening night, The Times of London called it “not by any means another Mikado.” Since its first revival fifty years ago, audiences have been giving this work a second look for Sullivan’s adventurous scoring and Gilbert’s bright comedy. Now we have another chance to sample this lesser-known confection as the Blue Hill Troupe mounts G&S’s final Savoy opera. —JP
Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall (May 5): On Monday, May 5, the Oratorio Society of New York will close out its season at Carnegie Hall with the world premiere of Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s All Shall Rise. The latest commission of the society, the new work explores the history of U.S. voting rights through the musical partnership between the composer Moravec and the librettist Campbell. With Susanna Phillips (soprano), Lucia Bradford (mezzo-soprano), Charles Williamson (tenor), Steven Eddy (baritone), and Kent Tritle at the podium, the concert performance follows up on the duo’s Sanctuary Road, about the Underground Railroad, and their adaptation of Steven King’s The Shining. A performance of Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” (Hymn of Praise) will serve as a prelude on the Carnegie program and complement the premiere. —JP
“Pigeons: Love Them, or Love Them,” with Andrew Garn at the General Society Library (April 29): The nineteenth-century writer Nathaniel Parker Willis detected “a human look in [the pigeon’s] swelling breast,” and the photographer Andrew Garn also sees “unexpected beauty” in the form of the humble pigeon, scourge of our cities. At a talk this week at the General Society Library, Garn will expound on his love for Columbia livia and try to convince what one suspects may be a rather skeptical crowd. Those unable to roost in Midtown that night can buy his book. —BR
Dispatch:
“Latinx Oxoniensis,” by Joshua T. Katz. On the non-binary official language proposed at the University of Oxford.
By the Editors:
“The Athenian Mirror: Reflections on Democracy in Crisis”
Roger Kimball, American Greatness
From the Archives:
“Is the symphony orchestra dead?” by Samuel Lipman (September 1987). On the nature of the symphony orchestra.
