by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: Oblivion Project plays Piazzolla, Pantheon Ensemble (pictured) honors WWII-era Jewish composers, and Cleveland Orchestra goes all-Mozart
•Interesting read: Cleveland’s high score in the “Arts Vibrancy Index”
•R.I.P. Blair Tindall, 63
•Almanac: the ill-fated Crosby Opera House, from its opening all the way to its demise at the hands of the Great Chicago Fire
HAPPENING TODAY:
This evening presents you with three listening options.
At 7:00, you can hear The Oblivion Project — dedicated to the tango nuevo works of Astor Piazzolla — at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights. The free concert is presented by the Local 4 Music Fund.
Also at 7:00, the Pantheon Ensemble pays tribute to WWII-era Jewish composers. That concert takes place at Temple-Tifereth Israel in Beachwood, and it’s also free.
And at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, Bernard Labadie leads The Cleveland Orchestra in an all-Mozart program featuring soprano Lucy Crowe. Tickets are available online.
Details in our Concert Listings.
INTERESTING READ:
The City of Cleveland recently received good news from SMU DataArts’ 2022 Arts Vibrancy Index, which examines “the level of supply, demand, and government support of the arts” in over 900 communities nationwide.
“Analysis from the 2022 Arts Vibrancy Index reveals Cleveland, Ohio with a score in the top 1% of communities on measurements of Arts Dollars. The city shows particular strengths in the amount of earned revenue generated from artistic programs and the total compensation paid to arts and cultural employees per capita — higher than all other large midwestern communities on these two sub-measures.” Read the full article here.
BLAIR TINDALL, 63
Oboist, journalist, and author Blair Tindall, whose acclaimed memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music was adapted into an award-winning comedy-drama series that ran for four seasons on Amazon Prime, passed away of heart disease on April 12 in Los Angeles. An obituary in The New York Times delves into the book — from its sensational content to its critique of the classical music world — as well as Tindall’s careers as a freelance musician and journalist. Read here.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Last year’s entry focused on English conductor John Eliot Gardiner, who was born on this date in 1943, the FCC’s approval of FM Stereo Broadcasting on April 20, 1961, and a recital by 92-year-old Vladimir Horowitz in Moscow in 1986 after 60 years abroad.
This time we’ll add to that list the story of an ill-fated opera house that opened on this date in 1865 only to burn down six years later at the hands of a famous conflagration.
The namesake of Crosby’s Opera House was founder Uranus H. Crosby, who arrived in Chicago in 1850 from Massachusetts only to be disappointed by the city’s cultural offerings — including the fact that existing theaters were not interested in putting on opera productions.
After Crosby toured opera houses back East with architect William W. Boyington, the architect began his designs — and the first setback was the cost of the building. With its lavish artwork and even an art gallery, the structure ended up costing the modern-day equivalent of over $10 million. The second setback was its opening, which had to be delayed due to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (as inauspicious a beginning as you could ask for).
After inconsistent scheduling early on due to the public’s lack of interest and Crosby’s inexperience in theater management, he went further into debt and lost the confidence of investors. A lottery was held to sell off the building and its offerings, including its artwork, and Crosby was lucky to retain ownership — the man who was awarded the building decided against moving to Chicago due to his wife’s illness, instead opting to sell the house back to Crosby.
If fortunes had improved, it was of course only temporary. After undergoing expensive alterations, the theater’s reopening was planned for October 9, 1871 — as it would turn out, one day after the start of the Great Chicago Fire, which would lead around 300 people to lose their lives and over three square miles of the city to burn down. All thanks, as the “tail” has it, to a cow that knocked over a lantern.