The Virus and the Arts

Apparently, the coronavirus is also damaging the arts. Not because dancers and stage actors are notably political, but because of social distancing. Concerts, operas, and theatre need an audience. They cannot survive without a rather large one.

One notes that other art forms seem to be doing better. Netflix has been prospering during these troubled times.

Not to be too crass, the great cities use the arts to attract tourists. And to attract tourist dollars. Without tourist dollars, the hospitality industry will suffer. And the city economy will also suffer.

The story is the same in London, Locking down auditoria has pushed companies to the edge of insolvency. So, we begin with London. And with Andrew Lloyd Webber in The Daily Mail:

The coronavirus crisis has pushed the arts to the 'point of no return', Andrew Lloyd Webber warned today.

The composer and theatre impresario lamented the impact of lockdown and social distancing, saying it had made it economically 'impossible' to run theatres.

Lord Lloyd-Webber complained that the Government had given him 'no satisfactory answer' over 'anomalies', such as why people can fly on a plane but not attend a musical without social distancing.

Giving evidence to the Culture Select Committee, he said Britain was a 'leader in world theatre' and should be given the green light to 'demonstrate how we can reopen'.

 'We simply have to get our arts sector back open and running,' he said. 'We are at the point of no return really.'

Lord Lloyd-Webber cited an acquaintance who was 'one of the finest viola players I know', but was currently working in a supermarket.

'There comes a point now when we really can't go on much more,' he said. 

The Government rescue package was 'giving money to buildings to keep the lights off' and going down a 'bottomless pit' instead of 'getting the buildings open', he added.

As for America, Terry Teachout reports in the Wall Street Journal.

Because of the pandemic, live theater is almost entirely shut down, as are most movie theaters. Ballet companies everywhere have scrapped “The Nutcracker,” the cash cow that pays their bills for the rest of the year, and museums are leaving up the exhibitions that were on display in March.

Yes, the art world is trying to sound optimistic, but the writing on the wall consists of two ominous words: social distancing. New York’s newly reopened Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art are admitting only 25% of their regular capacity. The Houston Symphony reopens its 2,900-seat concert hall this Saturday, but it will play for only 150 people, while the Dallas Symphony is offering programs by “smaller orchestral ensembles” to be performed for audiences of no more than 75 in its 2,062-seat hall.

New York’s Metropolitan Opera is going to have trouble surviving without patrons.

In an Associated Press story, Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, estimated that he would be able to sell only 400 tickets to a distanced performance in the 3,800-seat Metropolitan Opera House, adding that “social distancing and rehearsing and performing at the Met are contradictory. There’s no way that I can imagine [it] with a company the size of the Met, with hundreds of artists involved in each performance.” In the case of ballet, where physical contact is built into the art form, few seriously believe that performing can be made fully safe for dancers without a vaccine. Even the one big-ticket Hollywood movie of the summer, Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” grossed just $20 million on its opening weekend of theatrical release, less than half of what it would likely have pulled in under normal circumstances.

Teachout concludes that social distancing is killing the arts. Shutting down the theatres and the museums will severely damage New York City, but empty office buildings, unrented apartments, higher taxes and an exodus of rich people will add severely to the damage. And will remove the paying audience for the New York public performance world.

Of course, the people who support the opera are either tourists or the wealthy. Good seats in the Met go for hundreds of dollars a pop. Taxing the rich is not going to help the opera or the theatre.

Teachout concludes:

I believe passionately in the importance of keeping the public safe from the coronavirus, and I’m in no doubt that the human need for art is a primal urge that cannot be killed off by fear. But the more I think about it, the surer I am that until we can eliminate the need for social distancing—either through a vaccine or, as is being proposed in Britain for its theaters, on-the-spot testing—the arts in America will never fully recover.

I am more optimistic that they will recover. After all, a vaccine will arrive, hopefully sooner rather than later. And, even before it arrives, if Biden wins the election, America's politicians and scientists will declare that the pandemic is over.