... Elaboration: the “Shutting Down” of Literary Culture.
I'm pretty much in agreement with Daniel. I think my original comment -- as well as my initial reaction to Epstein's essay -- came about from a rare attack of nostalgia. The essay reminded me of the time when people like Bennett Cerf and Clifton Fadiman were radio and TV personalities, when you could, on a Sunday afternoon, see Leonard Bernstein on TV explaining Poulenc's Gloria, or Peter Ustinov portraying Samuel Johnson on a series of Omnibus programs. Studio One presented Paddy Chayefsky's Marty; Playhouse 90 presented Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight; Play of the Week had E.G. Marshall starring in Ibsen's The Master Builder. A lot of this was in the '50s, which we have been led to believe was some sort of intellectual dark age.
I am no fan of the hieratic view of art. I think our society today is poorer for the absence of such things not because there is anything high-falutin' about them, but because everything that I have cited -- and I could cite many more -- was first-rate entertainment, the sort of high entertainment that actually broadens one's experience and in so doing deepens the self.
May I add Amahl and the Night Visitors by Menotti, first appearance in the world LIVE on American TV? (1951 or '52)
ReplyDeleteYou certainly may. That was in 1951 and it was commissioned by and presented on NBC Opera Theatre, which also premiered Martinu's The Marriage as well as others by Lukas Foss, Stanley Holingsworth,and Norman Dello Joio. If memory serves, they also did a great production of Poulenc's The Dialogues of the Carmelites. Of course, that's when TV, according to one Newton Minnow, was just "a vast wasteland."
ReplyDeleteClifton Fadiman was the most genial host of radio's "Information, Please!" You can find almost all the episodes on Archive dot org.
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