It Just Doesn't Get Better Than This

Probably due to Pavarotti's recent death, PBS has once again recycled the Three Tenors concert for their pledge drives.

Well this may be heretical for a traditionalist such as myself, but there is no more exciting moment for me, than the sound of the three greatest tenors in the world (and they were) going for that high B natural at the end of Nessun dorma.

These three men, two of them at the peak of their forms and one recently recovered from leukemia were singers of great accomplishment. At that moment they used their considerable art for a moment of pure excitement.

After this moment, one's career would begin a cheapening and decline, another's would peter out into insignificance, and one's would continue it's increasing level of achievement which, despite diminishing resources, shows no sign of abating.

But for this moment, they reached a level that none other (not even themselves four years later) would ever climb.

For that one moment, it just didn't get any better.

Subscribe Now!

Most people won't know who he was, but Danny Newman was almost single-handedly responsible for the way non-profit arts organizations organize their seasons and market their tickets. His mantra "Subscribe Now" was immortalized in what is the textbook for anyone who sells tickets in a performing arts organization.

He was officially press agent for Lyric Opera of Chicago for 42 years (a term he apparently preferred and a job at which he was peerless). But his reach went much farther than that. He developed their subscription model and then brought it to other arts organizations throughout the country. Although I'm sure that some might not even be aware, he created the way that theaters, symphonies, and opera companies do business today. Most performing arts companies could not be solvent without a strong subscription base. It is the easiest and most cost effective way to ensure that a company sells enough tickets to survive.

Of course, there are many (myself included) who feel that patterns are changing and that audiences are less willing to commit to full season subscriptions. Trends seem to indicate that younger buyers are buying later and buying single tickets rather than subscriptions.

But without Danny Newman's pioneering work, I guarantee that fewer performing arts organizations (of all types) would exist today.

Danny Newman passed away yesterday at the age of 88.