Happy Days Are Here Again

Opera, with its blockbuster budgets, is under particular pressure to play it safe—especially in the United States, where the arts generally get by without the cushion of government subsidies. Public funding gets cut in hard times too, but is far less volatile than private and corporate contributions, the lifeblood for the arts in the United States. The Metropolitan Opera House has scuttled four new productions—including operas by Shostakovich and John Corigliano—while keeping hardy perennials like "Tosca" and "Carmen" in the rotation. "It's clear that the Met is moving away from risky projects, but I honestly can't say whether that's the right decision," says Alan Gilbert, who is about to take over as music director of the New York Philharmonic for the 2009–10 season. That season was programmed long ago, but Gilbert says he's not flinching from programming contemporary vocal music with large casts for the following one.

Not surprisingly, European orchestras and opera houses are breathing a little easier, even though their economies have been battered just as badly as America's. The mighty Berlin Philharmonic depends on ticket sales for just 60 percent of its budget, with government subsidies taking care of most of the rest. "It gives us the breathing space to take risks," says Pamela Rosenberg, the orchestra's director. By contrast, subscriptions account for about 90 percent of the philharmonic's 2,400 seats, and there's a long waiting list.

The book industry is turning to comedians to help laugh its way out of the recession. The U.K. nonfiction bestseller list is studded with autobiographies of popular comedians like Dawn French and Paul O'Grady. U.S. publishers are offering advances to big-name comedians who have never before put pen to paper (and may not, even after their contracts are signed). An apocryphal story going around literary circles has potty-mouthed comic Sarah Silverman—who was offered a $2.5 million advance from Harper Collins despite never having written a book before—turning to her new editor and asking, "So when do you plan to begin?" The self-described D-list comedian Kathy Griffin recently received a $2 million advance for a memoir from Random House's Bantam imprint, bringing howls of blog protest from actual authors. "I hate saying the word 'platform,' but don't even try to sell a book these days if you haven't got one," says literary agent Alice Martell, who heads her own agency in New York. "I tell prospective authors all the time, 'You've got a great idea but you're not the one to write it'."

One literary genre known to flourish when skies turn gray is crime fiction. "We could be looking at a return of what happened during the 1930s," says Nigel Wilcockson, the London-based publishing director of the Random House Group. During the Great Depression, "crime literature was massive—writers like Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler, Margery Allingham and Dashiell Hammett. In the [recession of the] 1980s, public library records show Agatha Christie, Jeffrey Archer, Ruth Rendell and Len Deighton were among the most-borrowed authors." Out soon from Random House: "About Face," by Donna Leon, featuring a Venetian policeman named Commissario Brunetti.

Oddly enough, the one entertainment medium likely to get grittier as things get worse may be pop music. Or perhaps it's not so odd, given the demographic such songs appeal to. "In flush times, young people like music they can drink and dance and have sex to," says Mike Tierney, a 20-year music-industry veteran who's been a programming executive at Epic Records and New York City's K-Rock radio station. "In tough times, they gravitate toward music that speaks to their experience. Grunge came from a bunch of disaffected white guys in the recession of the early '90s. The music's popularity was all about, Life sucks but I'm not alone, and Kurt Cobain understands me." If Tierney were still at KRock, he says, he'd be programming a lot more of the cheeky, "zeitgeisty" young Brit Lily Allen ("I'm being taken over by the fea-ea-ea-ear.") But he isn't, having been downsized out of his job last year.

To figure out where culture goes from here, it may be instructive to look back to the Great Depression. In retrospect, that period is viewed as one long feel-good movie festival. It was and it wasn't. At the beginning, many theaters had a hard time staying open. Fox and Paramount foundered, until each was saved by a megastar—Fox by Shirley Temple and Paramount by Mae West, who was the Depression era's biggest draw. We remember them so vividly because their performances delivered what everyone expected of them, over and over. The bold and moving films about the Depression were mostly made once the Depression was over. John Ford won the best-directing Oscar for his adaptation of Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," but that wasn't until 1940. "Reality isn't fun," says Bruce Goldstein, director of repertory programming at New York's Film Forum theater, which recently ran a festival of Great Depression movies.

Depression-era hardship made another artistic contribution that was both less noticeable and more lasting. It forced people to create what they could no longer buy. "People made their own art," says Robert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts, an advocacy group that represents 5,000 local arts organizations. "The crafts movement, the jazz movement—they all evolved as a reaction to poverty." Lynch sees history repeating itself here, too. "The same shift is already taking place," he says. "Chorus participation is way up and community theater is going up against the blockbusters."

Barbican director Kenyon has noticed the same trend, and he's making room for it on his stages. "People want ownership," he says. Last year, the Barbican programmed an evening of amateur choirs from around London called "City Sings." It was such a big hit that Kenyon is preparing another this year, featuring choirs from some of the firms in London's shell-shocked financial district, the City. At least this year, he says, they'll have plenty of time to rehearse.

© 2009