Arts feature

Ben West on the decline in quality of regional theatre; he fears it can only get worse We may have been languishing for months in the worst recession for decades, but theatre appears to be booming. West End theatres enjoyed a record £500 million in ticket sales in 2009, with audience figures exceeding 14 million for the first time. Attendance for straight plays was up 26 per cent on 2008, at 3.6 million. The many hits have included Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart’s Waiting for Godot, the National Theatre’s War Horse, and Enron and Jerusalem, which both transferred from the Royal Court to the West End.

Andrew Lambirth on artistic delights and pleasures we can look forward to in 2010 The juggernaut of blockbusters at last shows signs of slowing down. In recent years, museums have deluged us with loan exhibitions of often very mixed quality in order to generate the increasingly large amounts of revenue necessary to fund their extended bureaucracies. Too many shows really, particularly when concocted by curators of boundless self-esteem with scant regard for the public. I long for fewer exhibitions chosen with greater discernment, and it seems that the crisis in international finance is finally helping to achieve this. World tours are being cancelled, ambitions checked, sponsorship withdrawn. Initially, this means that there are marginally fewer exhibitions running for longer.

Henrietta Bredin on boats, trains, planes that transport singers around the stage Opera, so they say, has the power to transport the listener on wings of sound to places beyond the imagination — on a good night, at any rate. But just to keep singers, and directors, on their toes, a number of composers have, over the years, been tickled by the notion of writing specific modes of transport into the opera’s storyline. Puccini was car-mad, so you’d think he might have put one of his favourites into an opera. His first purchase was a De Dion-Bouton 5 CV in 1901, and some years later he commissioned a special off-road number from Lancia, for hunting trips.

Henrietta Bredin on how Music for Life can help overcome the isolation of dementia sufferers I am looking at an elderly woman, tiny in a huge armchair. She has not spoken for months, she has not maintained eye contact with anyone for even longer and she has developed a nervous compulsion to keep one hand always up to her chin, covering her mouth. A woman in a pink overall is sitting next to her, gently stroking her hand, and a young man with a violin is kneeling at her feet. With infinite patience, the violinist starts to play a simple tune, making it even quieter, more exploratory, when she appears to flinch at the sound of the first notes. Very, very slowly, almost indiscernibly, the woman’s tight, clenched muscles relax slightly. The little tune trickles on.

Andrew Lambirth on how the cult of youth can lead to the neglect of distinguished older artists One of the least endearing traits of our age is youth worship. I can understand that advertisers might need to target a large and gullible audience suddenly and unaccountably blessed with disposable income (or should that be credit?), but to attribute wisdom or originality to youth is a rash act indeed. The attention paid to young artists in recent decades has grown increasingly disproportionate, for no good reason apart from the follow-my-leader media circus which keeps their antics before an increasingly bored and bewildered (if not downright cynical) public.

Andrew Lambirth trawls the galleries and finds a visual feast for the festive season Most people who have heard of James Ward (1769–1859) will know his monumental landscape in Tate Britain, ‘Gordale Scar’, but perhaps little else by him. ‘Gordale Scar’ is immensely impressive (I also love Karl Weschke’s versions of the same subject made in 1987–8), but Ward was far from being a one-work artist. A painter of animals as well as of landscapes, his gifts of observation and curiosity made him a valued recorder of country life. A superb show of his drawings at W.S. Fine Art/Andrew Wyld (27 Dover Street, W1, until 11 December) gives a full account of his skills as a draughtsman in subjects ranging from charcoal burners to cloud studies.

Marianne Gray talks to John Malkovich about his latest film, his vanity and his first love, the stage When I met John Malkovich to talk about Disgrace, the film of J.M. Coetzee’s novel, he hadn’t seen the film yet and was positively tremulous, if a word like ‘tremulous’ can be associated with the forceful Malkovich. ‘I am looking forward to hearing how it does because the film-makers say J.M. Coetzee likes the film,’ he tells me. ‘It is very faithful to the book but the screenplay has expanded from the novel. These are always worrying things. ‘But far more worrying is my South African accent.

Henrietta Bredin talks to Spencer de Grey, architect of the new opera house in Texas There can’t be a gesture much more brave and defiant than building a new opera house in the current doom-laden financial climate. Deep in the heart of Texas, in the centre of its freshly revamped arts district, Dallas has done exactly that. The project was awarded to Foster and Partners and has been the brainchild and chief responsibility of Spencer de Grey, whose previous work includes the Great Court at the British Museum and the Sage music centre in Gateshead.

There are not many palazzi in Florence still occupied by their original families. There are not many palazzi in Florence still occupied by their original families. Some, like the Medici, Pitti and Corsi-Horne, have become museums, while others, like the Ciofi-Giacometti — now the five-star Relais Santa Croce — have become hotels. ‘Make do and mend’ is a basic Florentine motto: why build a museum when you can convert an old palazzo, town hall (Palazzo Vecchio), magistrates offices (Uffizi), police station (Bargello) or granary (Orsanmichele)?

Henrietta Bredin talks to Simon McBurney about his latest challenge: doing Beckett for the first time I am standing in Simon McBurney’s kitchen, discussing pigs (he’s not only kept them but also slaughtered them, butchered them and made over 20 different sorts of salami), memory and language (both capacious and exact in his case), watching him brew coffee (freshly ground, delectably strong), grill toast and spread marmalade (home-made, dark and delicious) and realising that his insatiably curious intellect, his grace and economy of movement are as compelling in a domestic setting as they are on stage.