](/images/smilies/bang.gif "Brick wall ](*,)")
All the culture I grew up with are dying and or many of them are already gone.
The "great artists of the last half of the 20th century" are continuing to be lost.
With each day that passes that I read the New York Times, I realize that more and more is disappearing - and I have been reading the New York Times Since I was 13.
This year a recital of Deborah Voight's - I shall probably never have a chance to see her again.
Next year, The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny - with Audra Mc Donald and Patti Lupone, I shall probably never get another chance to see either of them to perform in person again, and especially together.
And next year, probably the final time that I shall be able to see a full opera version of Porgy and Bess. Porgy and Bess had no equal in the American musical/opera repetoire. It is the giant of them all. When the overture begins, for the next almost 4 hours you are taken away to the most incredible set of characters and musical tones and rythmes one can possible imagine. An all Arican Cast in an opera written in 1935? by two Jewish composers from New York, George and Ira Gershwin. I beleive this will be Porgy number 6 and if they come anywhere near what the Houston Opera Company did well over 15 years ago, this is going to be a Porgy not to be missed. I saw my first one when I was ???, with a well know star from the original production, Cab Calloway.
Also a changing of the guard at the dentist's office this afternoon, a new assoc., a woman, from Vietnam, will take over part of his practice starting next year. A changing of the guard.
But, sadly our great cultural artists of the last half of the 20th century are not being replaced in the same numbers as before - my guess is the remainder of the first half of the 21st century will see all of that vanish - and the guard is just not on the horizon.
Where is the next Stephen Sondheim?
Where is the next Carlo Maria Guilini?
Where is the next Rudoph Serkin?
Where is the next Emil Giles?
Where is the next David Oishtrah?
Where is the next Margot Fontyn?
Where is the next Maya Plisetskaya?
Where are the next Julie Harris and Vanessag Redgrave?
And the Dames, Dench, Smith, and Atlkins?
And .................................................................
and on and on the list will grow.
eM.
