Re my post on Richard Dyer below, I have it on good authority that the Boston Globe is, in fact, looking for a full-time critic to succeed him. For a sense of what a critic can accomplish in one community over time — and I direct this particularly to bloggers who see criticism and/or journalism as obsolescent practices — consider Dyer's commentary on Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in 1985: "The violist Lorraine Hunt was a familiar figure on the Boston scene for several years before she made her professional debut as a singer last year in a concert performance of Mozart's 'Il Re pastore' at Castle Hill. She also won the Opera Company of Boston's auditions. Last summer she sang Sesto in the much-discussed Peter Sellars-Craig Smith production of Handel's 'Giulio Cesare' at the PepsiCo Festival in Purchase, N.Y. This was a great ensemble event, with star performances by such Sellars-Smith regulars as Jeffrey Gall, Susan Larson and James Maddalena. Hunt more than held her own. Already, in the first year of her career, Hunt is a powerful singing actress." There is a very long list of performers whom Dyer has written up in similarly perceptive fashion, usually at the very beginning of their careers. OK, enough critical self-reflexivity.
