To begin with, year-end wrap-ups are artificial. Not only because nobody has enough distance on the year to get true perspective, but also because the year itself ends at the wrong time.
It really should end right after the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards and begin where things should begin: in the spring with the spring leaves, spring training and spring fashions. Given the drawbacks, however, here's a look at what went on and - in the case of Madonna - what came off in 1992. The wrap-ups tend to be long on facts and figures, since finding out what was really important in '92 will take us about a decade.- Jerry Johnston
MUSIC AND DANCE
In the world of music and dance, 1992 was a year of anniversaries. "The Nutcracker" turned 100, the New York Philharmonic 150 and "Messiah" 250, with probably even more performances.
There were celebrations locally, too. The University of Utah marked 100 years of dance with a gala concert by modern-dance companies that had their beginnings there. Ballet West founder Willam F. Christensen was roundly feted on the occasion of his 90th birthday, and a beginning was likewise made on Maurice Abravanel's.
Ballet West's legal difficulties of 1991 were resolved when a suit was judged in their favor and a state financial audit disclosed no significant irregularities. Artistically the company made a hit with "Romeo and Juliet" at Virginia's Wolf Trap Farm, outdrawing Russia's Kirov Ballet.
The Utah Symphony also averted a few financial problems via a major contribution from O.C. Tanner Co. and agreement on a new five-year musicians contract.
Otherwise its year was highlighted by the premiere of the Joan Tower Violin Concerto, with Elmar Oliveira as soloist; Robert Henderson's return as associate conductor; the launching of a new Cinema Series, featuring live accompaniment to classic silent films; standout solo appearances by Pinchas Zukerman, Louis Lortie, Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson and this year's Naumburg winner, Awadagin Pratt; and a stimulating lineup of guest conductors, including Roger Nierenberg, Raymond Leppard, Gerard Schwarz and James DePreist.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir toured the Midwest and Canada in honor of the Columbus quincentenary, continuing its penetration of previously unexplored territory with concerts in Israel this week and next (including two performances of the Berlioz Requiem with the Jerusalem Symphony). Similarly, Repertory Dance Theatre made its first tour abroad, to the Vienna Tanz Festival.
In August the American Dance Festival of Durham, N.C. conducted ADF West at the U. of U., bringing top-flight instruction and seminars in modern dance plus a loaded concert roster highlighted by the stellar Paul Taylor Dance Company and Pilobolus.
New Orleans likewise came west, via Utah Opera's Creole-style staging of Verdi's "A Masked Ball." For the second year U.O. presented "Hansel and Gretel" with shadow sign-actors, to enhance appreciation by the hearing impaired. The company also ran through its first two sets of young artists, in a training program underwritten by an NEA grant.
Other visitors included baritone William Warfield, the all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer and, in what must be counted an unusually good year for string quartets, the Alban Berg, Vermeer, Muir, New World and Borodin Quartets.
Bouncing back from 1991's tent collapse, Snowbird unveiled a superb-sounding new outdoor concert facility (which, paradoxically, few people seemed eager to hear - attendance was off all summer). Other out-of-town openings included the first Bear Lake Music Festival to the north and, to the south, the first New Music Across America: Utah.
Deaths this year included composers John Cage, William Schuman and Olivier Messiaen; conductors Andrew Schenk and Charles Groves; violinist Nathan Milstein; singers Dorothy Kirsten, Geraint Evans and Eberhard Waechter; and choreographer Kenneth MacMillan.
- William S. Goodfellow and Dorothy Stowe
THEATER
With nearly 300 live stage productions to choose from statewide during 1992, these are what I personally consider among the year's best:
Best drama: "K-Mille," written by local playwright Aden Ross for Salt Lake Acting Company, a moving portrait of Camille Claudell. Runners-up: Steven Dietz' stunning "God's Country" and Terrence McNally's provocative "The Lisbon Traviata," both at SLAC, and Babcock Theatre's student production of Peter Weiss' intense classic, "Marat/Sade."
Best musical: Pioneer Theatre Company's elegant "My Fair Lady," still loverly after all these years. Runners-up: Salt Lake Community College's dynamic "West Side Story" and Hale Center Theater's "Brigadoon."
Best comedy: "Blithe Spirit" at the Utah Shakespearean Festival (see "Best Festival" below). Runners-up: "Nunsense" (four productions all over the Wasatch Front) and PTC's two delightful romps, "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Lettice and Lovage."
Best one-man performance: Patrick Page in the late Doug Christensen's "Nothing Like the Sun" at the Broadway Stage.
Best revival: "The Rainmaker" at Hale Center Theater. Runners-up: PTC's "Private Lives" and "Talley's Folly" at the Broadway Stage.
Best festival: The Utah Shakespearean Festival is in a class by itself. If you haven't discovered for yourself why it's among the very best Shakespearean festivals in North America, get down to Cedar City next summer and find out. And take the kids, they'll love it.
Touring Broadway shows: "Les Miserables" drew the biggest audiences (a four-week run at the Capitol Theatre that drew national attention, with a full-page ad in Variety by producer Cameron Mackintosh), but Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows were wonderful in "Love Letters"; the sensational film-noir sendup, "City of Angels," was full of brilliant wit, and the "Forbidden Broadway" revue brought authentic off-Broadway excitement to SLC's Broadway Stage.
Best benefit: The "Les Miz" cast's cabaret-style benefit for Utah AIDS Foundation. Most folks take a breather on their day off, but not these enthusiastic performers.
Notable stage personalities who passed away during 1992 include Dame Judith Anderson, 93; director A.J. Antoon, 47; Jose Ferrer, 80; Sandy Dennis, 54; Nancy Walker, 69; Marlene Dietrich, 90; Robert Morley, 84; Georgia Brown, 57; Alfred Drake, 78; John Anderson, 69; Shirley Booth, 94; Roger Miller, 56; Vincent Gardenia, 71, and method acting coach Stella Adler, 91.
On the local front: "Saturday's Voyeur" moved into the Green Street private club at Trolley Square. Then Salt Lake Acting Company, its former home, countered by mounting its own new musical spoof, "Salt Lake Salt Lake," which managed to poke good-natured fun at Utah foibles without being snide and vicious.
More theaters shifted to 7:30 p.m. curtain times (PTC and SLAC on weekdays, and several others on weekends as well).
New venues came along and others slipped by the wayside.
Sundance premiered not one but two brand new state-of-the-art stages.
The funky Grand Hall Gallery changed hands briefly. Donna Todd moved her London Frontier Theatre into the cubby-hole sized space, then headed to New Mexico.
City Rep got booted out of the cavernous Utah Theatres, where it had two auditoriums, and was still trying to renovate a former furniture store in the 600 block of South State at year-end. (Everything should be in running order come mid-January when "Flash Gordon Conquers the Planet of Evil" is scheduled to open.) Meanwhile, the former Utah Theatres building is awaiting extensive restoration.
If I could be granted just three wishes for the new year they'd be:
- That local audiences would make a real effort to sample some of the cutting-edge fare offered by Salt Lake Acting Company, the Broadway Stage, TheatreWorks West and the other risk-taking companies in town (yes, there really is more than musicals and comedies out there).
- That the Performing Arts Coalition would find a multistage space for dance, theater and music (the vastly under-utilized Promised Valley Playhouse - mostly wasted on routine "roadshows" and hand-me-down BYU productions - would be perfect).
- That the Theater League of Utah is able to put together a 1993-94 season that won't fall apart in midstream like the current season did (when Michael Crawford yanked the rug out from under them, cancelling his "Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" tour). Some likely possibilities (and these are purely personal hunches . . . or maybe just wishful thinking): "The Will Rogers Follies," "Crazy for You," "The Secret Garden" and/or "Forever Plaid."
- Ivan Lincoln
FILM
This was The Year of the Woman, right? So, why then did the dearth of women's lead roles in movies drop to such unprecedented depths in 1992?
Certainly there were some notable exceptions:
- "A League of Their Own," with a predominantly female cast, led by Geena Davis, and a woman director, Penny Marshall.
- "Sister Act," starring Whoopi Goldberg, an unexpected hit that became the third-biggest moneymaker of the year (after "Batman Returns" and "Lethal Weapon 3").
- Nora Ephron's "This Is My Life," with Julie Kavner, which unfortunately bombed at the box office.
- Sigourney Weaver in "Alien3" and Melanie Griffith in "A Stranger Among Us," which fortunately bombed at the box office.
- And on a more notorious level, there were Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in "Batman Returns" and Sharon Stone's ice-pick queen in "Basic Instinct."
- Plus, thankfully, the four wonderful women who made "Enchanted April" such an enchanting film - Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Polly Walker and Josie Lawrence.
But where were the Oscar-caliber women's roles? Even Meryl Streep played second fiddle to special effects this year ("Death Becomes Her").
They were, unquestionably, in the foreign films - Gong Li in "Raise the Red Lantern"; Pernilla August, "The Best Intentions," Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter, "Howard's End"; Bonham Carter, Judy Davis and Helen Mirren, "Where Angels Fear to Tread"; and Emmanuelle Beart, "La Belle Noiseuse."
As for the rest of the year in movies, all one needs to say is, Woody & Mia, Spike & Malcolm, Wayne & Garth, Madonna, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Robert Altman, Jack Nicholson and Jack Palance.
- Chris Hicks
LITERARY ARTS
Contrary to what you've read, publishers often want you to judge a book by its cover. They want you to judge it a dozen other ways, too - and not many of those having to with quality and content.
This past year, for instance, publishers packaged a series of nude photos of Madonna in a glossy volume, called it "Sex," shrunk-wrapped the book in plastic to make it look forbidden, then made millions of dollars on the "concept" alone. According to people in the business, the book was simply a series of tacky Penthouse soft-focus, soft-porn snapshots.
Readers this past year were asked to judge books by their authors (Kirk Douglas, Ivana Trump, Magic Johnson, etc.), by their titles ("Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin") and their size (several oversized books of dubious value - the larger the book, the more mediocre the photos).
Still, literary value and insight did come up once in awhile. In the "Year of the Woman," women's issues were big sellers ("Backlash" by Susan Faludi and "The Revolution Within" by Gloria Steinem). Sue Grafton, however, may have done most for our notion of women with her savvy and well-written mystery, "`I' Is for Innocent."
Last year was also the "Year of the Politician," and Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot all weighed in with books.
Ironically, two non-politicians wrote the most popular political volumes, Peggy Noonan with "What I Did at the Revolution" and Rush Limbaugh with "Things As They Ought to Be."
For many of us in the West, however, the most encouraging sign was the new credibility and quality of writing from our own region. Several books from the "Interior West" made national waves, including "Hole in the Sky" by William Kittredge, "Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs" by Wallace Stegner, "All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy (a National Book Award winner) and, of course, Norman Maclean's vault into the forefront of American letters with the paperback release of "A River Runs Through It" and his memoir, "Young Men and Fire." Locally, "Refuge" by Utahn Terry Tempest Williams made national headlines and may have been the best read west of Illinois in 1992.
- Jerry Johnston
VISUAL ARTS
The year 1992 proved to be another lean year for galleries and artists, thanks to another year of sluggish economy. The year saw local galleries banding together, actively participating in the Salt Lake Gallery Association. Not only did they take part in the monthly gallery stroll, but in the spirit of cooperation, they also began making referrals to other galleries.
That cooperation was especially evident when 20 local galleries participated in the "Art Feast," a collaborative exhibition held at Finch Lane Gallery on Nov. 20.
Throughout the year, new galleries opened their doors and a few closed theirs. Some of the new ones included the LeftBank at Pierpont Art Co-op and the Repartee Gallery in Park City. Artists in Ephraim transformed the granary and mill into the Central Utah Art Center and Gallery.
The local art community was dismayed at the demise of the Pierpont and the Courtyard Galleries.
The year was sprinkled with quality exhibitions.
The University of Utah started the New Year with a bang by offering six new shows, including "The Big Print," a traveling exhibition featuring 19 international artists.
In February, Tivoli Gallery celebrated Black History Month with "Family Secrets," an exhibition spotlighting artwork by black artists.
Outstanding traveling exhibits featured at UMFA during the year were "Words and Images," "Intimate Views," "On the Road" and "Sweet Medicine." The most colorful show of the year at UMFA was "Utah '92, Painting and Sculpture," the Utah Arts Council's biannual statewide exhibition.
The Salt Lake Art Center presented some highly meaningful, memorable exhibits during the year with "Dreams and Shields: Spiritual Dimensions in Contemporary Art," "A View of Nine," and "Bound by Tradition."
Western and wildlife art was revitalized at Utah State Fairpark in July with the "Days of '47 Western Heritage Art Show;" at the Saguaro Gallery in Park City; and at Kimball Art Center in the "Rocky Mountain Carver's Cup" competition and exhibiton.
KAC also spotlighted women in the National Association of Women Artists show.
In fact, women artists were featured in four regional competitions and exhibitions, "Out of the Land: Utah Women," culminating in a state exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art.
Other top shows at Springville were the 68th annual Utah Spring Salon and the annual Quilt Show.
The Museum of Church History and Art came through with another great exhibition - "Come Let Us Rejoice: A Sesquicentennial Celebration of Relief Society, 1842-1992."
However, the highlight of the year was the Rodin exhibit at Utah State University, in which 48 of his works were displayed.
Superb one-person shows spotlighted Grant Speed, Greg Olsen, Denis Phillips, Larry Elsner and others.
Some of the emerging artists who made quite an impact on the local art scene include Dori Busath, Cordell Taylor, Helene Fischer Elbein, Steve Dayton and Fred Crawford.
- Richard P. Christenson