Whatever Happened to the Overture?

Posted by JESSE GREEN to NYT > Arts.

Traditional Broadway overtures -- several minutes long, made up of melodies heard later in the show and played by an orchestra before the curtain goes up -- are disappearing.

Producers and directors say they doubt the audience’s ability to perceive useful information encoded in orchestral sound. Decoding that information depends on the habit of listening to music for its own inherent expressiveness, without words, pictures or action: a habit that disappeared from mainstream American culture.

Read more at NYT > Arts.