Museums and theatres closed for Christmas? What next?!

Galleries, concert halls, exhibitions have been mostly off-limits since March, with some rare exceptions.

And what will they do now, in this holiday period that usually sees them as protagonists?

Over the past few months they have shown admirable resilience. Conferences, guided tours, presentations, vernissage, exhibitions, much has been online, available for free from home, comfortably sitting on an armchair.

However, very little has been done for Christmas.

Some exhibitions can be visited online, such as the Tiepolo exhibition at Gallerie di Italia in Milan, which attempts a new format, specific for this type of use. Most of the largest museums have an online tour available

And then there are the scheduled conferences, for example those of the Uffizi, which continue in remote mode, but no one seems to have dedicated real events to this period.

Perhaps not everyone has the skills or the budget to continue to produce attractive online material. Apparently after an initial boomh, the visualisations have gone down significantly over time.

Maybe they expected to be able to get back to normal for the festive season. Perhaps it is an economically unsustainable model in the long run.

But will be so the remote visits like “Christmas at Home with Monet” that Linea D’Ombra is organizing for a fee?

Or the Gala’s organised but the San Carlo theatre in Naples? Or the

Handel and Haydn Society: Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, at the Met in New York.

The art world is rethinking itself, and it is not only a necessary, but also an interesting exercise.

But undoubtedly we lack the physicality of visiting the Museum or Exhibitions.

It will be a less beautiful Christmas.

(Emanuela Massa)