The New Dan Patrick Show: A Night at the Opera

One of my favorite tv programs was Connections, which aired on PBS back in the late 1970s. The host, James Burke, would open each episode by discussing a topic and then demonstrate how it was connected to something which was connected to something else which was connected to something else, etc. By the end of the show he would have covered a whole lot of information — spanning cultures, technologies, and centuries. Cool!

I mention this as an explanation over how an article about the Metropolitan Opera made me think about the Dan Patrick Show. Maybe you’ll think a connection between the two does not exist. Maybe I see connections where none exist. Whatever.

The article, Man Behind the Curtain, is actually about Peter Gelb, the new (as of August 2006) general manager of the Met. The gist of it is how he is attempting to increase the popularity of the Met to ensure that it survives as a cultural institution. Some of the issues he is dealing with:

• Satisfying the current audience
• Attracting a new audience
• Honoring old standards
• Presenting content (opera) in a different way, via new productions and new artists

I got about three or four pages into the article when I had one of those Eureka! moments and made the connection between Gelb’s management of the Met and the new DP Show, which many if not most of us feel is lacking in the Department of New-ness.

Some of the interesting things that Gelb has done include opening a small gallery in the opera house to display opera-themed pieces of art, set aside discounted tickets for senior citizens, and open house dress rehearsals “complete with box lunches.” (That’s great! So people don’t have to smuggle in food like I did.)

I wouldn’t say that I am an “opera person.” Given the choice between season tickets to the Met versus season tickets to the Mets, I would take the latter. But I like opera, and it was interesting to read about how Gelb is experimenting with new ways to keep the art form vibrant and alive. (This makes me think about Major League Baseball, an extremely conservative institution, and what it needs to do to keep its art form vibrant and alive. Perhaps the subject of another post. More connections ….)

As for DP, will the show ever be “new?” I might need to start titling these posts “The Not-Really-New-but-it’s-still-OK Dan Patrick Show.” I guess I’m feeling somewhat shortchanged as he kept saying that things would be “new” and “different” when he left ESPN. He had six weeks between leaving ESPN and the debut of the start-up. The Web site came online, along with the videos and the blog. It was promising. But now that he is back on the air things have slipped back into the same old routine. Not that it is bad or horrible or awful. But the chatter about “new” and “different” raised my expectations, so I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed.

And since I can’t figure out a better way to end this post I’ll just throw in an obligatory cultural reference: