Commentary: As US orchestras cancel, Europe's reopen. Mirga and Zubin lead the way

Summer, when it comes to the performing arts in America, was already over by mid-spring. All major festivals and nearly all events had been canceled. Last week brought depressing daily reports of fall closures.

In New York, there will be no business for the rest of the year at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center. Esa-Pekka Salonen will not get to begin his first season as music director of the San Francisco Symphony until next year, and there won't be opera across the street before April at the earliest. The stories are similar in Chicago and at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Center Theater Group has canceled productions until April, and other companies across most of the country may well follow if they haven't already made the move.

So just what kind of alternate universe was it that allowed me