Adam Smith Is Selling Out Concert Halls. Yes, That Adam Smith.
Plus: When Brutalism becomes popular, and new deals for old wine
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Is there something artistically inevitable about Adam Smith? Last year, actor Brian Cox somehow persuaded playwright James Graham to include the ghost of Adam Smith in Make It Happen, a play about the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Now composer David Lang has tackled Smith’s 1,000-page magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, turning it into a 18-part, two-hour oratorio that premiered at the New York Philharmonic this week.