By ERIC FELTEN

The end of March saw two new albums by well-established (which is nicer than saying long-in-the-tooth) pop artists—Madonna’s “MDNA,” and Lionel Richie’s “Tuskegee.” Madonna’s disc of new rave electronica debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. Mr. Richie’s disc—a collection of his old hits, but now country-fried with Nashville stars—came in at No. 2. Then something remarkable happened. Madonna achieved a notoriety even more embarrassing than her commodified sexuality—her disc took one of the biggest tumbles ever for an album opening at the top. Second-week sales collapsed by more than 86%. And in the weeks since, the decline has only deepened, with “MDNA” now languishing at No. 34 on the chart. Mr. Richie’s record, by contrast, climbed to No. 1, where it has held pride of place for the last two weeks.

What explains Madonna’s epic fail and Mr. Richie’s surprise success?

It can’t be entirely a matter of promotion. After all, in the lead-up to her disc’s release, Madonna had no less a showcase than the Super Bowl halftime. In a pageant that could have been choreographed by Caligula in collaboration with the Beijing Olympic committee, she featured the lead single from the new album (a song that enjoyed added attention thanks to the obscene gesture delivered by a guest rapper). Think of the show as an informercial for “MDNA”: Given what advertising time costs during the Super Bowl, it’s been estimated that Madonna’s halftime spot was a promotional opportunity worth more than $80 million.

Mr. Richie’s televised promotion was rather modest by comparison—he appeared for an hour on the Home Shopping Network.

Nor does the quality of the music explain it all. Those who go in for Madge’s sort of stuff haven’t been howling that her newest installment of computer-generated thumping isn’t up to snuff. As for Mr. Richie’s collection, though nothing extraordinary, it’s a pleasant reworking of his standard repertoire. (And before you scoff at an aging soul crooner trying twang on for size, keep in mind that the melodic pop Mr. Richie specializes in translates well to the melody-friendly language of country music.)

So what explains the dramatic divergence in the discs’s fortunes? The answer, I think, can be found in the basic question of old vs. new. Mr. Richie found a way to freshen up his “greatest hits.” Madonna is trying to sell new music. Fans of long-established artists may tolerate new works, may even buy them, but rarely do so with the enthusiasm they reserve for the back catalog. Typical is the friend who bragged to me last month she had scored good seats for a coming Bruce Springsteen concert—who then rolled her eyes and said with resignation, “Though, I hear he’s doing lots of material off his new CD….”

Why is it so hard for veteran stars to sell their abundant fans on new music?

Exceptions are rare—Cher scored No. 1 singles more than 33 years apart (“I Got You Babe” in 1965 and “Believe” in 1999). Louis Armstrong managed to keep adding hits to his catalog throughout his long career. Pops was well into his 60s when, in May 1964, he displaced the Beatles from the top of the Billboard singles chart, a spot they had owned for more than three months. Maybe Madonna should cut a cover of “Hello, Dolly.”

Even a songwriting performer of Duke Ellington’s stature and endurance saw his hit-smithing fizzle. When Ellington’s faltering career was revived at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, it was not because of the new suite he had written for the occasion, but thanks to a rollicking performance of a decades-old standby, “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.”

One would think that legendary artists would have every advantage needed to put across new hits—they are brands, after all, with large and loyal consumer bases. So why do they struggle so with new product lines? Is it that performers lose their knack for good new tunes? Or is the fault with us, the listeners, that as we get older we lose our ability to connect with new music? Maybe learning to like a song is like learning a new language—it gets harder as we age.

I suspect both play a part—the muse gets weary and the audience gets diffident. But there could also be a Catch-22 at work: If the established musician does something really fresh, her audience is unhappy she’s strayed from what they know and like. But if she keeps doing new songs in the same vein as the old, why should the listener bother with the new release, the old favorites being the perfect expression of the old style?

Mr. Richie managed to escape the conundrum by doing the old favorites in a new way. We’ll see if Madonna is ultimately driven to adopt the same strategy—though I shudder to think how “Like a Virgin” will sound with fiddle and steel guitar.

A version of this article appeared May 4, 2012, on page D10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: When Old Stars Try to Be New Again.

Timon of Athens

Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Courtyard Theater, Navy Pier, Chicago

($44-$75), 312-595-5600

closes June 10

Chicago

Most modern-day Shakespeare stagings start with an animating premise that is dreamed up by the director, then applied more or less rigorously to every aspect of the resulting production. “Henry VI” performed in a bloody butcher’s shop, “As You Like It” turned into a bottom-of-the-bill B-movie western, “Macbeth” transplanted from ancient Scotland to the Soviet Union in the days of the Great Terror…you name it, somebody’s tried it somewhere or other. What’s more, all of the aforementioned high-concept stagings were exceptionally effective. The trick is to come up with a concept that sheds new light on the play in question (usually by underlining its relevance to contemporary life) and is sufficiently flexible to cover every twist of the plot. Then you work through its implications in a way that makes self-evident visual and dramatic sense to the audience—excessive cleverness is almost always a recipe for confusion—and you’re off and running.

None of this, of course, guarantees a good show. That requires verve and imagination, both of which Chicago Shakespeare’s Barbara Gaines possesses in hyperabundance. In her version of the rarely performed “Timon of Athens,” the title character (played with coolly arrogant panache by Ian McDiarmid) becomes a high-rolling futures trader who gets caught in a credit crunch and finds one day that his closest “friends” have stopped returning his calls. What brings Ms. Gaines’s idea to life is the boldness of her theatrical gestures, coupled with the clarity of her thinking. For her, Timon is a vain, self-centered fool who makes the mistake of thinking that the smooth sycophants who surround him like blood-sniffing sharks care for him, not his money. Give them iPads and put them in bespoke suits and you get a “Timon of Athens” that plays like a cross between “The Bonfire of the Vanities” and “Citizen Kane.”

The comparison to “Kane” is of the utmost relevance, not only because the fast-moving crosscutting of Ms. Gaines’s staging is conspicuously cinematic but because she and Mr. McDiarmid have trimmed Shakespeare’s text as ruthlessly—and creatively—as did Orson Welles, the maker of “Kane,” when he edited “Julius Caesar” for his 1937 Broadway production. This “Timon” has been similarly compressed and reshaped in such a way as to give it the shadowless simplicity of a fable. Subtle it’s not, but when Flavius (Sean Fortunato, who is admirably direct and sincere) informs his deluded master that “when the means are gone that buy this praise, / The breath is gone whereof this praise is made,” you’ll feel it like a sucker punch.

Kevin Depinet, who also designed the sets for the Goodman Theatre’s revival of “The Iceman Cometh,” has outdone himself, setting the first half of the show in Timon’s ultramodern corporate offices and keeping an eye-popping visual ace up his sleeve for the top of the second half, in which the ex-tycoon becomes a crazed, Lear-like beachcomber. Don’t ask—you’ll want to be surprised—but make sure that you get back to your seat on time.

***

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Classic Stage Company,

136 E. 13th St., New York

($75-$80), 212-677-4210

closes May 20

New York

When high-concept Shakespeare stagings go astray, you get something not unlike the scattershot first part of Tony Speciale’s up-to-the-second modern-dress version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which feels more like a bag of tricks than a carefully thought-out production. It also feels like a vehicle for two biggish stars, Christina Ricci (as Hermia) and Bebe Neuwirth (doubling as Titania and Hippolyta), neither of whom appears to be at ease with the unsparing demands of classical acting. On the other hand, just about everybody in the cast is trying way, way too hard, going for easy laughs the way a purse-snatcher goes for little old ladies with great big handbags.

Be patient: Things start looking up as soon as the sleeping lovers are discovered in the enchanted wood and Puck (Taylor Mac) pulls the donkey’s head off Bottom (Steven Skybell) and turns him back into a human being. Mr. Skybell describes Bottom’s dream with sweetly wide-eyed bemusement, after which he and his fellow “rude mechanicals” enact “The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe,” Shakespeare’s brutal parody of a rustic staging of a classical tragedy, with a gentle gravity that is surprising in just the right way. For once, you see the rude mechanicals as human beings, not half-wits, hopelessly deluded but endearingly sincere.

Would that this “Midsummer” found its center sooner, since there is much to like about it, not least Mark Wendland’s hall-of-mirrors set and the fresh-sounding incidental music of Christian Frederickson and Ryan Rumery. What’s more, the second part is so sure in tone that it just about redeems the excesses of all that precedes it. By evening’s end you won’t be even slightly sorry that you came.

—Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama critic, blogs about theater and the other arts at www.terryteachout.com. Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.

By DAN FITZPATRICK

Banking analyst Mike Mayo has turned nonconformity into a commodity.

First named to Best on the Street in July 2000 because he decided to put sell recommendations on some of the biggest names in the industry, Mr. Mayo lost his job at Credit Suisse First Boston two months later. Mr. Mayo says he doesn’t know if he was fired because of those sell ratings, and a spokeswoman for Credit Suisse declines to comment.

His calls, though, turned out to be correct. And Instead of fading from the mainstream, Mr. Mayo found a niche over the next decade as a prominent industry outlier willing to be critical of pay, accounting practices and inflated expectations for the U.S. banking industry.

Last year, Mr. Mayo published a tell-all recounting his many battles with banks, clients and bosses. The 49-year-old, who now works for CLSA, a unit of France’s Crédit Agricole SA,

says he has fielded calls about turning the book, “Exile on Wall Street,” into a movie. “It’s all worked out for me,” he says. “I’ve talked to several analysts who were not so lucky.… I have somehow managed to survive when others who acted like me weren’t as fortunate.”

Mr. Mayo’s maverick stances now garner plenty of attention. In 2010, he was granted a meeting with Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Vikram Pandit after accusing bank management of freezing him out. CNBC covered the private discussion with a live report, and Citigroup issued a news release on their points of disagreement.

Mr. Mayo, recognized in the Best on the Street survey again this year, says he still worries most about getting something wrong, and exercises “obsessively” to mitigate that stress. But he no longer fears the repercussions of a controversial call. “I can speak up, and I have a track record,” he says. The banks “still have the clout to send me spinning,” but “I am looking over my shoulder less.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick is a Wall Street Journal staff reporter in New York. He can be reached at dan.fitzpatrick@wsj.com.

A version of this article appeared May 10, 2012, on page C8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Where Are They Now?.

Aachen

architecture

“West Arch—A New Generation in Architecture” presents models, pictures and designs by young Belgian, German and Dutch architecture offices.

Ludwig Forum

für Internationale Kunst

Until Nov. 14

49-241-1807-104

www.ludwigforum.de

Berlin

art

“Yoko Ono: Das Gift” offers new site-specific contemporary artwork, consisting of sculptural, sound, film and instruction-based participatory elements.

Haunch of Venison

Until Nov. 13

49-3039-7439-63

www.haunchofvenison.com

art

“Glass, Handle With Care! Fragile Art 700-2010″ shows over 60 items from the museum’s Isalamic art collection, tracing the history of glassmaking and glass art through the last 2,000 years.

Pergamonmuseum, Antikensammlung

Until Jan. 9

49-30-2090-5577

www.smb.museum/smb

Bonn

art

“Vibración: Modern Art From Latin America” presents a European premiere of works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, showing key works of 20th-century Latin American abstract art.

Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Until Jan. 30

49-2289-1712-00

www.bundeskunsthalle.de

Dublin

music

MGMT perform their Grammy-Award-winning psychedelic pop in a European tour in support of their latest album “Congratulations.”

Sept. 17-18, Olympia

Sept. 20-21 Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow

Sept. 23 O2 Academy, Birmingham

Sept. 24 O2 Academy, Bournemouth

Sept. 26 Apollo, Manchester

Sept. 27 O2 Academy, Leeds

Sept. 29-Oct. 1 Brixton Academy, London

Oct. 1 Jamm, London

Oct. 3 AB, Brussels

Oct. 4-5 Paradiso, Amsterdam

More European dates at

www.whoismgmt.com/us/home

Düsseldorf

art

“Joseph Beuys: Parallelprozesse” showcases 300 works by the German artist, including key installations such as “Show your Wound,” “The Pack” and “Fond IV/4.”

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

Until Jan. 16

49-211-8381-117

www.kunstsammlung.de

Liverpool

art

“The 6th Liverpool Biennial” is the U.K.’s largest contemporary art show, presenting among others, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 40 international new projects and the John Moores Painting Prize 2010.

At various venues

Sept. 18-Nov. 28

44-151-7097-444

www.biennial.com

London

art

“Salvator Rosa (1615-73): Bandits, Wilderness and Magic” shows paintings by the Italian Baroque artist, poet and printmaker, know for his rebellious attitude and mystical motifs.

Dulwich Picture Gallery

Until Nov. 28

44-20-8693-5254

www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

art

“Poussin to Seurat: French Drawings From the National Gallery of Scotland” shows Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by French artists such as Boucher, Ingres, Corot, Pissarro and Dulac.

The Wallace Collection

Sept. 23-Jan. 3

44-20-7563-9500

www.wallacecollection.org

Manchester

art

“Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer” offers seven interactive installations by the Mexican-Canadian electronic artist, including “Pulse Room,” shown at the Mexican pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2007.

Manchester Art Gallery

Sept. 18-Jan. 30

44-161-2358-888

www.manchestergalleries.org

Naples

art

“Carl Andre. 9 x 54 Napoli Rectangle” shows sculptural works by the American abstract artist.

Alfonso Artiaco

Until Nov. 6

39-81-4976-072

www.alfonsoartiaco.com

Paris

opera

“Eugene Onegin: By Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky” premieres Ludovic Tézier as the title character and Olga Guryakova in the role of Tatiana, backed by the Paris opera orchestra and chorus conducted by Vasily Petrenko.

Opera Bastille

Until Oct. 11

33-89-2899-090

www.operadeparis.fr

art

“Murakami Versailles” places the manga-inspired pop art sculptures of Takashi Murakami among the gardens and gilded halls of Versailles, including some works displayed for the first time.

Château de Versailles

Until Dec. 12

33-1-3083-7800

www.chateauversailles.fr

Rome

art

“Franz West: Roman Room” shows new sculptural works by the Austrian artist alongside a selection of literary, philosophical and historical texts that inspired him.

Gagosian Gallery Rome

Until Oct. 30

39-6420-8649-8

www.gagosian.com

Wuppertal

art

“Bonnard: Magician of Colors” offers 180 works, including paintings and photography by the French artist.

Von der Heydt-Museum

Until Jan. 30

49-2025-6326-26

www.bonnard-ausstellung.de

Source: WSJ research

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W12