July 27, 2012  |
| | | Thought of the Day | | An honest man is always a child.
--Socrates
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| Quote of the Week | | Adventure is worthwhile in itself. --Amelia Earhart
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| | Munich Calls Bayreuth Firing 'Dishonest' | | 
FRANKFURT -- The Munich opera hit out Monday at the organizers of the Bayreuth Festival over the way they handled Russian bass-baritone Yevgeny Nikitin's tattoo issue. Nikitin withdrew from the title role of The Flying Dutchman four days before it was to launch the Bayreuth season on July 25 because a swastika tattoo on his chest showed up in a three-plus-year-old video clip aired on German TV. Displaying Nazi symbols is today a criminal offense in Germany. The head of the Bavarian State Opera described the way the matter was handled by Bayreuth's co-chiefs Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier as "dishonest" and a clear attempt to draw attention away from the festival's own murky past. "The affair is more a problem for Bayreuth and the Wagner family than for the singer," opera chief Nikolaus Bachler said in a statement to AFP. Wagner was a notorious anti-Semite; he was also Hitler's preferred composer. "They are clearly pointing the finger at someone else because they have a problem with their own past," the statement said. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Émilie Not Up to Her Potential |  NEW YORK -- In order to qualify as the subject of an opera, an historical character first of all needs a colorful and eventful life to inspire the librettist and composer. By that standard, the 18th-century polymath Émilie du Châtelet passes with flying colors. Her career included a marriage of convenience to a nobleman 12 years her senior, an affair with Voltaire, scientific breakthroughs in physics, and even the development of the theory of financial derivatives, the cornerstone of 21st-century banking. That last innovation, by the way, was prompted by her losing the equivalent of a million dollars in a single night of gambling. Indeed, Émilie's life is more than enough for an opera.
So it's particularly disappointing to report that Émilie, the 2010 opera by Kaija Saariaho and Amin Maalouf, heard at the Lincoln Center Festival in on July 19, is mostly thin, dreary stuff, with only a few bits of unorthodox orchestration to pique the interest.
MA.com subscribers read the full story |
| | | Dallas Symphony Has a New CEO |  After two years of extreme peaks and valleys, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra seems to be getting its administrative house in order, thanks in no small part to David Hyslop, interim chief executive for the last year. The company has just hired Jonathan Martin, president and executive director of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, as its next president and CEO. He starts in September with a five-year contract; Hyslop will stay on as a consultant as needed. Martin, in Charlotte for four years and before that with the Cleveland Orchestra as general manager, represents the fifth top executive Dallas has had in the last two years. Hyslop was preceded by Bill Lively, the ex-president and CEO of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee who resigned from the DSO in May 2011 before he had officially started, due to health issues. Lively was preceded by Paul Stewart, who had been acting as interim since Doug Adams left in August of 2010 after two years in the job. |
Behind the Scenes at the Belvedere Singing Competition | |  VIENNA -- On July 09, the finale of the 31st International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition took place in the Wappensaal (Hall of Coat of Arms) of Vienna's gothic city hall, with elimination rounds held over the preceding week on the Kammeroper stage. Braving temperatures in the high 90°Fs and high humidity in the musty hall, 14 finalists born in or after 1980 each sang an aria to piano accompaniment in front of a sold-out audience of approximately 600, plus the juries that would determine the opera and media prizes. The competition lasted two hours; after deliberations, voting, counts, and recounts, the winners were announced 90 minutes later.
As a five-time participant on the media jury representing Musical America and Opera News, I was disappointed. Not one member of the media jury cast a single vote for the first place winner (Beomjim Kim, a South Korean tenor, who took home €7,000) or third place winner (Sang-Ah Yoon, a South Korean soprano, who was awarded €2,500) in the overall competition. This was the largest discrepancy in voting between the opera professionals and media I can recall. It made me wonder: were we all hearing the same voices? MA.com subscribers read the full story |
Cincinnati Loses Its Arts Angel |  Louise Dieterle Nippert, Cincinnati's "arts angel" and a 70-year Cincinnati Symphony subscriber, died on July 23, one month shy of her 101st birthday. Mrs. Nippert, whose late husband was an heir to the Procter & Gamble Co. fortune, was extraordinarily generous to the city's arts community. She and her husband also at one time owned the Cincinnati Reds. Mrs. Nippert will most be remembered for single-handedly rescuing the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with a transformational gift of $85 million in 2009, when the orchestra was in dire financial straits. Her gift, known as the Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund, also provides support to the city's opera and ballet companies. MA.com subscribers read the full story |
American Premiere - Endless Mountain Music Festival | ADVERTISEMENT 
Following the sold-out Asian premiere at the Thailand International Composition Festival in Bangkok last week, Maestro Stephen Gunzenhauser will conduct the American premiere of David Chesky's Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, featuring violinist Charles Rex of the New York Philharmonic and cellist Frederick Zlotkin of the New York City Ballet. 7:30 pm on August 3rd at the 7th Annual Endless Mountain Music Festival |
Eugenia Zukerman's Tanglewood Vlog |  | | Charles Dutoit, Conductor |
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Charles Dutoit, one of the most renowned, and acclaimed conductors in the world, is also devoted to mentoring young musicians. His 170 recordings have won more than 40 worldwide awards. He's a tireless globe trotter as a conductor, and also as a passionate tourist - he has traveled to all 196 nations in the world. As for his longtime connection to Tanglewood, he says, "I love it here. It's a great place, a very civilized place. You have a great orchestra, great conductors, an intellectual environment in a beautiful setting, and there's such a feeling of tradition - (Pierre) Monteux was here, (Charles) Munch - so many great people. It's amazing." What's also amazing is that Charles Dutoit will be conducting three concerts in a row this weekend - Saturday, Sunday and Monday, with repertoire from Berlioz and Beethoven to Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. To this tireless and debonair Chef d'Orchestre, we have to say, "Chapeau! And Merci Beaucoup!" |
| What Attorneys Won't Tell You |  To submit a question to FTM Arts Law write to LawAndDisorder@MusicalAmerica.com I recently attended an arts conference where there was a panel discussion on music contracts. An attorney said that artists don't really need to read or review contracts because you can always declare them null and void later and get a new contract. Is this true?
Read the full story |
| Books: George Szell; the New York Philharmonic | 
From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark For a couple of years I've been putting off even mentioning some worthy books whose authors happen to be good friends. Perhaps I should have taken the old New Yorker answer to books by its contributors and simply listed them without comment. At this late date, I suggest you simply buy these books. George Szell once told Time magazine that no one would ever write a biography of him: "I'm so damned normal." No one who knew this podium tyrant believed his self-appraisal for a second. Certainly not his Cleveland Orchestra musicians, who called him "Cyclops," only partly due to his Coke-bottle thick glasses. Nor Rudolf Bing, famed general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, who clashed with Szell in 1953-54 when he abruptly stormed out of his contract with the company. Someone said to Bing afterwards that Szell was his own worst enemy. Bing's famous reply: "Not while I'm alive." Read the full story
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NEW THIS WEEK Brown, Brandon Keith, conductor, added, William Reinert Associates Cuarteto Latinoamericano, added, California Artists Management
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