March 29, 2013   |
| | | Thought of the Day | | Applause is a receipt, not a bill.
--Dale Carnegie
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| Quote of the Week | | The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions. --Alfred Adler |
| | The Other Mary: Dramatic Coherence? No Way. |  NEW YORK -- John Adams's The Gospel According to the Other Mary received its New York premiere Wednesday night in Avery Fisher Hall with Gustavo Dudamel conducting soloists, dancers, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was quite a spectacle. Like Adams's El Niño, the piece has an inspired and inventive musical score wedded to a libretto assembled by Peter Sellars that mixes biblical scenes with what naysayers might call bleeding-heart-liberal expressions of solidarity with the downtrodden and the oppressed, whether by virtue of economic injustice or discrimination--perennial Sellars themes. Political views aside, one can wince at a passion story that juxtaposes Jesus's arraignment before Pilate with negotiations between César Chavez, representing farm workers, and the Teamsters. Dramatic coherence and structural shape are simply not present. |
Met Announces Sills Award Winner |  Tenor Bryan Hymel has joined a rather distinguished group of singers in receiving the eighth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers. Overseen by the Metropolitan Opera, named for the famed vocalist/arts administrator, funded by an endowment gift from the late Agnes Varis, the $50,000 award is for singers between ages 25 and 40 who are considered "extraordinarily gifted" and have already sung a major role at the Met. Hymel made his house debut earlier this season, a last-minute replacement for Marcello Giordani singing Aeneas in Berlioz's Les Troyens. Ultimately, he took over the full run (including the HD broadcast), when Giordani decided to "retire" the role from his repertoire. It was a stroke of luck for Hymel, and his debut was a triumph. |
| | | Sulking & Striking in San Francisco |  Manuela Hoelterhoff--Pulitzer Prize and Guggenheim Award winner, former books and arts editor and opera critic of The Wall Street Journal, current executive editor of the Bloomberg Muse section--has a few things to say about the San Francisco Symphony musicians' decision to go on strike. She's not real kind to the Minnesota gang, either. Her comments in Muse begin as follows: "I want 10 weeks of vacation and if I don't get what I want, I'm going on strike. "I'm just not going to commit to any writing for a while! Writing is an annoying way to make a living. You have to write and when you do that for a few hours every day, you know what? Your fingers hurt. "I think I'll go to San Francisco for company. "One hundred and three people there are sulking and striking." |
| Philly Orchestra to Work with Philly Opera |  Opera Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Orchestra will mount a semi-staging of Salome in Verizon Hall in May, 2014.The event marks the first time the two organizations have collaborated, and the first time the orchestra has performed the complete opera. Philadelphia Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, no stranger to the opera house, conducts a cast of his choosing. Cost of the project, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, is $1 million. Describing the event as a "theatrical mash-up," Opera General Director David B. Devan is quick to say that the collaboration is not permanent, and that the company will continue to use its own orchestra for the regular season. |
| Jürgen Flimm Has a Stroke |  BERLIN -- Jürgen Flimm, intendant of the Staatsoper Berlin, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke. According to the BZ, Flimm was afflicted on the train from Hamburg to Berlin last week and, thanks to his wife's fast reaction, rushed to a clinic. The German stage director and impresario, 71, was recruited in 2010 to oversee the Staatsoper as it assumes temporary residence at the Schiller Theater. The company's 18th-century headquarters on the Boulevard Unter den Linden are undergoing renovation with an opening scheduled in the fall of 2015, following much delay. Flimm formerly served as intendant to the RuhrTriennale and the Salzburg Festival as well as theaters in Germany. A spokesperson from the Staatsoper told the Berliner Morgenpost that he is "on the way to recovery." Calls for an update from the Staatsoper today were not answered, due to the holiday |
| Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas |  From Berlin Times by Rebecca Schmid Experimental Regie, free from the scrutiny of finicky patrons on the German opera scene, can in the best case scenario serve to illuminate hidden meanings of a score. In the worst case, it can drown out or obscure musical considerations. The Staatsoper Berlin's Werkstatt ('workshop'), a wing of the company's temporary residence in the Schiller Theater dedicated to new music theater, is currently showing Salvatore Sciarrino's Vanitas (1981), designated by the composer as a 'still life in one act.' A trio for soprano, cello and piano, the work-seen at its second run on March 19-comes closest to a mini cantata with its intricate exchanges. A winding, descending melody provides a Leitmotif of angst and emptiness for the soprano, echoed by the ghostly cello, while the piano interjects with a bed of shifting harmonies. The text, woven together from fragments by German, Italian and other poets, lingers existentially over a wilting rose-an image hovering on the boundary between life and death. |
| |  From Why I Left Muncie by Sedgwick Clark PK turned to me last Friday (3/22) at Carnegie Hall when the applause had died down for intermission and asked, "Where did he come from? He's so musical. Where did he train?" Moments later, she continued animatedly to friends who had joined us, "He seems relaxed with the piano--it's not an adversarial relationship like the Serkin school, where the instrument is an enemy to be conquered. He doesn't play with anxiety, which is rare these days." She also liked his insightful program notes. What a relief! Her usual question when I've cajoled her into going to a concert that initially elicited a frown is muttered after the first piece or movement: "Why am I here?" Fact is, she'd almost always rather spend the evening at home with our three bichons, but this time she was happy she came. Read the full story |
| Latest Roster Changes |  Musical America is helping presenters keep up with its advertisers! Managers whose rosters appear in the 2013 edition of the Musical America Directory should write to listings@musicalamerica.com with the names of artists and attractions that have been either added or removed, and please be sure to indicate "added" or "removed." NEW THIS WEEK Mahajan, Indira, soprano, removed, Guy Barzilay Artists Perez-Sierra, Jose Miguel, conductor, added, William Reinert Associates (North America) Read the full story |
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