“Everything in Ravel’s music is held at a distance, as it was in his life. Just think what iron discipline and self-denial it must have taken, to keep the messy intimacies of life at bay. There’s a similar denial in the music. You always know where the music’s heading; there’s no sense of discovery or […]
For a start, it’s because his approach to writing opera was, as he wrote, “Put aside intelligibility, put aside urgency of plot. Put in embellishment. Put in Maria Callas and Patsy Cline and Billie Holiday.” Mark Swed explains.
While she did just make her last opera appearance, she says, “One door closes and another door opens but as to retiring, I’ve never ever had that word in my vocabulary. Only thing is that other people have got it in their vocabulary because they can’t think of anything else to say.”
“Stephen Jay Carlton, the former executive director of the Los Altos-based Peninsula Symphony, is facing felony charges for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the nonprofit organization, prosecutors said Wednesday.”
“Opera Wilmington is now formally incorporated and is applying for federal non-profit status … Plans now call for the company to mount a production of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow, in English, July 25-27 … with a cast of student and local singers.”
Music is power. In his 2010 book on noise and silence, George Prochnik asked a series of provocative questions that began with this one: “Is it really true that all our reactions to sound are dictated by simple equations: loud, low sounds equal something powerful, so be scared or be prepared to mate; soft, little […]
That’s Turin’s Teatro Regio, “where performances increased to 110 in 2012 from 85 in 2005, even with a reduction in staff. Its orchestra and chorus have also just announced an ambitious North American tour.” And there’s one individual who seems to deserve a lot of the credit.
“While TV viewers could hear the song, they couldn’t see the orchestra in the Dolby Theatre. That’s because the orchestra was about a mile away from the stage.”
“Interestingly, it was the categories that seemed more objective such as ‘melodic memory’ and ‘beat perception’ that showed the strongest statistical correlation with wealth.”
“Viennese insist that theirs is an open, diverse, and liberal society, but their cultural envoy to the world is a living reliquary of long-ago revolutions. The orchestra lingers on those periods when the city was at the vanguard of musical culture, issuing a constant rat-tat-tat of shocks.”
Currently in his ninth season in Missouri, the American conductor has brought the orchestra back to (and maybe beyond) the national prominence it enjoyed under Leonard Slatkin. (He also recently began a second major post: artistic director at the Sydney Symphony.)
“In 1938, one of Granados’ sons sold the original opera to a prominent New York musician and publisher for $300 to raise money for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. Other family members wanted it returned. The question of ownership remained the subject of litigation for decades until 1970 when the opera was […]
“We composers, we’re scavengers. Beethoven was a scavenger, Bach too – that’s one of the joys of being creative. Stravinsky is rumoured to have said that ‘a good composer borrows, a great composer steals’. That may be apocryphal. But it’s not without truth.”
There’s no lobby, the food is bad, the bathrooms are inadequate, and… Why is it so hard to take care of audiences when they spend a lot of money to go to the opera? Manuela Hoelterhoff unloads.
“Funk’s newfound popularity is fueled by listeners from a generation that has undergone the biggest class shift in Brazil’s history: tens of millions of people moving out of poverty to form a new middle class. If economic empowerment has given this new class a voice, funk has given many of its members something to sing.”
“Turning to music for comfort and solace is not a subject that is talked about much—not out loud, at any rate—in our community, even though it is a perfectly natural inclination, and something that many of us engage in regularly.”
“There is little film music as instantly recognizable as Nino Rota’s opening music played on trumpet, and only a handful of films as masterfully made as The Godfather.”
“Mr. Britell, who developed the on-screen violin music and spirituals, had a unique set of challenges: being historically accurate to a time period from which no recordings, and little musical documentation of folk traditions, were available.”
After a long midday meeting, the board came “to very strong agreement on leadership and a positive direction for the organization,” new board chairman Gordon Sprenger said in a statement. “However, we have more work to do before we are able to make a detailed public statement. We will share further news as soon as […]
“The cost-cutting move comes after the board of the opera company, with ticket sales faltering, decided that it had reached the limit of its donors’ willingness to cover, year after year, the company’s growing expenses, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
Sixteen years after the Philharmonic became one of the last big European orchestras to admit women, they are still an exotic sight onstage. Despite a blind audition policy, in which candidates are not visible when they play, the orchestra currently has just seven female members out of 130 total.
“The Minnesota Orchestra board meets Friday to consider the fates of former Music Director Osmo Vänskä and President and CEO Michael Henson. Hanging in the balance is the return of Vänskä, who resigned in October during the historic, 16-month labor lockout, as well as the question of the board’s confidence in Henson.”
“Threats of a strike at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera, which would have prevented Thursday’s opening night performance of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and damaged the company’s account books, were averted at the last minute.” The theater’s finances are so bad that Rome’s Mayor has been saying that a strike could force the company to close its doors.
“Victims of state persecution, ambassadors for day-glo knitwear and wank fodder for beardy liberals the world over, the members of Pussy Riot have been filling both prison cells and column inches since 2012. In the process, they’ve also become one of the most famous bands on the planet. But let me ask you this – […]
“How the brain processes musical discourse is not well-understood. Is music a language? If not, how can we still use it to communicate?”
“Many of the 48 cathedrals in England and Wales are suffering as low interest rates hit investments and the cost of maintaining and repairing historic buildings rises.”
“We had to think about what the community demands of us. The lock out was a stark call that we needed to be in control of our own destiny. We can never again take for granted this ready source of work and income.”
“You’re not country only or rap only; people like both. I think that’s been there for some time, but we recognize it now, so collaborations work well, and the reverse is they help grow the interests of artists and music as a crossover.”
Anne Midgette: “I wish that Kissin were creating a new world of possibilities for all star performers, but I’m not sure anyone else has the virtuosity to step this far outside the box with such honesty and dignity and power. I also wish this concert had been recorded. As it is, it is an evening […]
Three of the five unions representing Opera di Roma employees say they’ll shut down the entire run of Manon Lescaut, starring Anna Netrebko and conducted by Riccardo Muti, that opens Thursday if management doesn’t withdraw plans – required by law – to revamp the budget and reduce the staff at the near-bankrupt opera house.