In part three of a series on what’s ailing America’s flagship opera company and how to cure it, Dawn Fatale looks at engaging the public and at casting – and says the Met must stop casting five to six years in advance.
“Alexander Pereira, who is scheduled to take over the Milan opera house on Oct. 1, signed an agreement to buy four productions for La Scala from the Salzburg Festival, where he is the director, without the approval of the Italian authorities.”
In an analysis of the most popular country songs over six decades, Jason Eastman and Terry Pettijohn II of Coastal Carolina University finds top hits are “lyrically more positive, musically upbeat, and use more happy-sounding major chords during difficult socioeconomic times.”
“They may need the buy-in of more than 800 members of the opera association, people who donate at least $100 to be part of the company.”
“There’s definitely a novelty value with cassettes at the moment, particularly as we suspect a high proportion of them are collectibles sitting on a shelf and never played.”
“A sharply reduced budget, innovative programming and a list of donors who will step up if San Diego Opera’s current leaders are replaced might be enough to rescue the company from shutdown in two weeks, … [said] Carol Lazier, the San Diego Opera board member who pledged $1 million to save the company.”
Music psychologist Elizabeth Margulis found that she could make ordinary listeners respond positively even to Berio by simply adding repeats to it. Why did that work? (includes audio)
“We live in a time when running a record store or shopping at a record store is cool in popular culture. People are looking for that experience, which they can’t get from the latest downloading or streaming service.”
Jeff Dinsmore, of the Philadelphia choir The Crossing, was warming up before a Disney Hall rehearsal for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s upcoming performances of Louis Andriessen’s De Materie when he collapsed and died. Dinsmore was 42.
“The company’s board of directors met Friday afternoon and voted to keep an April 29 deadline for the opera’s closure. But the board also formed a special committee of six members to explore alternatives to shutting down. … The special committee will focus on the retention of consultants, [the board chair] said, but she didn’t […]
The work, premiered on June 20, 2013, by the Seattle Symphony and published by Taiga Press/Theodore Front Musical Literature (BMI), was described in the citation as “a haunting orchestral work that suggests a relentless tidal surge, evoking thoughts of melting polar ice and rising sea levels.”
“After a three-week battle that convulsed the community here and subjected its once revered opera company to widespread derision and accusations of mismanagement — Ian D. Campbell, its general and artistic director, was nearly booed off the stage when he stepped out to introduce ‘Don Quixote’ this month on opening night — the board of […]
“Fabiani’s many clients have included Lance Armstrong, who hired Fabiani during the doping scandal that plagued the cyclist; and Goldman Sachs, for whom he worked when the firm faced fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
“‘We have tried for many years to come to grips with the Vienna Philharmonic’s past and face up to our responsibility to make good historical injustices,’ orchestra director Clemens Hellsberg said.”
“In the symphony’s plan, there’s even a section of a timeline labeled ‘difficult decisions.’”
“The question was, how would Górecki follow the Third when he came to write his Fourth Symphony, three decades later? At his death, the Fourth was completed only in short score – a composer’s shorthand rather than a full-fleshed orchestral version.”
Karen Cohn: “We are exploring every possible idea for creating an economically sustainable way to preserve the current opera company in some form. And if that proves to be impossible, we all stand ready to do whatever we can to help preserve opera in a new form for San Diego.”
“Forty-two percent of Americans think that this decade has the worst music compared with the other four most recent decades. Next in order are the 2000s (15 percent), 1990s (13 percent), 1980s (14 percent) and the 1970s (12 percent).”
“Our ultimate criterion is supreme musical excellence, over a period of time, preferably in the opera house as well as in the concert hall, and here there can be little argument – the VPO consistently produces playing of the utmost musicality and technical assurance, with my own vote being cast on the strength of blazingly […]
“The idea of a celebrity getting paid for attending something that normal people are paying to attend — the general admission cost this year was $375 — is infuriating, especially when it’s something like a music festival, that’s meant to be down-to-earth.”
Birgit Nilsson Foundation president Rutbert Reisch said the choice of the orchestra fit the award’s criteria for artists “who have made the biggest contribution to classical music.” The Birgit Nilsson prize adds to the list of honors accorded to the Viennese ensemble, which is recognized as one of the world’s greatest.
“The labor union that represents singers and chorus members at the San Diego Opera is asking a federal agency to get an injunction freezing the company’s assets so that union members with contracts can be paid.”
Two professors, a DJ, and a radio executive explore why Pharrell Williams’s hit has such an effect on so many people.
“The event, now in its second year, launched in 2013 and was designed to be the first truly international set of prizes in the operatic world.” The Zurich Opera was named company of the year; the Aldeburgh Festival’s site-specific beach staging of Peter Grimes won a prize for best production of the Britten anniversary year.
“As the music industry continues to struggle financially and once-dominant types of music like hip-hop recede on the charts, country’s audience has grown stronger, wider and younger — a fact that has not escaped the notice of media companies that have invested heavily in the genre.”
“The latest labor talks at the Met have gotten off to their most contentious start in decades, replete with colorfully threatening emails and emotions running nearly as high offstage as on.”
Regarding the guesses over whether an instrument was old or new, 31 were right and 33 were wrong. “The data rather clearly demonstrate the inability of the players to reliably guess an instrument’s age,” the researchers write.
“Let’s at least try to discuss the larger implications of female sexuality on pop culture without shaming each other. There’s more than one way to be a good feminist.”
I hear the phrase “it’s a matter of taste” quite a lot. What a prohibitive position—it sounds like “our differences in perception present irreconcilable differences and we should stop talking now.” “Taste” and “quality” strike me as entirely different forces.
“Ms. Opolais, who said that she would normally be resting her voice after a night singing ‘Butterfly,’ found herself singing her second Puccini opera, and playing out her second Puccini death scene, on the stage of the Met within the space of 18 hours. While she had sung the role of Mimi at the Vienna […]