The most striking feature of English National opera's new production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide is the drop-curtain. It has been made up to look like a 1950s television test-card and it takes us instantly back to that era. The card melts, as the music strikes up, into newsreel clips of Middle America, McCarthyism, gas guzzlers and the rise of the Kennedys. I won't review the show - Fiona Maddocks gets it bang to rights in the Evening Standard - except to say that Robert Carsen's … [Read more...]
One of the best
June 23, 2008 By
Jonathan Carr, who died last week near Bonn, was an astute political journalist and a musical enthusiast of expert knowledge and sound judgement. He brought an aesthetic perspective to his professional occupation and a shrewd political eye to his musical researches, adding a dash of wit that made him constantly readable. As Germany correspondent for the Financial Times and, later, bureau chief for the Economist, Jonathan saw just about every Meistersinger in 30 years, and held Rafael … [Read more...]
Missing persons alert
June 20, 2008 By
A year ago I asked 'has anybody seen Alberto Vilar?' Several readers were kind enough to respond and I was relieved to learn that the former philanthropist is still going to the opera while awaiting his fraud trial in September. How about Chris Craker, though? Has anyone seen Chris? Up to a couple of months ago he was running the classical output of Sony-BMG and talking up the industry in the music magazines with a lovely line in chutzpah. Then the inevitable happened. A … [Read more...]
Lorraine and the gentlemen’s clubs
June 18, 2008 By
A wonderful release of Bach and Handel arias by the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has just appeared on the self-publish community label, Avie, and is reviewed as my CD of the week. No need to say more about the Bach, but Handel's Hercules was completely unknown to me and I revelled both in the musical invention and in Lorraine's fine articulation. The track that leaped out at me from the headphones was an aria titled 'Resign thy club' and I kept having to rub my ears to make sure I … [Read more...]
Berlin cover-up
June 17, 2008 By
The BBC are running a bought-in film tonight in Alan Yentob's Imagine series on Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. It offers 'intimate' insights into the workings of the crack band and its fabulous maestro as they are cheered to the rafters on a Far East tour. Well, believe that if you like. Rattle was recently re-elected chief conductor by a political manoeuvre and a narrow margin that some of his opponents in the orchestra are continuing to question. As for … [Read more...]
The Lead from L. A.
June 11, 2008 By
I left the door a foot open in my previous submission for others to nominate the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a pioneer of orchestral courage and adventure - and up she pops in the first three responses. I couldn't be more enthusiastic about LA's choice of young, fairly inexperienced conductors - Salonen, and now Dudamel - in preference to the greying Europeans of the East Coast. But one might argue that L.A. is an exception that proves the rule. In a city where movies are dominant, … [Read more...]
Who dares, wins
June 8, 2008 By
No blogs from me for the past six weeks - I've been immersed in a new book. But the word from Cleveland this weekend deserves a cheer or three, if only for its courage and foresight in an industry noted for its timidity. The Cleveland Orchestra has renewed contracts with music director Franz Welser-Möst for another six years, taking them up to 2019, by which time they will have been together for two full decades. FW-M is also due to become music director of the Vienna State Opera … [Read more...]
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