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In my last blog, I extolled a 1935 Met La Traviata broadcast as an antidote to the Verdi performances of today, and invited readers to listen to Ettore Panizza conduct the preludes, and to Lawrence Tibbett deliver the goods in "Di Provenza." My friend Ettore Volontieri, who trained as a baritone before becoming an inimitable artists' manager, wrote to remind me that the same … [Read more...] about How Performable Is Verdi at the Met? — Continued

In the opinion of an eminent European conductor of my acquaintance, it was last possible to adequately cast the big Verdi operas in the 1970s. Nothing in my experience sporadically attending Verdi at the Met contradicts that view. Sampling yesterday's live broadcast of Aida, I listened to the tenor struggle through "Celeste Aida" and the soprano skim "Ritorna vincitor." It was … [Read more...] about How Performable is Verdi at the Met?

As Igor Stravinsky's impregnable twentieth century reputation fades with time, both the man and the composer seem ever more elusive. A recent visit to the New York Philharmonic Archives, preparing for the Philharmonic's upcoming Stravinsky festival with Valery Gergiev, reinforced the density of the Stravinsky conundrum. Stravinsky was born in St. Petersburg. His father was an … [Read more...] about Stravinsky, the New York Philharmonic, and Program Music

Leaving aside the problem that William Kentridge's spectacular production of The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera overwhelms Shostakovich's 1928 chamber opera, leaving aside that one departs the house with the questionable sensation of having seen inspired stagecraft inflicted on a weak work, I merely wish to observe a series of paradoxes. The Nose at the Met, with six … [Read more...] about The Nose, The Trojans, and Issues of Popularity

John Adams, on his blog "Hellmouth," has just posted a stirring piece in praise of Leopold Stokowski. These days Stokowski is by far the more fascinating phenomenon than his onetime rival Toscanini. John writes: "Anyone following [Stokowski's] career will be driven mad trying to cull the pearls from the swill." Consider his two recordings (live, studio) of Schoenberg's … [Read more...] about The Stokowski Conundrum