Opera Music

Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, first heard in 1907, once seemed important. Arturo Toscanini conducted the Met premiere in 1911 with Farrar and later arranged some of its music for a 1947 recording with his NBC Symphony.

Alright, Ladies and Gents ... it's been a long time since I brought you Another Favorite Clip. 6 months, to be exact. When I was alerted to this clip though, I instantly knew this would be the one to bring the feature back. I mean, who doesn't love a good Operatic Flash Mob (done right, of course). Last week, 100 plus people came to a cocktail party here in NYC for the Vital Voices Mentorship Program. Little did they know that they were in for a surprise serenade. 10 singers from Canada, USA and Puerto Rico - who gave a valiant effort in trying to pass themselves off as New York socialites - absolutely thrilled the unsuspecting crowd with a little Verdi. And for such a wonderful cause, too. Vital Voices - which was in the news recently when Hillary Clinton spoke at their Global Partnership 2013 Global Leadership Awards - states that its mission is to identify, invest in and bring visibility to extraordinary women around the world by unleashing their leadership potential to transform lives and accelerate peace and prosperity in their communities. I encourage you to check out Vital Voices as they are most certainly a force for good. BUT... not until you see this first. Enjoy!

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? James Levine slayed the punchline and showed that nothing but iron will gets...

James Levine conducts the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. by Paul J. Pelkonen Metropolitan Opera Music Director James Levine leads the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a concert on Sunday, May 19, 2013.Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera. The roar was deafening. James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, returned to conducting on Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall. As the maestro's motorized wheelchair rolled into Stern Auditorium, the capacity crowd stood up and cheered. It has been two years since Mr. Levine conducted his last performance with the Met, two years of cancellations, painful rehabilitation and uncertainty for the conductor and the opera company. Mr. Levine is currently using the wheelchair following a slew of health problems. He has battled cancer, shoulder injuries, and back problems necessitating painful surgery. In 2011, a fall suffered on Labor Day weekend caused a major setback and the cancellation of all of his podium appearances for that season. He also suffers from Parkinson's-like symptoms, an apparent after-effect of all these recent medical procedures. He wasn't on the Met schedule (except for this performance) this season, although he has retained the title of Music Director. For this concert, he conducted from a special motorized platform, designed and built by the ever-resourceful Met stage crew. Much of that uncertainty dissipated with the Prelude to Wagner's Lohengrin. This ethereal tone poem depicts the descent of the Holy Grail from the heavens with ethereal violins and surging brass. Its slow pace and measured crescendo requires masterful control from the conductor. Just a few bars reminded the listener what Mr. Levine brings to the music of Wagner, a quality of total artistic commitment that engulfs and enthralls. The magic was indeed back. Following this ten-minute prelude was no easy task. So Mr. Levine chose Beethoven, or more specifically the Fourth Piano Concerto with soloist (and longtime concert collaborator) Evgeny Kissin. The sight and sound of watching these two artists collaborate had the refreshing effect of stripping away all the drama and baggage of the past two years. Mr. Levine's business is making music, and it was a welcome return to business as usual. The expansive first movement opened with a slow ruminative passage for the solo piano, answered by the same notes in the strings. As the thematic material developed, Mr. Levine showed that he had not lost his ability with orchestral music, helped by the taut precision of his orchestra. Mr. Kissin played with quicksilver speed, racing through Beethoven's light-hearted arpeggios and the movement's extended final cadenza with a precision and speed as if challenging Mr. Levine to keep pace. Mr. Levine did. The central slow movement was played with hushed delicacy, with some of the same grace and beauty that marked the earlier Wagner. The finale charged forward with timpani and trumpets, an energetic set of variations played with gusto by conductor and orchestra. Following the applause and Mr. Levine's exit, Mr. Kissin took a high-speed encore: Beethoven's Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio, the dubbed "Rage over a Lost Penny." The second half of the concert belonged solely to Mr. Levine. He chose Schubert's Ninth Symphony, a glorious expanse of sound that anticipates the later orchestral ideas of Wagner and Bruckner. Schubert takes a deceptively simple horn-call and uses it as the foundation of a massive structure of sound. Mr. Levine proved himself equal to each of the four movements, showing the close connection between conductor and orchestra as the players responded to his slightest gesture. That sense of power and artistic certainty grew over the two central movements, a steady Andante and a bustling Scherzo that each movement, climaxing in the muscular Allegro.

La bohème Minnesota Opera In appreciation for five decades of generous community support, Minnesota Opera presents three free outdoor concert performances of Puccini’s La bohème as an encore to its 50th anniversary season. Bring a picnic, family and friends and enjoy a relaxed summer night to remember. Performances Fri. 6/14/13 at 7:00pm Harriet Island Pavilion [...]

Kasper Holten has kindly spared the time to make a lengthy and constructive comment addressing some of the criticism of La donna del lago and the more general issues raised.  You can read it on the post itself, or below: Hi all, I think this discussion is in fact very good to have (about productions and tastes, that is..), and I think it is maybe time for me to add my voice to it. I would encourage that we can have a lively and open debate about what makes opera exciting and what we like and do not like about productions, and I follow all comments with interest. First of all, let me say that I don't think that [link] is actually what I said, I think I said: "Part of our audience clearly do not like to be challenged. But we are just going to have to continue doing it." I cannot completely rule out that I might have said "teach them" instead, but if I did I want to apologise, because that would indeed be an arrogant comment. And actually not what I mean. What I mean is - and what I think has never been a secret, that this is what I stood for in Copenhagen and want to stand for here - that I think it is important to continuously challenge audiences as well as ourselves, in order to move opera forward. This means taking risks. This means having something to say with what we do. And this mean presenting different production styles (in other words, I am certainly not advocating just doing one kind of productions, I think the mix of different types of voices is precisely the point). This - the mix as well as the risk-taking - inevitably means sometimes failing (not that I am suggesting this is what happened in the case of Onegin and Lago). And sometimes upsetting audiences. And this is why I think - in spite of it naturally being hurtful for the creative team to feel the audience not liking their work, I hate getting booed, it stings very hard every time it happens (not sure I should give this away, might give too much pleasure to some of the booers ;-) ) - it is important to say that we must keep challenging ourselves and audiences, not just trying to play on what feels like 'safe bets', which in my view is ultimately the biggest risk and equals artistic death. This is certainly not the same as wanting to teach audiences to share my taste, and as mentioned, if I did indeed use the word 'teach', then that was arrogant and uncalled for and I apologise. I totally understand what SJT says [link]. But I can assure you that the stage directors are probably the ones who carries the biggest doubt around, always doubting, questioning, searching and living with the fact that it is so unpredictable what we do. You search honestly for a response to each piece, in my experience you never set out to shock or provoke but try to find a way you can make this piece come alive in the strongest possible way, and you always want to be courageous - but equally hopes that the audience will be moved by it, will love it. I really don't think I know any of my colleagues who - however confident or even arrogant we or our work might seem - are not basically always doubting, always questioning their own work. You set out on a journey with a piece, and you just hope it will be good. You know you will fail if you try to please or figure it out, but of course you hope it will work. And then so often it is surprising: I have done productions that were really popular with everyone, productions that were widely hated by everyone, and others - even more difficult - where opinion is completely divided. The one thing they have in common is that I could never really foresee what the reaction would be. And that if I think too much about it, it becomes about my personal vanity rather than about trying to do an honest piece of work. Now, I don't want to get into a specific discussion about Onegin or Lago. I heard from a lot of people who said they had been deeply moved by Onegin, and from others who said they hated it. I even met a couple at a dinner for donors, wh

Scots are fuming over their haggis at John Fulljames's portrayal of Highlanders in La donna del lago reports the Herald.  The director shows them as kilted thugs with matted hair and filthy clothes, going round raping and disembowelling everything in their path in between 21/2 octave coloratura runs. "Turning Highlanders into savages is the clear choice of an author; that's what Rossini and Scott are saying," he claims. "If you look at those films [like Highlander and Braveheart], the Highlanders are hairy. You do imagine they'd be smelly." But Professor David Purdie, the chairman of the Sir Walter Scott Club, dismisses that interpretation as "bollocks". "Scott was a great admirer of the courage and characteristics of the Highlanders and lamented the fact they had been separated for so long from southern Scotland by geography, language, politics and religion. Scott more than anybody else helped to unite the Highlands and Lowlands. His great aim in life was the promotion of Scotland as a unity within the United Kingdom."

UNITEL CLASSICA broadcasts the WAGNER GALA from the Semperoper Dresden to celebrate the 200th birthday of the great composer. Music director Christian Thielemann conducts the ouvertures and great tenor scenes from Richard Wagner’s operas which were premiered in Dresden. Jonas Kaufmann, one of the most popular Wagnerian tenors of the age, will be a special guest. The concert will be broadcast

Utterly mad but absolutely right - Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not "about" Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made.

The finale of the closing of the old Met. "Auld Lang Syne" gets to me every time. Remember, I lived my youth on the old standee line, and the joys of friendship with so many other opera lovers, the fun we had, the great performances we saw (after freezing outside the Met for so many hours.) will remain in my heart forever. Aida Triumphal Scene: Verna,Madeira, Baum, Sereni,Macurdy, Scott. Cosi Fan Tutte: Trio with Stratas, Miller, Guarrera Magic Flute: Quintet with Pracht, Grillo, Kriese, Shirley, Uppmann Vanessa: Quintet with Steber, Thebom, Dunn, Alexander, Harvuot Rosenkavalier Final Trio with Caballe, Raskin, Elias Andrea Chenier: Final Duet with Milanov, Tucker (Zinka's very last Met appearance.) Faust (the opera that opened the Met in 1883) Trio with Tucci, Gedda, Hines Auld Lang Syne (and many,many tears) (56 min.)