Classical Music
A Tale of Two Operas
Agility, power, wit and heft at the Met In the classic cartoons, opera singers are fat and often wear horns. You will see that in real life, too. But opera singers, like other people, come in all shapes and sizes, and so do operas. In consecutive performances, the Met staged operas on opposite ends of...
Musical Images: North/South Consonance Finds Modernity
What Film Forum is to cinema, North/South Consonance is to modern classical music—an independent nonprofit bringing New York City deserving works overlooked by big-ticket distributors and mainstream media. North/South continued its 32 season of free concerts Feb. 19 with “Midwinter Sounds,” music for chamber orchestra by composers from Cuba, Italy, and the U.S., at Christ...
Platinum Premiere
Jubilee concert honors Glass and Pärt Carnegie Hall hosted the best birthday party ever as the American Composers Orchestra presented the Philip Glass 75th Birthday Concert in the Isaac Stern Auditorium Jan. 31. Thousands of composers, musicians and music lovers broke into a roar when Glass was introduced, giving him no less than four curtain...
It’s Clarinet Month
Williamson, McGill, Meyer and Shifrin blow up Say what you will about piano playing, conducting, violin playing and, especially, composing: This is a very good age for clarinet playing, even a great one. We have Alessandro Carbonare, Martin Fröst, Kari Kriikku and Julian Bliss, among others. Four of those others played in New York during...
Flying Colors
Horne and Fleming Instruct A Master Class Better than watching a master do what she does best is watching a master teach what she does best. Twin master classes led by divas Marilyn Horne and Renée Fleming under Carnegie Hall’s “The Song Continues…” series illuminated the potential that is unleashed when knowledge is given with...
Delivering Thrills
When the Vienna Philharmonic plays a New Year’s concert, the program is Viennesey—Strauss polkas and all that. When the New York Philharmonic plays a New Year’s concert, the program is New Yorky. At least it was this year. Their program on New Year’s Eve consisted of Gershwin and Bernstein. The former composer, of course, was...
Doctor Atomic II
Des McAnuff’s Faust at The Met It was with Gounod’s Faust that the Metropolitan Opera opened its doors in 1883, and the company has done many a staging since. The latest production is in the hands of Des McAnuff. A veteran director, he has had hits on Broadway—e.g., Jersey Boys—and leads the Shakespeare festival in...
Don Giovanni Lives
Mozart live from La Scala For $25, low-heeled New Yorkers got to attend the opening night of La Scala’s 2011–12 season, with its new production of Don Giovanni (Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna, Peter Mattei as the Don, Bryn Terfel as Leporello, Daniel Barenboim conducting). Emerging Pictures, distributor of “alternative” (read “non-Hollywood”) content like opera,...
Familiarizing Great Music
The Philharmonic’s survival programs Out of apathy, fear or intransigence, we barricade ourselves from things we don’t know—people, places, music. Symphonic music is often thrust behind these barricades, so the New York Philharmonic has created an education department to help bring it out front where it belongs. Why does it belong out front? Director of...
A Ring That Chimes
Enlivening Wagner’s third installment One by one, we are seeing the operas of Wagner’s Ring at the Metropolitan Opera, in a new production by Robert Lepage. We have now seen the third opera, Siegfried, the one that follows Die Walküre and precedes the finale, Götterdämmerung. Lepage has not made a Siegfried that will dance through...
M-M-M Good! Maazel, Masur and Mehta Return to Philharmonic
Among the New York Philharmonic’s guest conductors this season are three of the orchestra’s former music directors: Zubin Mehta, who was here from 1978 to 1991; his successor, Kurt Masur, who served until 2002; and his successor, Lorin Maazel, who served until 2009. Please note that, three times in a row, we had a music...
Choirs Plus Ultra: Sacred harmonies draw cheers
Blue Heron and Ensemble Plus Ultra—two out-of-the-box choirs from out of town—met in New York City last week to present a concert of 16th-century music so rousing that it was met by a standing ovation; the stunning stained glass at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church rattled to cheers associated more with Don Giovanni than sacred...
From Rosina to the Finland Station: Singers, a Composer and Sibelius
Since its debut in 2006, Bartlett Sher’s production of The Barber of Seville at the Metropolitan Opera has had a string of excellent Rosinas: Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato and Elina Garanca. They have all been different from one another, and they have all been sparkling. Add a fourth Rosina to the string: Isabel Leonard, the...
Carnegie’s Long Short Night
Gergiev and Mariinsky orchestra start season Carnegie Hall opened its season with an orchestra from out of town—way out of town: St. Petersburg (and not Florida). This was the Mariinsky Orchestra, known during Soviet times as the Kirov. Carnegie Hall will feature other orchestras from abroad this season: the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, most promisingly....
Sharks, Jets, Sting and Others
Touring a trio of musical events The setup in Avery Fisher Hall was this: West Side Story, the movie, played on a big screen. The New York Philharmonic played the orchestra part. The singing was left to the people in the movie (or those who dubbed for them). By some wizardry, technicians were able to...
New York Jazz’s Resilient Rhythm
Amina Figarova’s ‘September Suite’ a highlight Creators of jazz and other new music in New York are a resolute bunch, determined to make the best of circumstances that are tough even in the best of times. Immediately after the World Trade Center towers were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, local musicians I know reacted to...
Facing the Music of 9/11
New York’s Hear Memorial concerts and other good intentions After 9/11, there were several memorial concerts here in New York. Then, for the next few years, there were many, many “9/11 pieces”—compositions “about” 9/11 or having to do with 9/11 in some way. This month, there are, or have been, 10th anniversary concerts. And we...
Daedalus String Quartet at Music Mountain
Postponed by Hurricane Irene, the acclaimed Daedalus String Quartet, with award-winning pianist Soyeon Lee, will wrap up Music Mountain’s 2011-2012 season at 3 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 11, rather than the previously announced Aug. 28.
Pianist Fuzjko Hemming Returns to NYC
Fuzjko Hemming brings her concert tour to NYC for two performances For the first time since 2009, “legend of the piano” Fuzjko Hemming will be returning to Alice Tully Hall as part of her Piano Solo Concert USA Tour.
When Ballet and Music Are Equal Partners
Rodion Shchedrin at Lincoln Center, plus Koji Attwood at Mannes Early in its season, the Lincoln Center Festival highlighted the music of Rodion Shchedrin. Rather, the festival gave a taste of Shchedrin’s music—there’s a lot of it. He has become one of the most popular classical composers of today. Why’s that? For one thing, he’s...
With NY Phil Absent, Brooklyn Phil Wants City Parks Concert Gig
On Friday, we received an open letter to Mayor Bloomberg from Brooklyn Philharmonic Artistic Director Alan Pierson. In it, Pierson offered that the Brooklyn Phil would gladly play free concerts in the city’s parks since the New York Philharmonic is not programming any such concerts this year. “Since our cousin, the New York Philharmonic, has...
