Month: October 2000

The furor over Daniel Barenboim’s role as director of Berlin’s Staatsoper continues. “Should he abandon what increasingly looks to be a no-win situation and leave Berlin, concentrate on his responsibilities in Chicago (where he has been music director since 1991) and devote more time to playing the piano and guest conducting? Or should he stay on at the Staatsoper, possibly in a reduced role – music director without administrative duties – he said earlier he would accept if the authorities agree to give his orchestra players more money?” – Chicago Tribune

Many see the adoption of supertitles in opera as the biggest advance in the artform in a hundred years. Audiences, for the most part love them. “Yet a powerful faction continues to deplore the phenomenon. Notable among the revanchistes are the distinguished critic Rodney Milnes and ENO director David Pountney, who argue that surtitles distract attention from the moment-by-moment reality of the stage and simplify or distort the text, as well as negating any emphasis or colour that a singer is attaching to an individual word or phrase.” – The Telegraph (UK)

“His name is Costa Pilavachi, and he is president of the Decca Music Group in London. At 49, he happens to be just about the most powerful person in the classical-music business – the man who produces not only Bartoli’s albums but those of Luciano Pavarotti, Renée Fleming, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andrea Bocelli and Jessye Norman.” – Toronto Star

It’s been ten years “since chain-smoking, emphysema and pleural tumors ended that neck-and-neck race between Bernstein and “the odds,” he’s still – in a strange way – on the scene, though without his provocative politics, podium gyrations, capes and cigarette holders. So can we finally get to the truth behind the best-documented musician in Western Civilization?” – Philadelphia Inquirer

There are a few hotbeds of contemporary music where both the musicians and the audiences are engaged in the music. But why are they separated off from the mainstream? Ghettoizing new music does no favor to the music establishment. Traditional programs could benefit from the energy of the new. – New York Times

Inexplicably, “model operas” dating from the time of the cultural revolution have become popular again in China. “The term ‘model opera’ is a loose one, referring to two sets of “model” musical and theatrical works that include ballet, symphony and a reformed version of Beijing opera. As highly visible relics of an era that is officially condemned — a 10-year period of chaos in which much of China’s traditional culture was destroyed and countless artists and intellectuals were humiliated, tortured, jailed and killed — model operas are understandably controversial. – New York Times

Wagner was finally performed for the first time at an orchestra concert in Israel Friday night. As the concert was about to begin, an 80-year-old Polish-born man whose family perished in the Holocaust “stood up in the audience, swinging a noisy rattle in protest.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)