Author: Douglas McLennan

HIT A POET WHILE HE’S DOWN?

“It seems churlish to complain that poetry is receiving publicity, however dishonestly generated. Sales and readerships are very low; I read recently that 3% of all book sales are of poetry, and even that figure seems surprisingly high. But might we not be in danger of an inflationary rhetoric with regard to contemporary poetry, where so many superlative epithets – ‘best poet of their generation’, ‘best American poet currently writing’, and so on – are scattered like confetti over the whole crowd? – The Guardian

BACK IN BUSINESS

In February baritone Bryn Terfel felt a stab in his back in the middle of a performance and limped off the Metropolitan Opera stage. After back surgery and five months to recover, he’s back. “It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my very short time on this planet.” – CNN

HANDICAPPING THE MUSIC DIRECTOR SWEEPSTAKES

The “Court of Musical Euphemisms and Factual Economies” is now in session. Sorting out the twists and turns of choosing music directors for America’s major orchestras is a mysterious game. “For reasons I have never fathomed, US coverage of serious music seldom delves below the veneer of stability and tends to reiterate every last euphemism and half-truth without so much as a cocked eyebrow. Such complacency nurtures a system rich in abuses and absurdities.” – The Telegraph (UK)

IT’S ABOUT QUALITY AND QUANTITY

Antonio Pappano on his plans as the new music director at the Royal Opera House: “Conduct as many masterpieces as possible and there is a chance that their quality will rub off on you.” If that maxim holds true, he will be in dazzling shape in four years’ time, for by then he intends to have conducted the Royal Opera in Ariadne, Wozzeck, Falstaff, Butterfly, Lohengrin, Pagliacci, Salome, Aida, Tannhauser, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Faust and Peter Grimes. It’s an astonishing list. If a No 11 bus happens to stray on to the Covent Garden stage, you feel that Pappano will conduct that too.” – The Times (UK)

WARSAW PIANO COMPETITION OPENS

The Chopin Competition, one of the world’s major international piano competitions, is set to begin. The competition has launched the careers of pianists such as Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman and standards are so rigorous that no winners were declared in the last two competitions (in 1990 and 1995). “This year’s competition has already proved tough. Only 98 pianists qualified, based on videotapes of their performances, compared with 140 in 1995.” – Ottawa Citizen (AP)

WHAT THEATER IS NOT

“Entertaining,” “instructional,” “celebratory,” or “cathartic,” at least in the opinion of one riled performing arts professor. The solution? “We should refuse to sit and watch the same old masquerade, the same old plays, the same old actors. We need to kill the theatre off so that new performance can have room to grow.” – The Guardian

THE POST-MODERNIST WEB

“In the postmodern realm of cyberspace no ‘grand’ narratives, all-encompassing stories, or over-pervasive myths either impose their guidance or legitimate specific approaches. We do not encounter in cyberspace such good old stories as the dialectic of the Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational/working subject, or the creation of wealth.”  –*spark-online 10/00