Blog

One year after Philadelphia’s dramatic new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts made its debut, the jury is still out on whether it’s a success. On the plus side, attendance is generally good, and acoustic improvements are being gradually made. On the other hand, the acoustics are hardly what they should be, there are cosmetic problems everywhere, public access is much more limited than promised, and who could forget the sprinkler-system malfunction which doused the Philadelphia Orchestra with dirty water two weeks ago?

If there are two undeniable truths in the world of opera, they are: 1) Audiences can never get enough Puccini; and 2) Musicologists have had just about enough of him. Even as scholars began to (finally) embrace other Italian opera composers like Verdi and Donizetti a few decades back, Puccini was left behind, an afterthought in the study of “serious” opera. Now, a new study of the man and his work may finally drag the musicological community into line with the people who pack opera houses for the latest production of Tosca.

Next week, England’s ClassicFM, the station that proved that classical music can still draw huge listenership, launches a TV channel devoted to classical music videos. And while the channel is sure to draw fire for its reliance on short, lightweight works, the simple fact is that ClassicFM is the only current model for successful marketing of classical music on-air. So it probably wouldn’t hurt to trust them.

The Houston Symphony musicians have fired another public shot at their management, warning that if proposed cuts to the orchestra’s schedule and compensation package are implemented, it would mean the effective end of a major orchestral presence in the nation’s fourth-largest city: “The success of any campaign for the sustenance of this orchestra depends not in part, but entirely on the ongoing preservation of the symphony’s artistic stature.”

The Houston Symphony’s management and musicians appear to be moving ever closer to a work stoppage, at least if the shots being exchanged in the pages of the local paper are any measure. Music critic Charles Ward has had about enough of the negotiations by press release – he worries that the musicians may be twisting numbers, and that the management doesn’t seem to know a whole heck of a lot about classical music.

Ten years ago, the musicians of the BBC Scottish Symphony and the Scottish Opera were ambushed by the announcement that the managements of the two organizations had agreed to merge, and to form a single orchestra to do the work of two. What followed was years of legal battles, terse negotiations, and – astonishingly – unprecedented success for each of the two distinct orchestras. These days, to eliminate either of the two would be unthinkable, and most observers agree that it should never have been considered in the first place.

The struggle of American conductors to be taken seriously in America is well-documented, but what about British-born maestros looking for work at home? Meet Donald Runnicles: orchestras and critics in Europe and North America rave about him, and yet few British orchestras have ever worked under him. A crash course may be in order, however, as Runnicles is widely rumored to be a finalist to succeed Leonard Slatkin at the head of the BBC Symphony.