Category: music

“Roger Frisch of Plymouth, Minn., lay on the operating table with his hands clutching his violin to his chin. While surgeons operated on Frisch’s brain, Frisch began to play the chords he’s known for more than 30 years.”

Michael “Berkeley will write the music, with the poet Craig Raine writing the libretto after McEwan himself decided not to. … McEwan, currently working on a screenplay based on his novella On Chesil Beach, collaborated with Berkeley on an oratorio in 1982 and on a small-scale opera, For You, in 2008.”

“The biggest chunks of the proceeds from a Carnegie Hall concert to benefit the earthquake-ravaged country will actually go to stagehands and newspaper advertisements. Even if the event’s nearly $200,000 worth of tickets sell out, less than $8,000 from the sales will go to the cause.”

Founded by the man Daniel J. Wakin calls “the Lou Gehrig of opera” with “a set of brass lungs,” the Foundation was set up to seek out and train heroic tenors for big, tough Wagner roles like Tristan and Siegfried. But the “foundation has been inactive in recent years; its trustees are aging; the money was down to a little over a million dollars.”

“It’s musical junk sculpture … a sort of Marx Brothers version of Wozzeck.” “The storytelling breezily disregards logic.” “[The director’s] vision of everyday humanity is squat and gnarled.” “[It’s] the unlikely artistic success of the Met season and something rare in the big-budget opera world: an intellectual event. How can you not ponder the meaning of a renegade singing nose?”

The talks were aimed at gaining “players’ concessions as a key to stabilizing the orchestra’s finances. Battered by the recession, the DSO ran a $3.8-million deficit in 2009 and projects about a $5-million shortfall on a $30-million budget in 2010.”

During his two decades running New York City Opera, Rudel commissioned 12 operas and presented 26 world or US premieres. “Recruiting directors from outside opera? Mr. Rudel brought in Harold Prince, Jerome Robbins, Margaret Webster and José Quintero. He cultivated the company’s identity as one that emphasizes the total musical and theatrical impact of a production over the star system, although he nurtured his share of stars.”

“Pat Patrick,” the father of Governor Deval Patrick, “was best known for his 40-year association with band leader and composer Sun Ra, whom he accompanied on overseas tours and collaborated with on albums. Patrick also played with jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk.”

Marlis Petersen, the Ophelia in the new Metropolitan Opera staging of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, was engaged for the part only a few weeks ago, after Natalie Dessay withdrew due to injury. The problem: she was singing Medea in a challenging world premiere in Vienna until the Saturday morning before opening night.

“The mental pathways for music are complex, sometimes including not only auditory areas but also the visual cortex of the brain. Recent research suggests that musical perception is entwined with primitive parts of the brain and that it can influence emotions through the limbic system.”