Category: music

“Why are audiences, artists, and production teams ready to jettison their usual sense of drama when it comes to opera? … [W]hy is it that we tend to be indulgent of opera not meeting the same standards as a stage play?”

“Christian Thielemann, chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic since 2004, will not have his contract renewed when it expires in 2011. … The sticking point was a clause which gave the orchestra’s general director, Paul Mueller, the final say in the choice of guest conductors and repertoire over Thielemann.”

“From YouTube to manufacturers’ websites, from bulletin boards to iPhone and BlackBerry applications that mimic ukes and teach chords, the Internet has been stoking the craze for nearly two years and unveiling fresh talent. ‘The number of new players keeps going up,’ said Mike DaSilva of Berkeley, who ditched a 20-year software career to make ukuleles.”

Among “the many new bells and whistles in store for the 2009 contest,” which begins this week, are live video of the first two rounds via clevelandpiano.org, “CDs and DVDs available immediately after each performance,” audio of each concert via Instant Encore, and close-up video of each competitor on a screen above the stage

Following the November shutdown of Opera Pacific, the ‘other major classical music organizations in the area – including the Philharmonic Society, the Pacific Symphony, the Pacific Chorale and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, all non-profits – watched the wreckage burn and braced for the worst. … [Yet as] these groups end their most trying fiscal year ever, they remain standing and, if not quite without injury, ready for the next round.”

“Management of the Skylight Opera Theatre” – controversial managing (and now artistic) director Eric Dillner and a brand-new interim board chairman – “met with dissident artists Friday morning to open another chapter in the controversy that began with the firing of artistic director William Theisen on June 16.” None of the artists, including a number of company stars, “showed any inclination to return to the fold as long as Dillner is in place.”

Saying that he is “happy and relieved”, festival artistic director Jürgen Flimm “announced Friday he had signed a deal allowing him to quit Salzburg in 2010, a year early, to join the Berlin State Opera.” His successor, Alexander Pereira of the Zurich Opera House, does not begin until October 2011, so a search is on for a one-year interim director.

Of 24 potential motives published in the paper (a representative sample), the one most enthusiastically endorsed was: “One of the reasons for which I am an orchestra conductor is that it allows me to feel as one with my orchestra.”

A week before the curtain was due to go up, corporate ticket sales were down 11 percent from last year and overall sales down five percent.

A new generation of Wagners is at the helm as the annual Bayreuth festival opens this weekend, with composer Richard Wagner’s great-granddaughter saying that she hopes to help bring “opera to the people.”