Category: music

Hindemith’s Klaviermusik mit Orchester has been one of the composer’s most played works since 2004. But Hindemith wrote the concerto in 1923, and the story of how it came to be unavailable for performance for 80 years is a fascinating, and confusing, tale.

The wave of operatic simulcasts in digitally equipped movie theaters appears likely to grow in the coming years, as companies worldwide attempt to duplicate the success the Metropolitan Opera has had with such shows. But “for opera companies, the payoff is not so clear. The emerging distribution model involves unusual alliances between not-for-profit organizations and the world of commerce.”

“The Spoleto Festival U.S.A. and its long-lost partner in Italy, the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Umbria, have announced that they will renew an association that ended 15 years ago. The two arts festivals say they are discussing at least one joint opera production for the summer of 2009.”

Peter Gelb’s reinvention of the Metropolitan Opera as a thoroughly 21st century company on the cutting edge of both music and technology has garnered rave reviews and increased sales revenues. “All of the things he has done have also been quite costly. The Met’s budget has grown more than 21% in two years, to a projected $268.3 million… Its deficit — despite energetic fund raising — is likely to widen to somewhere between $6 million and $10 million.”

“What a surprising situation we’re now in, with folk musicians ‘aspiring up’ to bigger forms, and classical composers delving down to ancient roots. Will these two trends meet and mingle somewhere in the middle? Or will they be like ships passing on the sea, dipping their flags to each other before sailing on to some unknown destination?”

“The robot will lead the humans in a performance of Frank Sinatra’s Impossible Dream, a song that’s become something of an anthem for Honda.”

“While divas often sing their praises, opera prompters are a dwindling breed. Today, just a handful of prompters ply the trade in the U.S. In Italy, where singers say the practice originated, most of the big houses still employ prompters, but they’re less often used in England and Germany.”

“The tenor Matthew Polenzani has been named the winner of the $50,000 Beverly Sills Artist Award for young American singers at the Metropolitan Opera. The award is intended to further the careers of gifted singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have appeared in featured solo roles with the Met.”

Since taking over as head of London’s Barbican Centre, Nicholas Kenyon has launched an ambitious plan to make the venue’s programming more exciting, more broad-based, and more global. “One of Kenyon’s plans: find Britain’s answer to Venezuela’s acclaimed Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.”

Solo encores were common in the 19th century but fell out of fashion as performance practice grew more serious. At the Met they had been explicitly banned for much of the 20th century. Before Monday night the only such occasion had been Luciano Pavarotti’s repeating the second-act tenor aria in “Tosca” in 1994, Met officials said.