Category: music

“Miami is the largest city in the country that doesn’t have a classical music service. It’s also a larger city than most, and since we are one of the major classical music and arts producers in the world, and the largest in the United States, making sure we can get our programming out to people is key, and this was an opportunity to enhance our ability to send our programming to the major cities.”

“Perhaps, in the same way that we have original Coca-Cola and the diet variety, we ought to have original Wagner and diet Wagner, too. Since Bayreuth is horribly oversubscribed, an extra Ring each year that has helmets with horns, breastplates, spears and, of course, real horses, would be a treat.”

Movie director Sally Potter didn’t like opera. Then she was asked to direct one by the English National Opera. “I used to think the best opera production of all time was the Marx brothers film, A Night at the Opera. When I was first asked by the boss of another major opera house what opera I would like to direct, I named it – not entirely in jest – as the one (I was of course met with disbelief).”

“It’s been a month since the Seattle Symphony made international headlines with the announcement that it would become the first American orchestra with four permanent concertmasters.” And now the season has begun. “Will it be a season of musical chairs, with inconsistent leadership and a series of communications challenges? Or one in which the four violinists energize the strings and the orchestra as a whole with new musical leadership?”

“(F)or a certain type of New Yorker, the type who might view fall as a pearl-strand of grand parties staged on a grand scale, fall officially began last night with the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ at Lincoln Center. This, at least, is how Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, would have it. Which is why, in his second year, he continued his practice of inaugurating the opera season with a lavishly choreographed, heavily promoted gala.”

“Katharina Wagner, who made her directorial debut at Bayreuth this summer to mixed reviews, is teaming up with Christian Thielemann, the musical director of the Munich Philharmonic and a respected Wagner conductor.”

“Though classical music makes a respectable showing in iTunes, executives for compact disc purveyors from ArkivMusic to Brilliant Classics say their consumers are suspicious of downloads, fearing their music will be somehow swallowed up by their computer. Or, given the often-superior sound quality of compact discs, they don’t see the point. Yet given the low-margin, long-view profits that have made classical music almost un-American in its lack of market performance, the digital domain is the best news in years – especially since the demise of CD retailers that once sustained the classical industry, such as Tower Records.”

It’s called “Appomattox,” and it delves into the final days of the bloody Civil War. “I’ve done this for 50 years, so I can hear a little bit. I can pretty much visualize the sounds. I’ve got a lot of colors in my box that I didn’t have when I was a so-called minimalist. I got them the old-fashioned way – I went out and learned how to do it.”

Fringe Atlanta is a new kind of classical ensemble. “Fringe’s aim is to present tried-and-true classical music in what might be called MTV-generation attitudes to entertainment. Advised to “Feel free to get your groove on,” the audience of about 200 people attempted this feat while listening to music by Zoltan Kodaly and Franz Schubert. The results were successful beyond all expectation.”

“It means Atlanta can finally start catching up with opera companies in peer cities, like the Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera or Opera Theater St. Louis. And start catching up, in budget and prestige, with the Southeast’s dominant performing arts group, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.”