Category: music

“At a time when opera is fighting with other forms of entertainment for attention, opera companies are more than willing to use singers’ beauty in marketing efforts, and even onstage. But can attractive leads actually renew the audience for opera? And what is the net effect on the art form?”

Christopher O’Reilly’s “From the Top” is a radio sow that features student musicians. But despite its popularity, the show has fewer stations to be heard on as radio moves away from classical music. “Despite the seemingly infinite array of pop and rock music available to share on the Web, there remains an odd paucity of classical music to download. It is still radio that provides the introduction that can alter the course of a young life, he says.”

The Metropolitan Opera is broadcasting six historic opera performances every day on satellite radio. “Rebroadcasting an old radio program involves no complex legal agreements since money never actually changes hands, and if the Met hasn’t yet found a way to make a financial profit on its archives, it is at least garnering much publicity and good will by sending them back out over the air waves.”

Downloaded music is to be included in the UK Top 75 charts. “The move is likely to see older tracks brought to a new generation by TV shows, advertisements and films, or newly released digitally, shoot up the charts.”

An opera about Bill O’Reilly and the producer who sued him for harrasmentdebuts in Seattle next week. “I came up with the idea of making Bill O’Reilly sing on Halloween morning, 2004. The weather was dull and chilly. I sat at the edge of the bed, drowsy and somber while this thought coursed through my mind. Whether it was the previous night’s combination of cheap wine and homemade beer coming back to exact its revenge on me or pure, old-fashioned inspiration, I’ll never know. All I was really aware of was that if I didn’t write this piece, nobody would.”

The reviews of Tan Dun’s new opera “The First Emperor” at the Metropolitan Opera last week were pretty negative. But Frank Oteri wonders whether the reviews tell more about the reviewers than the piece…

“Swarms of online shoppers armed with new iPods and iTunes gift cards apparently overwhelmed Apple’s iTunes music store over the holiday, prompting error messages and slowdowns of 20 minutes or more for downloads of a single song.”

“If you think the Mozart Effect is over, however, think again. So huge was the return on Austria’s 30 million Euro investment in the Salzburg kid that repeat performances are being planned for the years ahead. Not for 2007, with its northern contemplations, nor for 2008 which has only Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Olivier Messiaen in the anniversary book, but for every blessed year thereafter until 2014 – by which time the world will either have rekindled its passion for classical music, or switched off altogether.”

Two recent demonstrations of booing at the opera point up how docile and undemonstrative today’s audiences have become. “Does today’s rather rational response signal the diminished importance of opera and ballet in today’s culture? Or is it a sign of well-adjusted enthusiasts having taken the place of rabid fans? It’s difficult to say.”

“We’re entering a new era of opera when the Metropolitan Opera starts simulcasting to movie theatres. “It’s hard to predict what this high-tech, hybrid experience will look and feel like. Met productions have appeared often on small-screen PBS telecasts, but not on the big screen. Do you buy tickets in advance? Can you eat popcorn while the fat lady sings? What elements of the opera will be underscored or minimized by the medium? Nobody can say.”