Category: music

Tim Page declares Placido Domingo’s new Tristan recording a triumph. “It has long been thought that Domingo had it in him to actually sing Tristan, and some listeners suspected that he might prove to be the most musical Tristan since the legendary Lauritz Melchior, who virtually owned the role in the 1930s and ’40s. And now, at the age of 63, Domingo has proved it, with a new recording of “Tristan und Isolde” for EMI Classics. His performance is everything one could have hoped for — ardent, lyrical, intelligent and astonishingly sweet-toned, with only a few effortful passages to remind the listener that Domingo has been before the public for more than 45 years.”

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is 35 years old. A tumultuous history and a record of solid music-making have put the orchestra on a solid track as one of the city’s primary musical assets

“Doctor Atomic will surely not deliver history’s final verdict on Robert Oppenheimer. It may, however, lay to rest persistent misconceptions about John Adams’s work, which has been described since “Nixon in China” as “CNN opera.” The label applies well enough to other operas “ripped from the headlines.” But it never really applied to the Adams operas, which sought from the first to lend topical subjects the timelessness and ambiguity of myth.”

Opera set in modern times just plain doesn’t work. Writes Andrew O’Hagan: “Opera can’t cope with modern boredom or the banality of everyday speech without making it seem hilariously camp, overblown, unreal, and unfelt. Anything prosaic quickly seems fake. Everything practical suddenly seems doomed. Maybe opera is just too bold-gestured and not the kind of drama I can believe in when set in a modern context. Even where the music is lovely, and the look is right.”

When John Adams and Peter Sellers tried out their new “Dr. Atomic” in front of a physicist last year, they got an immediate reaction. Bad physics! cried the scientist. Well, you can’t do an opera about science and have the science be wrong. So the libretto has been tweaked…

More and more orchestras are dangling “extras” to entice people to come to concerts. “Spicing up concerts with bells and whistles may very well engage the short-attention-span set, but those folks may then expect the extras every time they enter a concert hall. And this could keep them essentially stuck in one kind of experience, patronizing only one kind of orchestral product. That wouldn’t matter as long as all the other products are doing well. But orchestras have been suffering mostly from lagging sales for the traditional, just-the-notes-ma’am subscription series, which play to an orchestra’s base and usually do the most to shore up the finances.”

“Today many well-known rock bands are pursuing second acts with new lead singers, raising questions not only about just how far the trend can go, but about where a band’s identity truly lies. Music executives say a band’s ability to outlive its singer usually depends on which was more influential: the songs or the cult of personality. In the case of Motown ensembles on the oldies circuit, the songs win out every time.”

Soprano Aprile Millo cancels a Carnegie Hall concert after the promoter wants her to sing “crossover” music. “I said, ‘My crossover is to Handel,’ It’s one profession trying to get another profession to modern up. And it’s not going to work, not with this girl.”

James Levine costs the Boston Symphony. And he makes the musicians work hard. “The BSO players knew what they were getting into. That’s why they negotiated what’s called the ‘Levine Premium’ before the maestro’s first season. They get an extra $220 for each of the music director’s 12 weeks. With about 100 players in the BSO and including other expenses, the total adds up to roughly $278,000 for the season. And there are other costs…”

“The more singers you talk to, the more the impression emerges of Los Angeles as a prime booby trap for anyone who contemplates a serious vocal career…”