Category: music

The planet is awash in tenors. They’re popping up everywhere. But have we hit tenor aturation? “Among serious opera people, suspicion is warranted. Legitimately trained tenors often come and go in a few seasons. And ours is a time when questionably trained pop tenors sweep the country with massive marketing campaigns and then disappear before they can develop artistically.”

Take a look at lists of critics’ choices for top recordings of the year, then look at what music sold best. Guess what? They don’t match. “The only thing people who buy records and those who write about them agree on, then, is an album whose pastel wistfulness just begs for the spine-stiffening effect of a stint in the marines. This prompts the disheartening thought that the only listeners whose habits rock journalists have any influence over are in fact other rock journalists.”

Richard Armstrong has resigned as director of the Scottish Opera. “James MacMillan, the country’s leading composer, reacted angrily and accused the Scottish Executive and Arts Council of ‘making Scotland into a laughing stock the world over’. Mr MacMillan said the executive and SAC’s lack of support for the opera company, which is to have 88 jobs cut in a money saving move, was down to “a misguided anti-elitism. They see high arts as not really Scottish – which is an insult to the people who want the highest level of opera, theatre and music provision.”

“The San Francisco Symphony finished its 2003-04 fiscal year with an unexpected $700,000 surplus on an operating budget of just over $50 million, according to a report presented at Monday’s annual board meeting. The black ink was the result of some timely cost-cutting combined with stronger-than- anticipated ticket sales… But management isn’t expecting the good times to last: The budget for the current year includes a planned deficit of more than $2 million.”

Earlier this season Sara Jobin made history as the first woman ever to conduct a mainstage opera at the San Francisco Opera. “At this point the only people who have trouble with the idea of a woman conductor are sometimes board members, especially older women who have had to fight the hard battles themselves. They look at me and think, ‘Why would an orchestra pay attention to you?’ But of course the orchestra doesn’t pay attention to me, they pay attention to the music.”

Union performers are suing San Francisco Opera in part over performances at a birthday party for music director Donald Runnicles. “The suit, brought by singers, dancers and production staff members, accused the opera of refusing to go to arbitration or to follow grievance procedures over the charges. ‘They blatantly ignore us. They just kind of do what they want to do, and if it happens to violate the contract, ‘Oops!’ “

New research indicates that despite legal threats and aggressive anti-downloading efforts, the rate of downloading hasn’t declined in the past year. “While some people would have been scared off by the legal actions, others will be all the more determined to do it.”

The classical music recording industry is dying, right? Not so fast, writes Anthony Tommasini. “Despite the financial struggles in the industry, it feels as if we are in the midst of a golden age of classical recording. So what’s going on? Several things, no doubt. Being forced to cut back production drastically has made label executives come up with projects that matter, recordings that truly contribute to the discography. “Smaller is better” may be a cliché, but that approach has paid off for the classical recording industry.”

What’s the worst crime against music criticism, asks Jen Graves? Boring writing. “True criticism is activism on behalf of a vision. It is crucial to be well-informed, but beyond that, it is better to be wrong than boring. Like orchestras, classical critics allow themselves to be suffocated by false burdens of ‘greatness’ and posterity.”

Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have ratified a new three-year contract that begins with a wage freeze. “Extraordinary circumstances in recent years require extraordinary gestures on our part. This will be an unprecedented second consecutive contract with a wage freeze in the first year and containing an overall salary increase significantly below the cost of living.”