Category: music

A week ago, Philadelphia Mayor John Street triumphantly announced that he had brokered the “framework” of a new agreement between the musicians and management of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and expected that the two sides would fill in the details quickly and easily. Instead, the negotiations have stalled yet again, with “many key aspects of the deal in dispute,” and Mayor Street is being asked to resume his role as mediator.

Australia’s first Ring Cycle, premiering this month in Adelaide, has been turned down for broadcast by the country’s largest TV and radio network. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation says that the fees which would be commanded by the performers involved simply make a broadcast unthinkable. The production costs for the cycle are already at AUS$15.3 million, and a CD project is planned for a 2005 release.

What does it take to put on a Ring Cycle? Well, you’ll need five years to plan the logistics, enough orchestra musicians to cover 16 hours of music, 35 scenery trucks, a tech crew of 80 professionals, a conductor healthy enough to get through the damn thing without collapsing, and oh yes, “a 10×16-metre curtain of water that doesn’t splash the orchestra, make too much noise or drown the audience.”

“State Opera South Australia’s $15.3 million production of Der Ring Des Nibelungen is Australia’s biggest and most ambitious theatrical undertaking, yet only 6000 people will get to see it. This production, Australia’s first, is a global diary note on the calendars of rich European and American Wagnerites wanting to see this watershed Australian foray into high German opera. Then, after 12 nights costing more than $1 million a night, it will be mothballed with no plans to perform it again. It is an exercise in excess.”

Venice’s La Fenice opera house reopened Thursday night with a gala performance. “Every detail of the original 18th Century building has been faithfully reproduced and state-of-the-art sprinkler fire protection and an underground freshwater reservoir have been installed to stave off any future disaster. And on Thursday night a glittering gathering of celebrities and politicians attended the first opera performance in the reconstructed theatre.”

Norman Lebrecht is impressed with the Metropolitan Opera’s choice of Peter Gelb as its new top man. Impressed in the wrong way. “When I tell you that the new man has done more over the past decade to remove classical music and opera from public consumption, you will understand that the simmering scandal at the Met has the gelignite to blow a hole in opera far larger than all the petty mishaps of English, Scottish and French national operas put together.”

Musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra have approved a new two-year contract. “Under the new Cleveland agreement, the musicians will be compensated for the first time for Internet streaming of radio broadcasts. But the players will pay more for their health care, and their annual pension won’t rise during the contract period.”

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra reports a surplus of $200,000, reversing a $750,000 deficit the previous season. The orchestra recently reorganized its management, spreading out decisions on running the orchestra.

Eight years after fire gutted Venice’s famed La Fenice, the opera house is set to reopen this weekend. “The latest restoration, some critics have carped, has certainly achieved authenticity, but without easing such discomfort. Still, La Fenice’s place in the great opera houses of the world is assured, no matter how cramped some of the seating may be.”

Opera Australia has to find a temporary home while the Sydney Opera House is being refurbished. Where to go? One option is a local casino. The company “declined to speculate on how opera audiences might feel about mixing with casino clientele, but said everything possible would be done to make the experience enjoyable.”