Category: music

In Canada there are several self-taught opera gurus who specialize in igniting a passion for the grand art in their audiences. “What these men have in common, besides an encyclopedic knowledge of opera, is a seemingly insatiable urge to communicate their passion to others. They all talk as persuasively as the proverbial refrigerator salesman in the High Arctic. It hardly seems necessary, since there appears to be no shortage of applicants for their courses and guided tours.”

A San Antonio mayor’s task force is recommending that the San Antonio Symphony take a year off to get its finances straight. “Mayor Ed Garza said he would urge the council to heed the task force’s recommendation that next year’s $339,500 city grant for the symphony be given instead to the oversight committee, which would hire an expert in transforming arts organizations.”

Cal Performances has dropped its biennial early-music festival, the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition, scheduled for next summer, citing lack of funds and a weak economy. “Begun in 1990, the festival produced 15 to 35 concerts every other year featuring early-music artists from around the world. The cost of producing it ranged from $250,000 to $750,000.”

The San Antonio Symphony still hopes to perform this season. “We were a little surprised by that. I’m not sure we’d support taking it totally down. I’d like to work at keeping a few concerts. It is important to keep some music out there, keep some musicians at least partly compensated.”

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s new music director is rethinking how the orchestra operates. “Gianluigi Gelmetti is determined to strengthen the orchestra’s links with its community by taking a personal interest in relationships with sponsors, governments and funding bodies, actively helping the careers of young conductors and instrumentalists, and electing to lead SSO touring in his first year to Lismore, Armidale and Newcastle.”

When Bard College’s new performing arts center opened last April, it got admiring reviews from critics, both for its looks and its acoustics. “Now, after a fuller range of musical and dramatic events at the just-completed annual Bard Music Festival and the new Bard SummerScape, one can better judge those acoustics — along with the aesthetics of the interiors and the prospects for how the center will be used year-round.”

In Edinburgh this summer, you can see a five-hour Korean opera. Maybe it’s good. But without some help, how are audiences supposed to figure it out? “How was the audience, unguided, supposed to navigate this terra incognita? It was not surprising that on my visit the Reid Concert Hall was half empty, with at least a dozen leaving at the first pause and more at the interval.”

Is opera too long? Does it require too much attention? “Opera North, based in Leeds, will stage eight one-act operas in four varying double bills next spring as part of its 25th birthday celebrations. The cautious and the initiated alike will be able to buy tickets for either or both shows on any night.”

The hottest ticket in LA this fall is the opening of the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall, new home to the LA Philharmonic. “What does this do for the city? I’m quite amused by the fact that the hottest ticket in L.A. is a classical music/architectural event, not some Hollywood thing. I’m going to enjoy that. It won’t happen again.”

San Francisco Opera is heading into its fall season with contract negotiations for many of its artists and production crews as yet unresolved. The company’s orchestra is currently negotiating, with chorus, dancers and production staff next up… “The labor negotiations, like everything else at San Francisco Opera, are shadowed by the company’s financial troubles. A 2002 operating deficit of $7.6 million forced substantial cutbacks. Two productions were eliminated from the 2003-04 season, and the annual operating budget was slashed by 25 percent.”