Category: music

“In 1988, conductor Valery Gergiev emerged as a “poster-boy for Gorbachev’s perestroika, an intense young man chosen at the tender age of 34 to lead Leningrad’s Kirov Opera. Today, everything has changed: Leningrad is once again St. Petersburg, and the Kirov Theatre has reverted to its czarist name, the Mariinsky (although its ensembles – the opera, the ballet, the orchestra and chorus — still tour under the name Kirov). The one factor that has remained constant is Gergiev. He’s no longer quite so young – his shaggy hairstyle disguises a combed-over bald spot – yet he has lost none of his intensity.”

It worked in New York with the Broadway musicians strike. Now Houston mayor Lee Brown has decided to get involved in the Houston Symphony musicians strike. He’s appointed a special representative to work with the two sides and “said his action is aimed at helping the parties come to an agreement and return the Symphony to the Jones Hall stage, since a prolonged dispute is not only detrimental to the orchestra, but also to the entire city of Houston.”

Writer Margaret Atwood was suprised when she was approached with the idea of turning her book “The Handmaiden’s Tale” into an opera. “I was aware of the problems the creators of the opera must have faced. The novel has much internal monologue: how would they handle that? How to convey the back-story to the plot? Would the costumes look not strange and ominous, but merely silly?”

Some striking Houston Symphony musicians have apparently abandoned all hope that their orchestra will continue to be a viable employment option. The HSO strike is now more than two weeks old, and there are no signs that a settlement is near. Four musicians have already won jobs elsewhere, and many more are taking every audition that comes along. A few are retiring, and some are leaving the area to become freelance musicians in friendlier artistic climes. The departing musicians have good things to say about their years in the HSO, but nothing but hopeless resignation regarding the current dispute.

If critics are having trouble finding musical protests against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it’s probably because they’re looking in the wrong corner of the music industry. Once the province of folkies with acoustic guitars, political outrage has become the province of rock music, and artists from the Beastie Boys to Sheryl Crow are issuing quick hits against the military action. A web site even offers the chance to download protest songs by major artists free of charge.

Putting on a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle is the operatic equivalent of staging four major Broadway musicals and four symphony orchestra concerts simultaneously. That kind of excess costs money, and if you aren’t the Metropolitan Opera (and these days, who is?) you’d better have a plan for serious fundraising. In Australia, the State Opera of Adelaide is putting the finishing touches on an innovative campaign to bring a Ring Cycle there in 2004. Rather than merely soliciting donations from opera lovers, organizers offered donors the chance to ‘sponsor’ a specific role in the opera, a member of the creative team, or even the conductor.

It used to be that conductors proved themselves with their music. Nowadays, writes Sarah Bryan Miller, many conductors seem more at ease schmoozing with their audiences than showing insight in their music. “The younger ones, in particular, have grown up with the idea that they should be as comfortable chatting – on radio, on television, to an audience – as actually leading an orchestra. Besides, conductors are not, as a breed, short on ego. Nattering from the podium seems, for many of the more egregious practitioners, to be just another way of hogging the spotlight.”

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, which has been facing a severe cash crunch for many months, announced this weekend that it would not be able to make its Friday payroll. The orchestra is $800,000 in the hole for the current season, and may not be able to continue presenting concerts without a quick influx of donated cash. A $250,000 loan from the federal government has been approved, but the WSO won’t get the money until it raises another $750,000 on its own. “The orchestra began the season with a $1.8-million accumulated deficit. Even if it gets the money it needs to finish the season, it expects to almost double the deficit to $3.3 million.”

The musicians of the cash-strapped Winnipeg Symphony have announced that they will continue to woprk, at least for the time being, despite not receiving paychecks on Friday. “You have to separate the issues,” according to a spokesman for the musicians. “There’s a long-term relationship with the audience… and the business issues.”

“The beleaguered English National Opera is worth saving ‘but not at any cost’, the Arts Council of England has said at a meeting discussing ENO’s cash troubles.” The issue of whether the ENO ‘deserves’ a bailout is a delicate one, but some council members have been disgusted by revelations of finanial mismanagement and continuing fiscal irresponsibility at the company. At the very least, any bailout package from the Arts Council is likely to include stipulations that the ENO clean up its act, and provide evidence that it is doing so.