Category: music

Berlin’s three opera houses are scrapping with one another to survive. “Does a city really need three opera houses? Probably not, but Berlin has long taken pride in its embarrassment of operatic riches. If one house closes, the city will end up with the same eminently sensible—and thus eminently predictable—arrangement that applies in New York, Paris, and London. There will be the “big” house, like the Met or Covent Garden, presenting de-luxe productions with international stars; and there will be the “alternative” house, like New York City Opera or English National Opera, staking out slightly more adventurous repertory. With three companies, you never quite know what you’re going to get.”

“Given his bad-boy reputation and hipness quotient, one might expect Baz Luhrmann’s late 1950s-set “La Boheme” to, in effect, go nuts. It doesn’t. Based on his 1990 Australian Opera production, it’s a surprisingly straightforward, generously entertaining, ravishingly designed accomplishment. Few will find it truly moving.”

“To assist with the overhaul, Baz casts luscious twentysomethings in the four romantic leads, bringing cheer to those of us who feel that attractive people have always been an oppressed and ignored minority in the performing arts.”

“Luhrmann maintains his exotic persona by keeping the Italian original and using slangy, conversational, occasionally silly hep-cat-man supertitles, undertitles and side titles with contrasting type fonts – including script for romantic arias and even a “KA-POW” in the struggling-artist horseplay – as part of the multitasking collage sensibility. This can be amusing. It can also be self-conscious.”

“The total result is a very special and very appealing style somewhere between romance and chic, that actually is new on Broadway.”

“Whether you queue up for the cheap seats or splurge on the more expensive ones, Luhrmann’s paean to love and death is worth experiencing at least once.”

Top candidate to take over as music director of the Toronto Symphony is former Tokyo String Quartet violinist Peter Oundjian. Oundjian retired from playing the violin in the mid-90s after an injury and made his conducting debut in summer 1995, replacing an ailing André Previn at the Caramoor festival. The TSO has been without a music director since June 2001.

Of course the Metropolitan Opera is America’s best – and biggest. But San Francisco is surely second (or third?) best?

Baz Luhrmann’s “La Boheme” opens in a flash of color on Broadway. “The show is far more respectful of its sentimental operatic essence than many of the lugubrious, experimental productions of old war horses at the Met. (Think ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ or ‘Il Trovatore.’) What Mr. Luhrmann and his extraordinary production designer (and wife), Catherine Martin, have done is find the visual equivalent of the sensual beauty and vigor of the score.”

“Luhrmann does not so much reinvent ‘La Boheme’ as repackage it. He makes a powerful case for wresting it out of the exclusive control of highbrow culture and into the realm of mainstream musical theater.