Category: music

The number of opera production in North America has doubled in the past decade, says a report by Opera America. “The 166 professional opera companies Opera America polled — including the Metropolitan Opera, the Canadian Opera Company and the San Francisco Opera — have increased their domestic productions from 31 in the 1990–91 season to 60 in the 1999–2000 season.” – Sonicnet

Earlier this summer  a production of “La Traviata” was filmed in real time in various locations around Paris where the story might have happened. An all-star cast and a $25 million budget still don’t make for a satisfying experience. The telecast tries to “convince you this is a real-life parallel universe where people happen to sing rather than speak. That is dishonest. And in coping with Verdi’s sense of ‘opera time,’ which is a slower than normal TV time and even slower than real time, Griffi’s camera zooms in and out for tight close-ups in a show of virtuosity that alienates you from the story.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

A former conductor of a Montreal orchestra has sued the orchestra for breach of contract. He claims the orchestra board pressured him to fire some musicians and he quit instead. – CBC

“To those who whine, who doubt his importance to our times and to the future – a warning. To Boulez we owe the most influential musical changes of our lifetime – as a conductor, composer, educator, programme planner and superior being, he has embraced an international state of artistic achievement, and wrestled, built and triumphed on all our behalfs. He has educated a whole generation of musicians – and happily, ecstatically even, it was mine – evangelising for rhythm and form over mere miasma of sound or texture, and has been bold for all who would be creative, insisting on rigour in intellect, opinion, art and its practice.” – The Scotsman

Leonard Slatkin spoke up this weekend about the proper attire for women violinists in his orchestra: “I tend to favour covered arms, especially among the violinists. You don’t want to see too much flapping about. Then there’s the problem of women in trousers. If you’re slightly heavy in the rear end department, it does not look too good. Of course, not everyone acknowledges that and no one’s going to tell them, which is why we need an across-the-board rule.” – The Times (UK)

Where are all the great conductors? “Why has the field become so mundane? Perhaps the cult of the conductor is essentially a 19th-century phenomenon; perhaps post-war Western society, no longer able to believe in benevolent political dictatorship, has become wary of its musical counterpart, too.” – National Post (Canada)

San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program graduates offer a peek at tomorrow’s opera stars. – San Francisco Chronicle

• Last week Itzhak Perlman and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed the first live webcast under the new agreement with American orchestras to perform concerts on the web. How’d it go? Not ready for prime time, writes Detroit music critic John Guinn. – Gloff.net

“Is there a case to be made against Mahler’s legend, if not his music? How has his entry into Valhalla changed the way we listen and the way composers think? With his monumentalism, his fanaticism, his unstinting idealism, and his unstinting egotism, he has not always been what school counsellors call ‘a good influence’. He left in his wake a series of inimitable, much-imitated masterpieces and a great deal of confusion about what a composer is supposed to do.” – London Review of Books