“Great bad singers take our greatest fears and put them on the stage in front of us. Florence Foster Jenkins lives out all of our worst nightmares: getting up in public unprepared, being mocked without knowing it, realizing you have forgotten to get dressed before going out.”
Category: music
The Hottest Thing In ‘Slow Radio’ Is Orchestra Musicians Playing Outside, With Birds
“A group of musicians will venture into the Sussex woods to make music with nightingales, while Radio 3 breakfast show listeners will be introduced to a new bird’s song each weekend, paired with a piece of music.”
The Met’s Box Office Numbers Are Grim. What’s Next?
“Mr. Gelb said that the Met planned surveys and focus groups and would open more dress rehearsals to students and work to expand educational offerings. He said that since the company’s softest sales came in winter, he was weighing a midwinter break.”
When Punk Musicians Grow Up
“People were aware of my past and it probably put a lot of the more straight people off. … I still muck about with music, but I wished I’d paid more heed to that particular itch about five or 10 years ago. My work is so intense that it’s hard to fit music in now.”
Using Poetry To Explain, And Explore, Music
“To be able to sing under that kind of oppression I think, in a lot of ways, is the very essence of survival, of a people, of the ability to have to the hope to make something beautiful amongst so much wretchedness. That’s critical to the concept of human survival.”
The Los Angeles Opera Being Filmed And Posted Online In 10-Minute Segments
“Dusk is enveloping a small Shadow Hills ranch in steely gray light as a dying cow sings an aria. A chorus of milkmaids and a marching band lead the ill-fated bovine to her untimely death. In the background, a pair of alpacas watch the scene with puzzled curiosity. This is not a hallucination. It is an opera.”
Levine’s Last Met Music Director Performance
“After the final curtain, the weight of the moment was the most palpable. As the members of the cast came out for their curtain calls, they seemed more interested in applauding Mr. Levine than in receiving applause themselves. And the audience did not seem to want to let the afternoon end: The loudest cheers for Mr. Levine came after the singers had left the stage.”
How He Does It: Watch An MRI Of This Opera Singer Singing Wagner
While performing with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, German baritone Michael Volle impressively sang the Wagner aria “Song to the Evening Star” from Tannhäuser while undergoing a MRI scan.
The $200,000 Piano That Pianists Think Is Worth It
“Mr Fazioli’s factory — more accurately, a hall filled with craftsmen and their tools—runs at full capacity, turning out 140 grand pianos a year. Because they are made to order, customers have to wait between four and eight months for delivery of the instruments, for which they are prepared to pay as much as $200,000. So large is the demand that Mr Fazioli is increasing the size of the factory to make 160-170 pianos a year.”
English National Opera To Perform Outside London For First Time In 30 Years
A ten-performance run of the popular Jonathan Miller staging of The Mikado in Blackpool this summer is part of a program that will also take the company to three other venues in London while its home, the Coliseum, is rented out for musicals.