Category: people

“The size, power and precision of Ms. Nilsson’s voice was long considered to be one of the seven wonders of the operatic world, starting in her 1946 Stockholm Royal Opera debut in Der Freischütz and her 1951 Glyndebourne Festival debut in Idomeneo.”

“Ms. Nilsson sang the operas of Richard Strauss and made a specialty of Puccini’s ‘Turandot,’ but it was Wagner who served her career and whom she served as no other soprano since the days of Kirsten Flagstad. A big, blunt woman with a wicked sense of humor, Ms. Nilsson brooked no interference from Wagner’s powerful and eventful orchestral writing.”

James Levine has turned the Metropolitan Orchestra into one of the best, and his debut season with the Boston Symphony has been acclaimed. “Even taking into account his rich career, with its long trail of megasopranos, James Levine may just now be at his absolute peak. So why won’t people in the classical-music world stop whispering, or worrying, about him?”

So says Germaine Greer: “Her importance is embodied in those precious works that capture the excitement and tension of respectable women on the verge of the 20th century, the moment before the bonnet and the stays were finally torn off and thrown away for ever.”

Nathan Gunn is one hell of a singer. No one is disputing that. But the thing is, he’s also unbelievably good-looking, especially in comparison to many of his male compatriots in the opera world, who have a tendency to look – how shall we put it – very, very fat. Consequently, Gunn’s rise to the top of the opera world (and make no mistake, 2005 was the year the young baritone became a bona fide star) has run on two parallel tracks, one defined by his gentle and distinctive voice, and the other by his exceedingly well-defined pecs.

Say this for Daniel Barenboim: he’s never boring. The celebrated conductor/pianist may not have the youthful sheen that once added to his stardom, but his controversial involvement in Mideast politics and his outspoken opposition to America’s near-constant use of music as background noise make him one of the era’s best interviews. These days, Barenboim is on a lecture tour of three continents, and he is taking seemingly everyone to task: Americans for their short attention spans, Germans for being unwilling to accept the unpleasantness of their own history, Britons for allowing music education to decline precipitously, and Israelis for their seeming inability to differentiate between power and strength.

Let’s face facts. Elaine Stritch is not exactly in her prime these days – her voice cracks, her intonation is off, and she sounds like every bit of her 80 years. But Stritch did not become a Broadway legend by vocal talent alone, and her magnificent stage presence and bravado is 100% intact. Furthermore, the aspects of her singing that always made her unique – her use of silence and her special way of delivering lyrics – could be used as a primer for aspiring theatrical singers.

Rawls died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was hospitalized last month for treatment of lung and brain cancer.

“Irving Layton, one of the first Canadian poets to gain international stature and a controversial presence on the national scene for decades, died in Montreal yesterday at the age of 93. Before Layton, Canadian poets tended to be regarded as tweedy romantics, celebrating nature in the Victorian tradition. Layton changed all that. His poetry owed more to his childhood experience of his acid-tongued mother and the verbal combativeness of the Jewish immigrant community in Montreal than it did to Longfellow or Wordsworth.”

Peter Herrndorf, who is credited with bringing the Ottawa-based National Arts Centre back to national prominence in Canada, has had his contract as NAC president extended by two years, his second such extension. In Herrndorf’s six years on the job, the NAC has not run a deficit, and has nicely balanced the Centre’s double mission – to serve both a local and national audience – even while continuing to live in and commute from Toronto, some 430km from the NAC.