Music
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More on Alex Ross, Wagnerism
Ross Captures The Meister's Voice
By: - Sep 14th, 2020Alex Ross’s depiction of Wagner in America, in his new work "Wagnerism," is focused at the start on the author Willa Cather. Ross finds Cather and Thomas Mann the most musically educated and sophisticated of the many literary figures who infused their work with the ideas of the Meister. The boundless scope of a work, its inclusion of ancient myth made present, and leitmotifs bound together to organize a story, are key elements of the Wagner style.
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More on Wagnerism by Alex Ross
George Eliot Absorbs Wagner
By: - Sep 10th, 2020When Wagner’s music crossed the English Channel, it attracted the attention of novelist and critic, George Eliot, who always took a great interest in music. Early on, she identified Wagner’s achievement as a path to the future, writing, “…anyone who finds deficiencies in opera as it has existed hitherto...” must admit that Wagner “…has pointed out the directions in which lyric drama must develop itself, if it is to be developed at all.”
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Ross On Wagnerism
The Intoxification of Baudelaire
By: - Sep 03rd, 2020Alex Ross whose Wagnerism is to be published on September 15th, first heard Wagner on a LP record borrowed from his local library. Listening to Lohengrin, he was neither transformed nor transfixed. The Meister is not a free pass to paradise. Yet many listeners have been instantly seduced by a steady procession of creeping chromaticisms.
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Alex Ross on Wagnerism
Wagnerism: The Superb Story of Culture Over 150 Years
By: - Aug 28th, 2020Alex Ross has written a Wagnerian book about the impact of Richard Wagner on the culture and politics of his times, leading right up to our own. "Wagnerism". the term which serves as the title of the book, was used early on in English by George Eliot, one of the many writers who fell under Wagner's spell. It is used to define Wagner’s methods: his scope which spreads out to the edges of the Universe and beyond, his use of myths, and his tones which are often highly erotic and then some.
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Hancock Shaker Village
A Special Invitation Sunday August 30
By: - Aug 26th, 2020Live from Hancock Shaker Village: Songs of Comfort will be broadcast live on WAMC and streamed online or on the WAMC app. This Sunday August 30 at 7 pm.
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Elektra by Strauss Live at Salzburg Festival
Krzysztof Warlikowski's Wrenching Drama
By: - Aug 16th, 2020Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Elektra opens the 2020 Salzburg Festival. An electrifying interpretation of the wild Richard Strauss opera based on the drama by Hans Hofmannsthal announced that Austria is alive and well.
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Lawrence Brownlee, Bel Canto
National Sawdust Presents a Master
By: - Aug 08th, 2020Lawrence Brownlee talked about music and our times with composers Helga Davis and Paola Prestini. The event was hosted by National Sawdust, an institution for our times, which is led by the super-energetic Prestini.
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BSO Cancels Fall Season
Winter 2021 Will Be Announced in December
By: - Jul 30th, 2020For the first time in its 139-year history, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will suspend its fall season of performances at Symphony Hall, September 16-November 28. Plans for winter programming will be announced in September,
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Lawrence Brownlee and Friends
Lyric Opera of Chicago Streams a Virtual Concert
By: - Jul 28th, 2020Lawrence Brownlee is an ambassador of song. He is not only a great bel canto tenor, but also leader in discussions on our racial divide. Identifying as a descendant of Africans and a person of dark skin tone, he has mentored young singers and helped direct the conversation on race in the arts and in the world about us. Yet he does not like the designation of Ella Fitzgerald as part of Black Heritage, her position on a postage stamp. Rather he sees her as a great American singer. Blacks are part of a larger community, not self-segregated.
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Bop Singer Annie Ross
Recorded as Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
By: - Jul 24th, 2020Among the elite and most innovative jazz vocalists of her generation, Annie Ross who died this week at 89, was born in a suitcase and traveled for the rest of her life. She is best know for recordings with the legendary Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.
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Fred Plotkin: Renaissance Man
Renowned Expert on Italian food and Opera
By: - Jul 23rd, 2020Fred Plotkin notes: “I am not a singer or musician, yet my working life has a lot of similarities in that most of my income is derived from appearing in front of audiences in places of public assembly. People buy tickets to what I do so, of course, that means that all of my contracts, all of my speaking engagements, have been canceled until November.”
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Amadeus Streamed by National Theatre
What Salieri Saw in Mozart That Vienna Missed
By: - Jul 21st, 2020Often it is suggested that Salieri was alone in his appreciation of Mozart. He saw immediately his extraordinary gifts. Enjoy Leonard Bernstein’s father’s response to a question about why he did not support his son’s musical aspirations. “I didn’t know Leonard Bernstein was Leonard Bernstein.” Viennese society did not know that Mozart was Mozart. No one did, xcept Antonio Salieri, writers’ observe, beginning with Puskin.
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The Digital Stage from Festival d'Aix
Boesmans, Stravinsky, Simon McBurney Under One Umbrella
By: - Jul 12th, 2020Pinocchio and The Rake’s Progress, video recordings of performances at Aix, are now being offered. They continue on YouTube after the Digital Festival 2020 ends. The importance of Aix as a creator of new work and new productions is clear in these two works.
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Streaming from Aix-en-Provence
Saariaho, Sellars, Rattle and Kožená
By: - Jul 07th, 2020Aix en Provence is offering a digital festival to those of us who can't enter France. Their selection of recitals, conversations and opera performances is intriguing and invites.
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Tanglewood Goes Online for Summer Festival
Nelsons on the Podium and in Class
By: - Jul 06th, 2020My colleague Phillip S. Kampe spent opening day at Tanglewood. It. was not what he expected. He enjoyed bottled water only. Yet the scenery and the quiet was transforming. You can fill in the real thing with rich program streaming from the Boston Symphony.
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Birmingham Opera's Mittwoch aus Licht by Stockhausen
Listening to the Future and Preparing for What is To Come
By: - Jul 06th, 2020Birmingham Opera streams Karlheinz Stochhausen's Mittwoche, helicopters and call. Graham Vick brings us the humor and mystery of this great work. Housed in an industrial warehouse, the audience sits and lies on the floor to listen and irresistibly engage in the proceedings. They compulsively draw us in, listening to harmonies and melodic lines emerge from a trombonist in a plastic pool, splashing water, and a parliament gathered on tennis umpire chairs to discuss the most important of world subjects, love.
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David Lang's Love Fails Streams
Beth Morrison Projects Presents Opera of the Week
By: - Jul 02nd, 2020Beth Morrison brings us the 'love fails' stream. Morrison is a leader in the march forward of opera into the 21st century. The opera was recorded in Poland with the superb Quince Contemporary Ensemble performing. Echo is used effectively to hover voices in the performance space.
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Lawrence Brownlee from Home on Being Black
A Formidable Tenor Speaks Openly About race
By: - Jun 29th, 2020Lawrence Brownlee sang a two-part concert at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017. In the Officer's Room he performed the bel canto arias we have come to associate with him. He is entirely comfortable. And he is sure that Bellini would welcome him, black or not, in any role. He moved to the Veteran's Room for the second part of the program. There he performed pop songs, gospel and folk. He was less comfortable in the more relaxed atmosphere. Now with downtime he discusses race.
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Woolf Works Streaming from the Royal Ballet
Wayne McGregor and Max Richter Join in Storytelling
By: - Jun 26th, 2020The Royal Ballet's #OurHousetoYourHouse premieres a stream of Wayne McGregor's Woolf Works, featuring music by Max Richter and inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf. It won the Olivier and the Critic's Circle Awards for Dance in 2015. Allesandra Ferri dances Woolf.
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Orchestra of St. Luke's Presents Bach at Home
Delightful Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 Launches Series
By: - Jun 24th, 2020Musicians return to Bach as a home base. He is not only fundamental, but a composer of sheer beauty, delight and even complexity. As listeners, we can return with the Orchestra of St. Luke's to a series of online concerts for our home bound performance time.
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Virtual Works & Process from the Guggenheim
Social Distancing Dance and Music
By: - Jun 14th, 2020Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions financially supports artists and nurtures their creative process during these challenging times. Works & Process at the Guggenheim is granting over $150,000 for artists to create new works while observing social distancing. New works will be posted on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube (@worksandprocess) every Sunday and Monday at 7:30pm.
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MoMA Streams "Right On" from The Last Poets
Produced by Woodie King Jr and Directed by Herbert Danska
By: - Jun 11th, 2020MoMA is streaming a restored print of Right On!, a classic film released in the early 1970s. Featuring The Last Poets, we are taken back to the origins of Hip Hop and of the first presentation of black culture by blacks. Felice Luciano, one of the original poets, speaks briefly about the prophetic poetry of the group. Fifty years ago they predicted today.
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Translating Movies into Opera
Why Operatic Movies Fail on Stage
By: - Jun 07th, 2020It is tempting for current composers of new opera to use films as a jumping off place. In two recent efforts, the creative artists miss the strength of the film's story arc and flatten their effort to create opera. Marnie at the Metropolitan Opera (and English National Opera) and Breaking the Waves (Opera Philadelphia) both overlook the strengths which provide drama in the films on which they are based.
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Urban Arias Live Streams Independence Eve
Racism Sung Through a Century's Lens
By: - Jun 04th, 2020Prescient or just plain lucky, the streaming of Independence Eve occurred in the midst of a new pandemic of racism in America. The opera premiered in Arlington, Virginia in 2017. A triptych of duets between a white man and black man, who end up as 10 years olds in 2063, is a fresh look at the persistence of racial issues. Urban Arias continues to stream on Facebook.
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Library of Congress and Portland Ovation
What Berkshire Grande Dame Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Hath Wrought
By: - May 29th, 2020Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, a grande dame of Berkshire music, financed the building of a concert hall for the Library of Congress. A concert planned at Coolidge Hall this spring was presented live streamed instead. The Library of Congress joined with co-presenter, Portland Ovation, and the International Contemporary Ensemble to present a program that worked amazingly well in Zoom.
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