Publicity Comes in All Shapes and Colors

From the Washington Post comes news that pianist Dejan Lazic  has asked that the paper remove a concert review written by critic Anne Midgette back in 2010. His request is based on the European Union's Right to Be Forgotten ruling.

Oy vey. There are some misunderstanding here.

First of all, the Right to Be Forgotten ruling applies to search engines. A person can ask Google (at least) to remove links to particular items on the web from the search results served in Europe. The ruling does not in any way require the source of the item to remove that item from the web.  In other words, if I run a search on Dejan Lazic's name from my home in California, I am likely to see the link in my search results; the Washington Post is not obliged to remove the item from its web site. And also, Mr. Lazic has misdirected his request. It should go to Google, not the WaPo. If Google removed a link to an item at a German newspaper under the ruling, that link wouldn't be served in Europe, but it would be served  in the US, and the newspaper could retain the item itself on its web site.

(Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer, and furthermore, while I work for Google, nothing I say is other than my own opinion. I do not represent Google or its views, and what I know about the EU ruling comes from reading the NY Times and other public news sources.)

Second, Anne's review is what I would call mixed, and some of what she says is very positive indeed, the kind of thing that makes me want to hear what Mr. Lazic can do:

The very first notes of Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante at the start of the program signaled that he can do anything he wants at the keyboard, detailing chords with a jeweler's precision, then laying little curls of notes atop a cushion of sound like diamonds nestled on velvet. Again and again, throughout the afternoon, he showed what a range of colors he could get out of the instrument, switching from hard-edged percussiveness to creamy legato, crackling chords to a single thread of sound. The sheer technical ability was, at first, a delight.

Substitute an ellipsis for "at first" and you have a publicist's dream. It is obvious that this young man can really play the piano, with flair and technique to burn.

Third, and this gets us to a matter I've expounded before, it's usually not a good idea for a performer to read his or her reviews. That's what your manager, publicist, partner, and teacher (if you have one) are for. As I've noted, performers almost always know what has gone wrong in a performance, and know their own strengths or weaknesses. (If not, maybe performing is not the right career for you.) Performers have to be willing to get up there and show the courage of their convictions without worrying what Anne (or me!) will say the next day. They can't and shouldn't be shifting their approach in response to what any particular reviewer thinks on a given day. In other words, reviews can become a distraction, but they need not be.

Fourth, Mr. Lazic needs to have a talk with his publicist. He has been appearing in public for long enough that he must have one; if not, he needs to hire one right away. Talking to the press can be helpful to your career, but sometimes it's just not. Complaining to the Times about how the Met was treating her couldn't have been good for Ruth Ann Swenson's career, for example. Asking the Washington Post to remove a review from your web site just gets you the kind of publicity you might not want. That is, I'd never heard of Dejan Lazic until a day or two ago. Now I have, but think if all I knew was that very positive paragraph Anne wrote in 2010!

Putting it bluntly, if you're a professional musician, part of your publicist's job is to help you deal effectively with the press, by coaching you about what to do and what not to do.

Lastly, Mr. Lazic has misunderstood the nature of reviews, and I wish Caitlin Dewey had explained this in her blog posting: a review is an opinion piece. Yes, parts of it are factual, including:

• Who played, and where
• What was on the program
• Whether a string player or singer is in tune (individual listeners have varying degrees of sensitivity to this, but pitch is a fact, not an opinion)

But the most interesting part of a review, and the real reason to read a review, is the writer's opinion of a performance. Was it effective? Was it exciting or dull? Did it work? Was it an eccentric performance (think Ugorski's Beethoven piano sonata op. 111, as recorded) or a "central," uneccentric performance? Do you want to hear these performers again? Does the repertory suit the singer's style? 

These are things that are debatable, which is why, in a perfect world, we'd have multiple reviews of any particular performance. Reviewers' tastes and interests and training vary; they have different areas of strength and weakness. 

In the end, it doesn't make much sense to ask for a review to be taken down. If you're a touring pro, you probably play from 50 to 150 performances annually, depending on your fame, age, repertory, endurance, etc. A single performance is just one day out of your career; a particular review is unlikely to make or break you. It's just one person's opinion, after all.

UPDATE: I've clarified how the EU ruling works. And I'm reminded that I meant to mention the Streisand effect, in which nobody is paying attention to something you want ignored....until you call their attention to it through legal action. Then everybody pays attention.

Klinghoffer Additional Links

More round-up:

• Justice Ginsberg Finds for the Defense, WSJ
• We Took Four New Yorkers to "The Death of Klinghoffer," Guardian
• Klinghoffer at the Met, Paul Berman, Tablet
• Klinghoffer: A Night at the Opera, Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest

Separated at Birth?

Eminent Victorians:

Cincinnati Music Hall

 

St. Pancras Station, London

 

Jefferson Market (Courthouse) Library, NYC

Jefferson County Courthouse, Port Townsend, WA

Now We Are Ten

My first posting introduced me, and some of the details are still true. In my third posting, I blamed opera-l.

But actually, I should have blamed Alex Ross. I started blogging because I saw that he had a blog (and a very good blog it is). In the last decade, I've had years with more and fewer postings, depending on my energy at any given moment or in any week, or my determination to stick with a story. Or even depending on whether I'm on a shuttle to work that has tables. (Maybe you can use a laptop on your lap, but I can't.) I've occasionally thought about shutting down the blog and putting my energy elsewhere, but invariably that just means I need a short break.

It's been a great ten years. I've loved meeting my readers and fellow bloggers, whether by email or in comments or in person or on the phone. You energize me, goad me, make me think, and occasionally enrage me. Thank you for reading me, and I hope to still be doing this in another ten years.

Domino Effect: Met Cast Changes

Marina Poplavskaya has withdrawn from her scheduled Met Traviata performances (as Violetta, natch). The results:

• Sonya Yoncheva sings the tubercular courtesan on January 14, 17, 21, and 24, making her North American and Met role debut. (She would have originally sung this role in San Francisco in June, but withdrew because of pregnancy.) 
• To sing Violetta, Yoncheva withdrew from some Boheme performances, where she was to sing Musetta.
• Marina Rebeka sings Musetta on January 15, 19, and 24.

All That AND Joyce Di Donato!

Awright, that was some series, and I say that as someone who hadn't watched a baseball game in years. Hunter Pence! Pablo Sandoval! (Pay him what he wants!)

And what about that Madison Bumgarner?!?! Three Two wins and one save in this series! Pitching five innings in relief after going to whole nine on Sunday! Terrifying consistency and absolute cool!

The Royals are a terrific team and it was a great series.

SF Opera Cast Change: La Cenerentola

Baritone Efrain Solis, an Adler Fellow, will sing Dandini in the upcoming run of La Cenerentola, replacing Fabio Capitanucci, who has withdrawn for health reasons. Cenerentola opens on November 9 and runs to the 26th.

Solis had a memorable couple of minutes on stage in Un Ballo in Maschera, somehow upstaging everybody else on stage as Christian, a sailor. "Everybody else" included Dolora Zajick, so you can imagine.

Compare & Contrast 27

Some disagreement about LA Opera's Dido & Aeneas/Bluebeard's Castle double bill, directed by Barrie Kosky.

• Out West Arts: "You should see the double bill that LA Opera just opened on Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It’s not just that it is one of the best productions the company has mounted in the last four years. It’s also evidence that the company has without question transitioned into a new artistic era." [There follows a lot of praise of Kosky, the productions, and the singers.]
• David Gregson's Opera West: Attending Los Angeles Opera’s current double bill on opening night Saturday, I was mildly surprised to discover that many people do not know Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas very well — or, indeed, at all. If they had the slightest affection for it, stage director Barrie Kosky’s hideously misguided contribution would perhaps have enraged the audience. But I detected nary a boo and Kosky’s ludicrous travesty was met with warm approval.
• Mark Swed, LA Times: Tough to excerpt this one!

Rubin Institute for Music Criticism

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music is hosting the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism November 5-10, with a host of events at various places. I have some thoughts, which I'll try to get into a separate posting, but there's a press release below the cut. I also received a press release about the Rubin Fellows, a talented group of most-double-majors from four colleges and universities. (That in itself is interesting: does this mean it's tough luck if you go to Brandeis or Reed?)

Honoring Jonas Salk

The great scientist's 100th birthday is on October 28, 2014, and there's a Google Doodle in his honor:

The polio vaccine has prevented thousands of cases of polio annually just in the United States. 

Welcome Back!

After much too long a break, I am so happy to see that new postings are appearing at Out West Arts, the fabulous Los Angeles (and world-spanning) music, opera, theater, and sometimes art blog. Welcome back, Brian!!

Revelations about Suzuki

Violinist and teacher Mark O'Connor reports on research showing that Shinichi Suzuki, creator of the Suzuki (violin) method, fabricated his musical resume. He has more a few critical things to say about the method itself, too.

Update: I should have waited to post on this subject or not posted at all. See my follow-up posting.

Key Man Insurance

Key man insurance [sic] is what companies buy when the death of a particular individual would have a severe impact on a company's business operations.

I report up to Urs Hölzle, not Alan Eustace, but I have to admit that when I saw the news that Alan had made a parachute jump from 136,000 feet, my first thought was to wonder what happens to a company's key man insurance when an executive does something like that. (This is undoubtedly because I spent the first six years of my work life in the insurance business.)

Because I am a ghoul, my second thought was to be grateful that he was on the front page of the Times because he'd survived, rather than on the obits page because he hadn't.

Metropolitan Opera Cast Change: Carmen

Same as on the 13th:

Aleksandrs Antonenko is ill, and rather than calling in the regular cover, they've got Brandon Jovanovich singing Don Jose in tonight's performance of Carmen. Jovanovich is currently rehearsing for Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

Why We Need Proofreaders

Received in the mail, a fund-raising letter over David Gockley's name and signature. Somewhere in the bowels of the War Memorial Opera House, someone is grimacing, and it's not over the missing serial comma, either:

We were able to present a superb roster of performers that day, all of whom will grace our main stage this fall. What a line-up! Thomas Hampson, Brandon Jovanovich, Brian Mulligan, Heidi Stober, Ramon Vargas and the powerhouse soprano Dolora Zajick, as well as our own recent Adler Fellow Brian Jagde. San Francisco Opera is one of the few opera companies in the world that can deliver that kind of star power in one place at one time.

The Death of Klinghoffer Media Roundup

Reviews are coming in; watch for updates:

• Anthony Tommasini, NY Times (Top of the page on the web just now)
• John Yohalem, Parterre Box
• Pamela McCorduck, Iron Tongue of Midnight
• Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News
• Justin Davidson, Vulture.com 
• James Jorden, NY Observer
• George Grella, NY Classical Review
• Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times
• Anne Midgette, Washington Post (includes her media roundup)
• Manuela Holterhoff, Bloomberg
• Heidi Waleson, WSJ
• Mark Swed, LA Times
• Paul Pelkonen, Superconductor
• Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy's Wall of Text
• Sam Reising, I Care If You Listen

Klinghoffer Sock-Puppetry

I hardly ever read opera-l these days, but happened to take a look because of all the Klinghoffer opinions flying around. And what do you know, the first alphabetic posting is by our friend "Genevieve Castle Room," and it cites something a lot like what I found on my blog the other day:

• GCR quotes "John Blackburn on Twitter": "Sad that Adams is held in such esteem. Musically bland pabulum spiced withprogrammatic narrative. By programmatic narrative, I mean his fondness for political libretti and such—cover for light musical thought"
• "Carrie Theuring" on my blog: "It's sad that Adams is held in such esteem. Musically bland pabulum spiced with programmatic narrative."

Update: John Blackburn is real. I'll assume that "Carrie Theuring" is one of many pseudonyms used by "Genevieve Castle Room," so "Carrie" is the sock puppet here, quoting Blackburn without attribution.

Guest Post: Death of Klinghoffer Review

Pamela McCorduck, author of Machines Who Think and co-author of The Futures of Women, was at the Met opening of The Death of Klinghoffer and sent me this review, which I am publishing with her permission:

Arrived to a tremendous police presence, which saddened me, but which also reassured me. Ticket holders had to enter at the side of the plaza, which was otherwise completely sealed off; the demonstrators were out toward Columbus Avenue. Plenty of purse-checking once inside the house too.

The production was given a tremendous ovation (which it earned) at the end. The disruptions - one guy yelling out during a quiet moment in the first act (a well-educated voice) that "the murder of Klinghoffer will not be forgiven" seemed to me entirely self-aggrandizing. No one in that auditorium could, or probably would, be forgiving anyone, nor had they the right. The Times says he was escorted from the house and arrested; likewise a woman who screamed "a vulgarity" and though I was seated in the orchestra, as was she, I couldn?t tell what she yelled. 

The opera opens with two choruses in succession, one the exiled Palestinians, one the exiled Jews. Each is an exquisite piece of music (and as my Juilliard instructor pointed out, each lasts to the

minute the same time as the other). After the exiled Palestinians sing, people actually booed. Not because the music wasn?t beautiful and beautifully performed, but because Palestinians in New York

deserve to be booed on principle, apparently. This dismayed me, but there you go. No Palestinians in the audience to boo the chorus of the exiled Jews.

The first act seemed a bit abstract?the choral music was always superb, but the arias less so. I?d have to hear them again to say more. But the second act! It took hold and didn?t let you go. I was utterly wiped out at the end.

Does the opera humanize the terrorists? Yes, it does. Are they admirable human beings? Glamorous? Not in the least. But to acknowledge their pain in exile is only to acknowledge the unpleasant facts, and the opera would make no sense as drama if we didn?t have a little backstory. 

Whereas Klinghoffer and his wife are altogether admirable: from a wheelchair, he speaks truth to power, in the old phrase, a guy standing in front of him with a machine gun--a hugely courageous

thing. The conjugal love between them is beautifully delineated. The captain is subtly characterized (a peacemaker, and a courageous man who, even at gunpoint, lies about Klinghoffer's death to the

authorities on land because he suspects that if the death is reported, mayhem will come from land and many more will be killed). He offers his own life to the terrorists, because as "host" on his ship, he has failed his "guests."

Before, at intermission, and after the performance, an electronic bulletin board told how the opera differed from the facts, and what happened to the main characters, including the terrorists (they were

eventually released from prison). The program itself had a page-long statement from the Klinghoffer daughters, which was heartfelt, but contained a major confusion between art and real life. It was their father; they're entitled to the confusion. 

Even Rudi Giuliani, who was outside leading the protestors, admitted that he loves the music, and listens to it "without listening to the words"? I can't think why. This is in no way propaganda. It's a

deeply moving piece of art. 

How it got the reputation of being anti-Semitic just baffles me. Yes, one of the terrorists talks about "Jewish exploitation of the poor," but that's the stuff you've heard since you were four, and in

this case, it quickly changes to "American exploitation." But the Jewish characters themselves are portrayed with deep sympathy and subtlety, which the Palestinians are not. Their sorrow has

degenerated into fanaticism, which may be human, but isn't to be admired. 

To me, it was an irony that fanatics were outside protesting an opera which nearly none of them had seen nor knew anything about.

 My report from the field,

Curtain Up!

The latest on The Death of Klinghoffer, which opened this evening at the Met. Here are the latest articles about this opera.

• 'Klinghoffer' Protesters Flock to Met Opera House, Michael Cooper, Times. (Sorry, staging this opera doesn't license you to kill someone any more than Verdi's Macbeth does.)(This includes a post-opera update, apparently!)
• With New 'Klinghoffer,' Furor Only Grows, Michael Cooper, Times
• An Opera Under Fire, Zachary Woolfe, Times
• Twenty Years Later, 'Klinghoffer' Still Draws Protests, Joel Rose, Deceptive Cadence (NPR)
• From 2012, Jessica Duchen's piece on 'Klinghoffer' in London
• A Work Divided, Philip Kennicott in ON

Here's a Twitter feed for Klinghoffer (no hashtag). Zerbinetta: "Protestors are yelling “shame on you! Despicable!” as we enter the plaza."

Metropolitan Opera Cast Change: Aida

From the Met:

George Gagnidze will sing the role of Amonasro in five performances of Verdi’s Aida this season, replacing the originally announced Andrzej Dobber, who has withdrawn from the performances. Gagnidze will sing Amonasro on December 26 and 29 and January 2, 5, and 10 matinee. 

Gagnidze first sang Amonasro at the Met in 2012. He will sing the role in a new production at La Scala this spring. The Georgian baritone made his Met debut in 2009 in the title role of Verdi’s Rigoletto, a role he repeated with the company in 2010 and 2013. His other Met performances have included Scarpia in the 2010 season-opening new production of Puccini’s Tosca, the title role in Verdi’s Macbeth, and Shaklovity in Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina. This April, he will add a new role to his Met repertory when he sings Tonio in a new production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.
 The December and January performances of Aida are conducted by Marco Armiliato and also star Tamara Wilson and Marjorie Owens, both in their Met debuts, in the title role; Violeta Urmana as Amneris; Marcello Giordani and Carl Tanner as Radamès; Dmitri Belosselskiy as Ramfis; and Soloman Howard as the King.

Congratulations to A Beast in a Jungle!

The San Francisco Bay Guardian* has named fellow blog A Beast in a Jungle as the winner of its readers' poll for Best Arts/Music site! Congratulations to blogger John Marcher.

Note Beast's Coming Up, Calendar, and Half-Price Ticket links. You might find this stuff useful.

* Just in time to go under. We know, we know.

The Evidence-Driven Pentagon

The extreme left-wingers at the Pentagon say that global climate change is an immediate threat to national security. I look forward to the climate-change-denying Republicans in Congress trying to cut or deny Pentagon funding to deal with related issues.

Temporary Header

I probably won't leave the musical header up there for too long - I can't figure out how to make it a background image for the blog title and colophon - but I hope at least some readers recognize it.

Satya Nadella Puts His Foot in His Mouth

Microsoft's new CEO may never get his foot out of his digestive system. Addressing the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, here's what he said:

“It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along, That’s good karma. It will come back. That’s the kind of person that I want to trust, that I want to give more responsibility to.”

Right. We should just trust a system that has been screwing women forever. As we all know, men get ahead in computing by waiting patiently to be given the "right raise" by "the system" and by being the kind of person executives just want to give more responsibility. (That superpower business is also stupid. Please don't insult me by saying I have special superpowers as you tell me not to ask for a raise.)

Actually, men get ahead by asking for what they want, whether it's the right raise or more responsibility. Women are far more likely to doubt themselves and their qualifications for a particular job. Here's an article in the Times explaining just how wrong Nadella is.

Dr. Maria Klawe, computer scientist and president of Harvey Mudd College, was interviewing him, and what she told the audience was how her poor negotiating skills may have cost her $50,000/year when she was at Princeton. 

He tried to backtrack on Twitter, but really, he might consider a real apology.

“Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise,” he wrote in a Twitter post. “Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias.”

What bullshit. He was perfectly articulate and he wasn't discussing either bias or how women should ask for a raise.

Nadella just set back diversity at Microsoft by I don't know how much - what sensible woman in computing would want to work for a company whose CEO says something so stupid? I would just assume that he is accurately reflecting the corporate culture, and I'd stay far, far away. 

Going Around

There's a meme of sorts going around, or maybe two: one is to name ten pieces you never want to hear again (see Slipped Disc for about 120 examples), the other is to name ten pieces you want to hear more often.

I'm going to pass on the first, which would consist of overplayed 18th and 19th c. standards, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, etc., and generalize a lot about the second.

For starters, you might take a look at my Fantasy Opera series. Most of the operas I listed are rarities of one kind or another. I'm sure Svanda Dudak is performed more often in the Czech Republic than outside it (although I see that it's being done in Palermo shortly).

After that, really, it's all new and old music. I believe I have never heard a Dufay mass performed live, and there is a huge wealth of music before 1700 that I would love to hear in person. Of 20th and 21st century music, I'm interested in modernists such as Crawford, Carter, Boulez, and Babbitt; Europeans such as Haas and Birtwistle; Feldman; women whose music has been overlooked or ignored; etc. I'm interested in music by the second- and third-string composers; the better-than-competent composers whose music is buried under the top layer. I'd like to hear almost everything that's off the beaten track.