A Good Season for Chamber Opera

Cal Performances has Britten's Albert Herring and Rape of Lucretia, both conducted by Lorin Maazel. LA Opera has The Turn of the Screw, with Patricia Racette as the Governess and William Burden as Quint (James Conlon conducts). And now Ensemble Parallèle announces that they'll be staging Philip Glass's Orphée next February at Herbst Theater. Wow!

Goodbye, Gerard; Hello, Ludovic!

The Seattle Symphony has named Ludovic Morlot to the post of Music Director Designate for the 2010-11 season. In the 2011-12 season, Morlot takes over as Music Director, replacing Gerard Schwarz, who becomes Conductor Laureate.

I imagine a few players are breathing deep sighs of relief over this, especially those musicians in the 61-8 vote a few years back who were in favor of looking for new artistic leadership. Schwarz's tenure has been contentious, to say the least.

Previous blog postings on the subject:

• Seattle Symphony Board of Directors announces Schwarz's departure
• Seattle Symphony in the Times

Updates: Alex Ross links to a Seattle Times article where principal bassoonist Seth Krimsky, a member of the search committee, is quoted mentioning Morlot's rapport with the orchestra. Sounds good to me. Dan Wakin's Times article quotes musicians elsewhere calling him "collaborative." And here's a web page announcing the appointment at the orchestra itself.

Missed by That Much

In January, 2003, I bought a Dell desktop computer. Seven years later, it is still running, a real workhorse. It's a pretty slow workhorse, though, and it's possible I will replace it in the next year or so, if adding some memory doesn't make a difference.

But I probably won't buy another Dell. There's a horrifying story in today's Times about a two-year period during which it appears Dell knowingly shipped defective computers and then blamed its customers when the computers broke down, claiming the computers were in overheated spaces or, amazingly, that the customers were overtaxing the computers with too many computations. Besides breaking down, the defective machines could have burst into flame.

You bet that they are getting their asses sued, and it seems there might be charges filed eventually against Michael Dell. My favorite line in the story is this:

Even the firm defending Dell in the lawsuit was affected when Dell balked at fixing 1,000 suspect computers, according to e-mail messages revealed in the dispute.

Maybe they need to join the lawsuit they're defending against.

The two-year period during which the defective computers were sold ran from May 2003 through July 2005. I missed it by that much! And I see no reason to give my future business to a company that behaved so unethically.

Complexity Elsewhere

Daniel Wolf has another excellent discussion of both the term and what composers are doing when they write music.

Further Blogroll Updates

I made more updates to the blogroll over the weekend, primarily by retiring to their own list several blogs that have gone inactive. I am deeply sorry that Jonathan Bellman and Phil Ford have retired the wonderful and always-stimulating dial "m" for musicology, but the site does live on.

I have also added in Harpblog, which replaced Helen Radice's Twang Twang Twang a while back.

Anecdotal Evidence

Overheard by my office-mate at yesterday's San Francisco Opera performance of La Fanciulla del West, said by a woman who evidently didn't care for what she was hearing:

An opera has to have beautiful melodies to make an impression on me.

Just to emphasize: this was at a performance of an opera by Puccini. It has plenty of beautiful melodies; they just don't come in the form of discrete arias.

P. S.

If you're reading this blog, it's highly unlikely that you're one of the majority of the audience that I posit isn't hearing what I (for example) hear at concerts.

Which raises the question of why people go to live classical music performances. Here's something I posted at Sticks & Drones a couple of weeks back. It started as a list in email about why people go to the opera.

• They know a lot about music.
• They subscribe to the organization’s performances.
• They love a particular work.
• They love the composer.
• They love one or more of the performers.
• They love the conductor.
• They love the theatrical aspects of opera.
• They find live music more exciting that recorded music.
• They trust the conductor and they're willing to take a chance just because s/he is conducting the piece.
  
• They’ve never heard the particular work being performed and they’re curious about it.
• The work or production or performance got a great review and they were curious about it.
• The work or production or performance got controversial reviews and they’re curious about it.
• A friend took them or encouraged them to go.
• They just moved to the big city from someplace else and they’re checking things out.
• They know someone in the performance.
• It’s the norm in their social circle. I saw Nancy Pelosi, George Schultz, and a few other famous people at opening night of SF Opera a few years back. I have no idea whether they’re opera fans, but there they were.

More on Complexity

So, I'm pretty sure Terry just doesn't like that stuff and is looking for justification beyond that dislike. It's a big shrug for me, because people like what they like. I just worry that articles like his keep people from actually listening to extremely complex music. There are some people who might like Carter, et. al. who might not give it a shot. One reason I listen is that I like having my brain twisted up a bit; another is that the sounds themselves are arresting and often beautiful. And hey, I like a challenge.

I'd encourage anyone thinking about this to take a look at Daniel Wolf's posting today, about his recent orgy of re-hearing a huge amount of serialist music, which makes me want to hole up in a cabin for a month with his iPod and a stack of scores.

Complexity

Terry Teachout has an article in the Wall Street Journal speculating that music by Carter and Boulez (he doesn't mention Babbitt but must have him in mind) is too complex for the human brain to perceive and understand within the time period in which it's performed, and therefore will never achieve general audience acceptance. He cites a 1988 paper by Fred Lehrdahl - which I have not read - as evidence.

Now, in one sense he's probably right, that those guys are never going to be on the classical hit parade. My local "classical" radio station will never play them (on the other hand, that station doesn't play Puccini, either, at least not with the voices, except for their monthly SF Opera broadcast).

But my big reaction to this is "So what?"

First off, I don't necessarily agree with the other big premise of the article, that this stuff is in some sense too complex. Terry trots out the example of Finnegans Wake and says, sure, he could spend the time getting to know it, but why bother? He could read Proust instead. The thing is, there's no reason to depend on one hearing of a Carter or Boulez work to get to know it. It'd take less time than reading Finnegans Wake, in fact, especially if you take the time to get your hands on a score. (Well...um...I find Carter's music easier to understand if I am not giving myself a headache looking at the score, because I try to count it and things fall apart very fast.) Musicians spend lots of time getting to know less complex music, so that's nothing new.

And somehow, there are plenty of musicians around who are happily studying and playing Carter, Boulez, Babbitt, Fernyhough, and so on. I like to mention a couple of times a year a fact that Alex Ross dug up long ago: in the early 1970s, there were two new music groups in New York City. (I wonder if this included the computer-music group at Columbia. Maybe there were three!) There are now more than 50.

Here's one reason for my "so what." It's important to remember that classical music is not a single thing and the classical music audience is not a single thing. It's a group of niches, including:

• New music (say, going back to 1900 for a lot of stuff)
• Opera
• Symphonic music
• Chamber music
• Solo recital
• Early music

These niches and audiences don't necessarily overlap. I am a fairly rare person who loves all of the above; I get to fewer solo recitals than any of the other genres above, I would say. (And maybe solo recitals should fall under chamber music, anyway.) Opera fans are a niche unto themselves.

So it's just not important whether Carter and Boulez are audience favorites. They have an audience, regardless of the size. SF Performances sold about 400 tickets to the Carter 100th Birthday Weekend, which featured all of the string quartets and all of the piano music, all brilliantly played. It'd be interesting to find out whether more living people have heard a Dufay mass performed live or a Carter string quartet. I would not take bets.

The other reason for my "so what"? Terry's argument depends, in part, on an implicit assumption that people who go to concerts understand and are taking in a lot of what goes on in what they hear. That's the only reason the "too complex to understand" argument might hold any water. I am absolutely certainly that the majority of people who go to concerts do not hear most of what's going on. Most of them hear pretty tunes and the beautiful and varied textures of classical, especially symphonic, music. They're not necessarily catching the structural complexities, though I would guess most recognize the standard repeat patterns of classical symphonies. So...who cares if they listen? They're not going to hear that much more in Brahms than in Babbitt.

On Moderation for Now

If you're subscribed to comments for any of the last 35 or so blog postings, you know that I got heavily spammed last night. From the timings, it wasn't a bot. But I've put the blog on moderation at least temporarily. No need for my readers to get this junk in their email.

The Eventual SFS Music Director Sweepstakes

You've seen the SFCV article, now read my original thoughts; Janos and I just kept adding to this list. Drew McManus has picked up the salary side of the issue at Adaptistration.

It's easier to make a list of the unavailable than of the available. Not: Muti, Abbado, Gilbert, Levine, Nezhet-Seguin, Dudamel, Salonen (sob), Jurowski, C. Davis, A. Davis, Haitink, Mackerras (double sob), Barenboim, Nelsons, Rattle, Runnicles (sobbing even more)

People we don't want: FW-M (busy with contracts in Vienna and Cleveland, anyway), Mehta, Previn, Schwarz, Ashkenazy, Maazel, Masur. :)

Been there/done that/don't come back except as a guest: Ozawa, de Waart, Blomstedt.

Probably not: Simone Young

Wish We Could: Le formidable Boulez (say it with a French accent), nearly 85 and with regular guest gigs in Chicago and Cleveland

I would look to the frozen north, and I don't mean Canada). One of the Baltic states, Scandinavia, Finland. There's someone there, maybe someone we know: Osmo Vanska? Sakari Oramu? Where are Neeme Jarvi and Mariss Janssons working? How about Marek Janowski? Eschenbach? Dohnanyi? But the latter two are both 70-ish. So is Frubeck de Burgos.

Favorite from the frozen north: Susanna Malkki, who is Finnish, female, young, and made a big splash in NY at Mostly Mozart a year or two ago.

Who has had a great rapport with the orchestra the last few years? Could Conlon wedge in an orchestra? Yan Pascal Tortelier?

Who is currently conducting at Birmingham, Liverpool, and Bournemouth in Great Britain?

What about Marin? What about Robertson?

Where does Dutoit fall? Spano?

Former assistant conductors of East Coast orchestras: Julian Kuerti, Shi-Yeon Sung, [NYPO had a good assistant as well, a young woman from China, but I cannot dig up her name]

Current, well-reviewed, incredibly young assistant conductor of LAPO: Lionel Bringuier

What about former assistant conductors of SFS? Alasdaire Neal, James Gaffigan (who is VERY good), Edwin Outwater?

Or maybe somebody we don't know yet. Who woulda thunk Alan Gilbert would get the NYPO job AND make a great success of it?

Welcome to the Blogroll

Recently added:

• Joe Barron, east coast blogger and Carter maven, at Liberated Dissonance
• John Marcher, sharp-eyed SF blogger, at A Beast in a Jungle
• Axel Feldheim, another SF blogger, at Not for Fun Only

I've also updated the listing for The Rest is Noise, since Alex Ross is regularly blogging there again.

Tanglewood TBDs are D'd

The substitutes for James Levine's remaining open programs have been named. Herbert Blomstedt returns to his native Massachusetts* to conduct an all-Brahms program, while Juanjo Mena of the Four Last Songs and Mahler's First with soprano Hei-Kyung Hong.

* What, you thought he was Swedish? He is, but he was born in Springfield, MA, and lived there for a couple of years until his parents took the family back to Sweden. Presumably he has dual citizenship.

Performers and Reviewers

I've occasionally gotten email from performers I've discussed on this blog, and I know from talking to other bloggers that I'm not the only one. Sometimes performers even post comments; I've gotten a few from Carey Bell, principal clarinetist of the San Francisco Symphony and formerly of San Francisco Opera's orchestra, and one from soprano Laura Claycomb.

It's evident in some cases that the performers who contact me found the blog postings via a web search, very likely by searching on their own names. Thinking about this, and about the relationship between performers, critics, and reviews, the question arises, why would performers bother reading reviews?

I can think of a reason or two, but just as many reasons not to read reviews. It's wonderful to read a positive or glowing review, of course. But in most cases...I'm not sure what's to be gained.

What if you get a bad or equivocal review? I'm convinced that performers don't benefit from reading these. I've been on stage enough times myself, as a chorister or flutist, to know perfectly well that most performers have a very good idea of how well they did on a given night. I am always more aware than anyone in the audience of the errors I've made or that the chorus or orchestra has made or where somebody really missed a cue badly (including conductors who forget to throw a cue the chorus is expecting). Is a performer going to learn much from reading a critic who says the tenor blew the high note or the bass has a wobble or something else like that? I think not.

A couple of people have said things to me along the lines of, well, a performer might learn something and change from reading reviews. I don't buy that.

Reviews are not pedagogical. A review is one person's perception of what happened in a particular theater or concert hall at one performance. It's a snapshot, and that's it. It has real value as a bit of history. It doesn't show what happens in the course of a run. For example, several people have told me that post-primo performances of Die Walkuere here in SF have been very good, but apparently not as great as what we saw on June 10.

The blogosphere is good for making up this particular lack in reviews; most reviewers don't have time to get to two performances in an operatic run, let alone take in a whole Ring cycle more than once.

And reviewers know these things. We know that we're hearing one or one hundred and fifty humans doing their best for anything from an hour to six hours. We're aware that there's variation and inconsistency. We know what we don't know: whether there's a crisis in a violinist's family and the whole section is sad, or whether the mezzo has a cold or the tenor has allergies. Yes, sometimes there are announcements. Sometimes there aren't.

So do reviews have any value at all for performers? Maybe. I think it's a good idea for performers to have trusted people - partners/spouses, coaches, teachers, a publicist - read and screen reviews, passing along some to the performer according to agreed-upon criteria. If ten reviews by different people over the course of a year make similar points about some perceived lack in the performer, well....maybe that's something to consider.

But a performer shouldn't be learning those things from reviews. The trusted people, especially teachers and coaches, are the right people to say "you've started scooping" or "what about this habit you are developing" or "you look consistently uncomfortable on stage." It's their job, not a reviewer's.

Possible Additional Fiddling

Yeah, I might fiddle with the colors. And while I like having the blog archive at the top, I also like having the links easier to find without scrolling. So tomorrow, or later today, you might see a three-column blog.

David Brooks is Even Stupider than I Thought

Today's column postulates a liberal Dr. Faustus asking the Devil for things like a huge economic disaster and a huge environmental disaster, to discredit conservatives and persuade the citizenry that only liberals have the answers.

Is he kidding?

For one thing, he cleverly picks 2007 as the year for this conversation. BZZZT. Try reading your Times Op-Ed page neighbor, Paul Krugman. The housing bubble, which led to the financial crisis, was well under way by 2005, which is when a few people started predicting disaster.

For another, no, sorry, no liberals I've ever met hope for a disaster like the BP spill to prove anything.

Why oh why....as Brad DeLong would say.

Music Director Sweepstakes, San Francisco Symphony Edition

With all the recent changes in music director at various U.S. orchestras, it was inevitable that somebody would speculate about San Francisco. And that somebody just happens to be me - and SFCV stalwart Janos Gereben. You can read the results here.

No, we know nothing; not a hint that he's planning to leave. Just a certain sense that things aren't what they were a decade ago, and knowing it's best if the MTT/SFS doesn't get stale. The 100th anniversary season is coming up and I hope it's a humdinger, in fact, revitalizing the symphony and its music director.

SF Opera at Stern Grove

A great program if you like American staples. It's not really my thing even with Patricia Racette in a few arias and songs that look like good fits, and even with the glimpse of Leah Crocetto.

July 4, 2 p.m.

Stern Grove

19th & Sloat

San Francisco, CA

Ian Robertson's conducting the whole program.

JEROME KERN: Show Boat

Overture Orchestra with Maestro Robertson

AARON COPLAND: Variations on a Shaker Melody Orchestra and Chorus

CARLISLE FLOYD: Susannah

Ain’t It a Pretty Night? Patricia Racette

AARON COPLAND: The Tender Land

Stomp Your Foot! Orchestra and Chorus

CARLISLE FLOYD: Susannah

I’m Fixin' to Tell Y’Bout a Feller John Relyea, Leah Crocetto and Chorus

LEONARD BERNSTEIN: Candide

Glitter and be Gay Susannah Biller

Walk Together, Children

Traditional Spiritual, arranged by Moses Hogan Chorus

GIANCARLO MENOTTI: The Consul

To This We’ve Come (The “Papers Aria”) Patricia Racette

LEONARD BERNSTEIN: Candide

Make Our Garden Grow Susannah Biller, Sara Gartland,

Brian Jagde, Austin Kness, Chorus

INTERMISSION

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA: The Stars and Stripes Forever Orchestra and Chorus

GEORGE GERSHWIN: Porgy and Bess

Bess, You is My Woman Now Leah Crocetto and John Relyea

STEPHEN SONDHEIM: Follies

Losing My Mind Patricia Racette

RICHARD RODGERS: Oklahoma!

Selections arranged by Russell Bennett Susannah Biller, Sara Gartland,

Brian Jagde, Austin Kness

JEROME KERN: Show Boat

Ol’ Man River John Relyea

GEORGE GERSHWIN: Girl Crazy

Embraceable You Patricia Racette

GEORGE M. COHAN: Patriotic Fantasy Orchestra and Chorus

Arranged by Walter Ehret and Paul Yoder

Minor Warning

The blog's appearance might be changing in the next day or so ten minutes, to something a little sharper looking.

(Okay, I'll see how I feel about this in a day or two. I saved the old template settings to my home machine, so I can restore them if I need to.)

Valor

From John Keegan's The Price of Admiralty, chapter on the Battle of Jutland:

What might have happened in Tiger came even nearer to happening to Lion. Her Q turret was hit by a 12-inch shell from Lützow at 4 o'clock, which killed everyone in the gun-house. One of the gun-numbers, as he died, involuntarily sent the loading cage of the right gun down into the working-chamber with cordite in it. A fire, spreading apparently down the turret's electrical cables, ignited the cordite in both the cage and the working-chamber; and fire then passed down the turret trunk towards the magazines. The turret officer, Major F. J. W. Harvey, managed with his dying breath (he had lost both legs) to order that the magazine doors be closed and the magazine flooded. The giving of this order, for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, saved the ship.

Next Year's Ring in SF

Reports from the post-primo performances of Die Walkuere are both encouraging and discouraging.

• Nina Stemme continues to amaze and impress; everyone is raving about her.
• Christopher Ventris has been running out of steam by the end of Act I in all performances I've heard about. This kinda surprises me; he was fine in Parsifal way back when, and in Lady Macbeth.
• Mark Delavan. You knew I'd get here eventually. I'm hearing decidedly mixed reviews and doubts about both his power and stamina. I'm seriously concerned about how he'll do when he has to sing Wotan on consecutive nights in Rheingold and Walkuere.

Further Details

John Marcher is surprised that I didn't say more about Faust, especially considering Patricia Racette's presence in the cast. Well, here goes.

I'm just surprised she took the gig at all. Marguerite is an innocent young thing, seduced and abandoned; she is girlish and easily impressed. Any soprano undertaking the role ought to have a good trill and excellent flexibility to bring off the jewel song. Racette more or less trilled last night, albeit with a big, big preparation, but the rest of the aria was a hash. I don't remember her Violetta some years ago being less than well sung, so it's possible that all that Puccini has affected her agility. Roi de Thule worked much better and was in fact extremely good. Later i the opera, though, she had pitch problems above the staff and seemed, well, not entirely accurate.

Dramatically? Racette's great roles are in the verismo repertory, if you consider Janacek to be closer in mood to verismo than any other particular stylistic school. They call for a kind of committed intensity and involvement that she excels in. The later scenes were best, because they call for more intensity, but....an innocent young girl just isn't right for her. Among her other roles, Jenufa comes closest, but Jenufa is knowing and aware and she grows through the course of the opera. Ditto Butterfly, with her spine of steel.

What to say about the rest of the cast. Stefano Secco sang decently, if a bit monochromatically. Ditto John Relyea, but I worry about his singing per se. His voice sounds woofy at the bottom and sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what note he has landed on. He worked awfully hard inBelshazzar's Feast at SFS a season or two back, and I hope he is not overdoing it. Daniela Mack was an adorable Siebel. Brian Mulligan as Valentin was, vocally, the standout of the show for me, singing with a beautiful, open, and consistent tone. But what was with the stage direction? Why the heck did he wander around the stage bolt upright for five minutes after being stabbed repeatedly in a duel?

French opera calls less for intensity than for grace and exceptional command of the language. No one in this cast has anything like the skills of French singers trained in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They seem to all have had the ability to trill and sing runs easily and to put the words out front as the controlling aspect of singing.

And, let's face it, Faust is nothing to write home about dramatically. In 2010, a troop of soldiers fending off Satan by crossing their swords or villagers shocked, shocked by an unmarried woman's pregnancy just aren't going to make much impact. As staged, they were almost laughable.

Honestly, this opera calls out for a Regie production. And for cutting most of the interminable dialog between arias.

There is No Good Reason to Ever Perform Faust Again.

Six good arias strewn among two and a half hours of boring filler do not an opera make. Especially when performed by an Anglophone cast plus one Italian and one Argentinian, when none of them project the text the way a French cast of, say, 1900, would have. Especially when the Marguerite is miscast. Especially with terrible stage direction. Especially when the Siebel and Valentin are the most interesting to watch or listen to.

This thing should be performed as a half-hour of excerpts if it's performed at all. I will see it next when Nellie Melba comes back from the grave to sing Marguerite.

Heuwell Tircuit

San Francisco music critic Heuwell Tircuit died on Monday, June 7, 2010, at age 78. Obits are here:

• Michael Zweibach in SFCV
• Joshua Kosman in the Chronicle, where Tircuit worked for many years

Tircuit's career at the Chron ended rather abruptly in 1987; Michael's obit has accounts from Robert Commanday and Janos Gereben indicating that Tircuit wasn't treated fairly at all.

But there was so much more to know: about his Army service, the years in Japan, the music degree acquired comparatively late, that he was a composer. We met only once, and I'm sorry I didn't know him better.

Ernest Fleischmann

Ernest Fleischmann died at the age of 85 on Sunday. As executive director (later managing director and executive vice president) of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he hired Carlo Maria Giulini and Esa-Pekka Salonen as the orchestra's music director. He was instrumental in getting Walt Disney Concert Hall built.

The NY Times obituary is delicious in many ways - he can have a talk about that abstinence business with Arturo Toscanini - and the LAPO press release is solemn, quite properly calling him impresario and visionary. Tim Mangan talks about Fleischmann here.

LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE.