Speaking Engagement

Since this news is landing in various mailboxes even as I write, I might as well confess:

I'll be speaking at the Northern California Wagner Society in early July. The topic is "Lauritz Melchior: Threat or Menace? Sui Generis or Best of a Good Bunch?" and the idea is to give some context to the famous heldentenor and his career. I'll be playing recordings by the Great Dane himself and a host of other tenors, some likely familiar to you, others possibly not.

Details:

Saturday, July 7, 2012
1 p.m.
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (the obvious place for a Wagner Society meeting)
3200 California St.
San Francisco, CA
Non-members $10 donation

The JCC is on the MUNI 1 California St. line. There's parking in the JCC's garage for $3/hour, max $15.

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

I don't attend dance performances very often, and when they do, it's because of the music, as often as not: my last was Petrouchka at SF Ballet. Just over the horizon is the S.F. Ethnic Dance Festival, and if you're into dance, you'll find lots of interest on their schedule, which is below the cut.

Berkeley Festival Fringe Program

First off, the Berkeley (Early Music) Festival has a spiffy new web site - big thanks from here, because the old site was mighty creaky and mighty slow. Second, more importantly, you'll want to take a look at the Fringe Festival schedule. These are programs put on around the main festival, many or most of them by local groups, in and around Berkeley. These programs, many an hour or so long, are fantastic, getting into many nooks and crannies that the shorter main-stage festival just can't.

Season Announcement Season: San Francisco Symphony

Yes, yes, I know that I am far behind in reporting on 2012-13 season announcements. Sorry! But the other week when I was home sick, I went through the prospectuses from some of the major presenters. In the process, I marked up a paper calendar with everything I'd like to see - excepting those choruses and new music ensembles that I watch - and oh, man, decisions, decisions.

That said, here's what's up with the San Francisco Symphony season.

Of course, it's not as great as 2011-12, the centennial season, which has been exceptional in the range of music offered. The most obvious lack is in the visiting orchestras. Instead of the American Orchestra series, we get the Russian National Orchestra - with Patrick Summers conducting! - and the Warsaw Phil. The second most obvious lack is in the new music area...but that's par for the course. On the down side, there's a focus on Beethoven...on the up side, at least it's early, rare, and unusual works, mostly. There's plenty to look forward to; I found a good 16 or 17 programs I'd go see, plus I have question marks on a bunch more.

Because of circumstances I can't recall, Semyon Bychkov conducts the first two subscription concerts; I'm passing on the first, but the Shostakovich 7th (Leningrad) is a do-not-miss in my book. A couple of weeks later, MTT has a program of Mahler 5, accompanied by a new work by Samuel Carl (Son-of-John-Coolidge) Adams. (Okay, yes, it has crossed my mind that of all the composers SFS could commission a new work from....it's tough being the composing child of a famous composer, because, yes, people will wonder about it if you land commissions from SFS, Carnegie Hall, and the New World Symphony. No, I have not heard a note of his compositions, so I have no basis for saying whether he is better or worse than any other under-30 composer getting commissions from major symphony orchestras.)

Vassily Petrenko returns with a program I'm hot and cold about: a work by Arvo Part and Bartok's Third Piano Concerto, paired with....Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome. Um. Leave after the first half?

Vladimir Jurowski debuts with a program of the Rach Second Piano Concerto and an arrangement of Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible. Another debutant, Jaap van Zweden, has a Wagner/Mozart/Brahms program, which gets a maybe from me. MTT returns with hot and cold running Chinese pianists: Yuja Wang and Lang Lang swap in and out of a program that also has the Rachmaninov Second Symphony and assistant concertmaster Mark Volkert's Pandora, a world premier that I'm especially looking forward to. Then Yefim Bronfman is back with yet another new work, Jorg Widmann's piano concert, which is paired with Symphonie fantastique.

MTT then leads a gorgeous-looking French program that I'll just have to skip unless there's a last-minute substitute in the vocal department. Couldn't we have Sasha Cooke or Susan Graham for those songs instead of you-know-who? Charles Dutoit guests with two programs, of which the second, Poulenc and Berlioz, is the one I'll definitely see. Yan Pascal Tortelier, whom I loved the last time he was here, returns with a Debussy / Strauss / Mendelssohn program - maybe, maybe not, but how often will I get to hear the Strauss Oboe Concerto?

MTT conducts selections from Mozart's unfinished Zaide and Bruckner 7, then leads a Berio / Beethoven PC 4 (Yuja Wang) / Brahms 1 program, followed by Mahler 9. Herbert Blomstadt is here in April and both programs look good, though they're heavy on the Beethoven. Wagner/Lidholm/Beethoven and Beethoven/Nielsen. I suppose I can skip the Beethoven violin concerto if I want. Christoph Eschenbach leads a program of Schoenberg, Brahms, and Dvorak; it's a must-see because Matthias Goerne's presence on the first half.

Then we get the MTT weird-Beethoven concerts. First, a program of the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, a Sonatina for Mandolin and Fortepiano (!), the Cantata on the Death of Joseph II, and the Second Symphony (a great and underrated work); second....well, weird stuff, my beloved Fourth Symphony, and a repeat of John Adams's Absolute Jest. I hated it the first time around and am curious to see what I'll think the second.

Lastly, MTT takes another crack at the Missa Solemnis. Good luck! It was a near train-wreck the first time around, in June 2011. It's a great lineup of soloists (Laura Claycomb, Sasha Cooke, Michael Fabiano, and Shenyang), and I seem to recall reading something about visual accompaniment, which gives me the fear. I'll be on hand anyway, giving the visuals the gimlet eye and burying my head in the score.

Marek Janowski returns with a program that I would ordinarily pass on, except that I've never heard the conductor live and I'd like to (Schumann and Brahms). David Robertson has a tasty program and great soloist; Carter's Variations for Orchestra, Ravel Concert for the Left Hand with mighty Marc-Andre Hamelin, Rhapsody in Blue, and La Valse. Juraj Valcuha brings Kodaly (Dances of Galanta), the Dvorak cello concerto (which, alas, I don't like much), and Bartok's Suite from The Wooden Prince, while Kiril Karabits conducts a don't-miss program of Honegger's Pacific 231, the Britten Double Concerto (Barantschik and Vinocour), and Silbelius First (didn't I just hear that? Yes, I did).

Roberto Abbado shoehorns one new work, by Ivan Fedele, among Schumann and Schubert, then MTT has two programs celebrating the hundredth birthday of Le Sacre du Printemps: Rite plus Agon and the Violin Concerto (Shaham) and Rite plus Renard, some songs, and Les Noces. Woo hoo!

The season closes with West Side Story.

Minor Update: Compose Your Own subscriptions go on sale June 19. I'm hoping this year will be less painful than last.

Blogroll Updates

Over the last day or two, I clicked through every link to see which blogs are up and which have quietly died. I found around 20 blogs that appear to have gone inactive. I'm loosely defining that as "no new postings in at least six months," but some have had no activity in two or three years. Some of you...okay, one of you avoided being moved to inactive by dint of a couple of timely postings this year.

I'll be moving these to the Inactive Blogs section of the blogroll. You never know when an inactive blog will suddenly wake up again (Hi, Proper Discord!), but I do know how busy we all are.

Sunday Miscellany

If you're still thinking about Peter Gelb and the Met - and who isn't? - take a look at this informative posting by William Madison....Next Sunday, June 3, at 4 p.m., Pacific Collegium will perform Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir and a world premier by Ivan Moody, in Oakland at St. Paul's on Grand. I plan to attend, having missed performances of the same work by International Orange Chorale a few years ago. (Thank you for the email, Micky!)....Scooping Cal Performances, Other Minds has announced their Nancarrow Celebration, which will be on November 3 and 4 at Cal Performances, Berkeley Art Museum, and Pacific Film Archive. Nothing on their home page yet, but I have the email right here....In London, rarescale has three free concerts coming up at St. Leonard's Shoreditch Church, on 1 June, 6 July, and 20 July. Civilized times that Patrick would approve of: doors open at 7 p.m., the concerts, lasting about 1 hour, are at 7:30....Mild mockery: Credit Suisse, which is a major sponsor of the NYPO and Alan Gilbert, has launched an iOS app about Gilbert, his inspirations, and his influences. Someone forgot to tell them that Android is the dominant smartphone operating system....Met Opera on Demand (the new name for the Met Player - guys, a shorter name is better, really) is free for the summer. The available programs include recent HD broadcasts, the Schenk Ring from 1990, and Troyens from 1984, so if you need to catch up....The results are in from Zerbinetta's classical music blogger survey!

Note

I have continuously updated the list of responses to the Met/ON fiasco at my first posting; it's quite long now.

UPDATE: May 27. Still adding to the list!

What I Missed

I've been sick for nearly three weeks now, during which I missed around two weeks of work and several performances:

• Crescent City in LA
• NYPO/Gilbert in SF
• SFS program with the Schnittke Violin Concert No. 4
• Everything else I might have gone to from May 7 to 21

Big sigh. I was back at work last week and made it to SFS Friday night, but am still under the weather. Oh, well! Many great programs coming up in June.

International Orange

Happy birthday, GGB!

Gelb's Future at the Met

I've seen the odd suggestion here and there on the Internet that the Met Board should fire Peter Gelb, on the grounds that the Met Futures, WQXR, and ON episodes demonstrate that his judgment is fundamentally lacking and therefore he is not fit to run the Met.

Indeed, he has some judgment problems: I have to believe that, had he consulted them, his entire PR department would have tried to restrain him. Bad publicity is bad publicity, after all. If he didn't consult the PR department, he showed poor judgment; if he talked with them and didn't follow their recommendations, he showed poor judgment.

But what's the Met Board to do? People who can manage $350 million-a-year arts organizations aren't exactly thick on the ground. They can't toss Gelb and bring in a replacement next week or even next year. It is probable that everyone who has the skills also has a job and a multi-year contract that can't be broken with less than a year's notice.

And just how much of a leadership vacuum do you want at the Met? James Levine is nowhere to be seen and we have no idea whether Gelb is leading a quiet search or waiting to see whether Levine will stay or go.

Berkeley (Early Music) Festival

I'm reminded that the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition is coming in a couple of weeks. I got the press release with the schedule in early April, which is sadly late for concerts during an already-crowded month. This year seems to be pretty heavy on the 18th c. but also features a couple of programs by the great Jordi Savall. I had originally planned to be at Ojai that week, but Nixon in China, a paid review, called to me; I also have a ticket to see the Philly, and on June 3 I expect to hearing the Frank Martin Mass for Double Choir. Busy week!

Full schedule is after the jump.

The Search

The NYPO has had well-publicized problems with finding a new principal clarinetist. Now they've announced the pending retirement of concertmaster Glenn Dicterow at the end of the 2013-14 season. He'll be moving back to Southern California, whence he comes, and will be starting to teach at the Thornton School of Music (USC) in the fall of 2013.

He's been NYPO concertmaster since 1980, having previously held the same chair at the LA Phil. These will be big, big shoes to fill.

Like Him or Not

His name is Robert Lepage.

Not LePage.

Not Le Page.

Not any other variation.

Signed,

Inner Copy-Editor

Stefano Scodanibbio

I'm tremendously sorry to hear of the death of the Italian composer and double bass virtuoso Stefano Scodanibbio today, and chagrined because he died in January and I missed  the news entirely back then.  He was only 55 and died in Mexico of ALS. I reviewed a concert of his music four years ago; a fascinating program executed with great joy and great technique by all participants.

The "People's Diva"

Okay, so among the things that rub me the wrong way about Renee Fleming - besides her singing and stage manner, I mean - is the title "the people's diva." Where on earth did this come from? It conjures up images of a Lady Bountiful strewing food, no, wait, arias to people on the street, in supermarkets, in airports, wherever she happens to be. But among Fleming's recent and upcoming engagements are the following events to which you bet I cannot get a ticket:

• On video (!), she welcomed NATO dignitaries to the organization's 25th summit
• On June 4, she'll sing at Buckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.  The other classical musicians are Alfie Boe (who is British) and Lang Lang (who, like Fleming, is not). Um, there isn't a British soprano good enough for Her Majesty?
• In July, she performs at an "exclusive" IOC event, in London at the ROH.

See also: Parterre Box

Tinker to Evers to Chance

In more prosaic news from the Met....the other week, the company announced Karita Mattila's withdrawal from Un Ballo in Maschera, with Sondra Radvanovsky taking over the role of Amelia while dropping Elisabetta di Valois in an upcoming run of Don Carlo(s). Now the final shoe has dropped: Barbara Frittoli will take Elisabetta.

A Remaining Question

If you read through the comments at the NY Times on either of the two articles about ONGate and over at Anne Midgette's blog posting, you'll see a couple of thoughts surfacing with some regularity:

• There's an inherent conflict of interest when somebody at ON reviews the Met.
• The Met is paying ON's bills and shouldn't have to deal with critics from within.

Anne herself makes the point that the second of the above is just wrong: the Metropolitan Opera Guild, which publishes ON, is a fundraiser for the Met. It contributes money to the Met, rather than taking money from the Met.

Even more interestingly, the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Metropolitan Opera Association are two separate legal entities. 

• Metropolitan Opera Guild. CEO Richard J. Miller, Board Chairman Winthrop Rutherfurd, Jr. The Board has a number of well-known members, including retired singers such as Rise Stevens, Martina Arroyo, and Frederica von Stade. Total employees: 44 full- and part-time. Total revenue for the last year reported: around $12 million
• Metropolitan Opera Association. General Manager Peter Gelb. Board Chair Ann Ziff (she is on the Guild Board of Directors). Total employees: around 860, according to the Met web site. Total revenue for the last year I can find: around $271 million, a large multiple of the Met Guild's revenue.

Given this, why does Peter Gelb get to boss Opera News around? 

Information in the bullets above from GuideStar, except where I note otherwise. The Met's 990 is long and interesting. Yes, anyone can register and use GuideStar's resources.

For a Giggle or Two...

Twitter users might follow @FakePeterGelb, an account that seems to have sprung up in the last 12 hours or so.

Well, That Didn't Take Long

As I said to a friend in email this morning, somewhere in the bowels of the Met, someone was holding his head, weeping quietly, and muttering "I told you so. I told you so." over and over.

Apparently that person finally got through to the powers that be, because, under the face-saving rubric of "the fans demand that ON publish reviews of the Met!", the Met has backed off. Um, maybe this press release should have come from F. Paul Driscoll rather than the Met itself?

May 22, 2012

Opera News Will Continue to Review Metropolitan Opera Productions
In view of the outpouring of reaction from opera fans about the recent decision to discontinue Met performance reviews in Opera News, the Met has decided to reverse this new editorial policy. From their postings on the internet, it is abundantly clear that opera fans would miss reading reviews about the Met in Opera News. Ultimately, the Met is here to serve the opera-loving public and has changed its decision because of the passionate response of the fans.

The Met and the Met Opera Guild, the publisher of Opera News, have been in discussions about the role of the Guild and how its programs and activities can best fulfill its mission of supporting the Metropolitan Opera. These discussions have included the role of reviews in Opera News, and whether they served that mission.  While the Met believed it did not make sense for a house organ that is published by the Guild and financed by the Met to continue to review Met productions, it has become clear that the reviews generate tremendous excitement and interest and will continue to have a place in Opera News.

I find it interesting that they call ON a "house organ" and say that it's financed by the Met. I thought that the Guild raised funds for the Met rather than the other way around. I also wish they'd had sufficient balls humility to admit the giant mistake they made.

Shooting the Messenger

Why, it was only the other day that I said that all publicity is not good publicity, contrary to the old saw. And here comes Peter Gelb, proving me right again:

Opera News, 76 years old and one of the leading classical music magazines in the country, said on Monday that it would stop reviewing the Metropolitan Opera, a policy prompted by the Met’s dissatisfaction over negative critiques. 

[several paragraphs deleted] 

“As of the June 2012 issue, Opera News is not reviewing Metropolitan Opera productions,” F. Paul Driscoll, the magazine’s editor in chief, said in a terse telephone interview. He declined to elaborate but acknowledged that no other opera company had been banished from its pages.

Translation: Peter Gelb's displeasure over the negative Ring reviews and some some comments by Brian Kellow mean that Opera News's 100,000 subscribers won't get to read reviews of Met productions in ON. Instead, they'll have to rely on the NY Times, the WSJ, the New Yorker, the Daily News, and, of course, the blogosphere.

Dear Peter, when messengers from all over deliver the same message, perhaps it's time to ponder that message a bit.

See also (in the order in which I found them, more or less):

• Alex Ross on his blog and an article mincing no words on TNY's web site
• La Cieca and her follow-up
• Brian at Out West Arts, who discusses the news cycle in a follow-up posting
• Superconductor
• Oboeinsight
• Musical Toronto
• Slipped Disc (Lebrecht gets some kind of award for the best headline). Lebrecht suggests a boycott on reviewing the Met.
• Philip Kennicott
• Terry Teachout (former ON reviewer!)
• "Lenny Abramov," writing at Parterre Box (see  Zerbinetta for some commentary on this piece)
• Tim Mangan
• Anne Midgette
• David Scott Marley
• Zerbinetta
• Alex Wellsung
• Justin Davidson
• John Marcher, late but with a defense of the Met Ring. (I thought SFO's Siegfried far superior to the Met's.)
• William Madison, ON reviewer and former editor of the opera review section
• ....and the right Google Blogsearch search gets you even more hits.

Eclipse Leaf Shadows

More at Flickr.

How to Lose All Credibility

Of all the tech stories in the news this week, the one I find most interesting is how Scott Thompson lost his job as CEO of Yahoo!.

1. He lied on his resume.
2. When a journalist mentioned his degree in accounting & computer science, he didn't correct her.
3. When the lie was discovered, he blamed the executive recruiting firm that he worked with in 2000. That firm promptly issued a denial and provided information to Yahoo! about his 2000 resume.
4. He never admitted that, well, he lied.
5. He told his board that he had "minor surgery," but not that it was minor surgery for thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer is pretty curable, but WTF?

Child Sexual Abuse in Ulta-Orthodox Jewish Communities

The NY Times has had a series of astonishing articles about what happens to individuals in some NYC ultra-Orthodox communities who report child sexual abuse to the secular authorities:

• Ultra-Orthodox Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse
• For Ultra-Orthodox in Abuse Cases, Prosecutor Has Different Rules
• Brooklyn Prosecutor Defends Record on Sex Abuse Cases
• Brooklyn Prosecutor to Target Intimidation in Abuse Cases 

They are...somewhat terrifying. The ultra-Orthodox come across as a cult. In tomorrow's paper, there's a letter from Rabbi David Zwiebel of Agudath Israel of American, and here's the appalling money graf:

Contrary to the implications of your recent articles and editorial about child abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community, the role of the rabbi in cases of suspected abuse is not to dissuade the individual from reporting to the secular authorities, but simply to ascertain that the suspicion meets a certain threshold of credibility.

Rabbi Zwiebel seems to have missed the point that in a secular society, the DA and police investigate and determine whether a suspicion meets an appropriate threshold of credibility. It is not the job of the rabbinate or the priesthood to do this.

Amazing Examples of PR Stupidity

As I've noted before, Bay Area musical organizations have been remarkably generous and thoughtful about extending press tickets to members of the musical blogosphere. I'm grateful for that; I know my fellow bloggers are grateful; I want to express my thanks to all the organizations and publicists who've invited me to their concerts and performances. You're the best.

Unfortunately, not all PR folks and organizations are quite as professional and enlightened in dealing with bloggers and others who write primarily for web publications. I learned yesterday that the publicists for a number of Bay Area theater companies managed to shoot themselves in the foot rather nicely this week. They sent email around to various critics - I do not know how many - telling them that to obtain comp tickets in the future, the critics would have to provide web analytics demonstrating their readership.

Among the critics who received this missive was Janos Gereben, former arts editor of the Oakland Post (for two decades), former music editor of the Mercury News, the Seattle Times, and regular contributor to numerous local publications for many years now, including the SF Examiner and SF Classical Voice.

Of all people to make threats to....it's obvious that the organizations represented by the email hadn't stopped to consider a few points.

• WTF, you're asking Janos to provide web stats? You don't know and trust his work after 40 years on the local scene?
• Believe it or not, not everyone published on the web has access to blogstats. If you have your own blog, yes, you have access, depending on the platform and depending on whether you have enabled an analytics program on your blog. However, if you think that I can get the analytics for SFCV or my own reviews on SFCV, please enjoy watching me fall on the floor laughing.
• All publicity is not actually good publicity, and I'm happy to provide a little bad publicity for the publicists whose names appeared on the email: Charles Zukow and Kevin Kopjak, Terence Keane, Erin Garcia, \ Marilyn Langbehn, Sasha Hnatkovich, Erica Lewis-Finein, Carla Befera, on behalf of various theatrical organizations, all of whose names the readers of this blog would undoubtedly know.
• Not all of your shows are sellouts. You can, in fact, afford to give away tickets to 10 or 20 reviewers. Theatrical runs are not one-shot or, usually, even eight-shot gigs. If you don't want to put everybody on opening night, spread 'em out over the first two or three shows.
• You'd rather lose reviews than give tickets to the wrong people. BZZZZT. That is shooting yourself in the foot.

Here's the most galling paragraph from the email that was sent around:

 Please don’t fret about this! The report you send will not automatically qualify or disqualify you for attendance at any theater. Each of our companies retains the right to set its own policies with regard to press passes, and this report is only one of many factors we consider when dealing with reviewers. The traffic data it provides will simply allow us to make a fair and informed comparison of the many opportunities offered to us for online coverage – and to clearly explain those opportunities to leaders at our theaters who are understandably concerned about the number of complimentary tickets we distribute.

Translation: we are making this demand en masse, but really, this email is meaningless, because each individual organization will be making its own decisions. Honestly, guys: don't you read the people you emailed this to? Don't you know their work and whether they're good reviewers? That might actually be more important than raw statistics.

Overall, you'll get more bad than good out of this, including a refusal from Janos - and possibly others - to cover the organizations as long as these demands are maintained. 

In closing, if anyone's curious about my blogstats, you should know that they're pretty wimpy compared to, say, La Cieca's up-to-18,000 per day page views. Interpreting analytics reports is always tricky, so I'll just leave it at this: I have about 2200 unique visitors per month and something between 5500 and 7000 page views per month.

More DFD

Odd ends:

• Alex Ross excerpts letters from Britten to DFD about the War Requiem, the work itself, and DFD's own words about the premier. His "beloved wife" was Irmgard Poppen, who died tragically following the birth  of their third son. (I am amused at "Peter Pears has agreed to sing the tenor part." I would expect nothing else.)
• Leo Carey at The New Yorker discusses DFD's art, with illuminating examples.
• Anthony Tommasini has a fine appreciation in the Times.
• A guide in clips from the Guardian.
• A tweet from SF Opera quotes Elisabeth Schwarzkopf saying DFD was a "god who had it all." Neither SFO nor the Met managed to hire him to sing in their houses.
• Meanwhile, at NPR, here's George Jellinek playing some of DFD's recordings and discussing the singer and his career.