Santa Fe Opera 2022

Santa Fe Opera House from the parking lot

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

First out of the gate with a season announcement: Santa Fe Opera, as always (but later than usual for them). 

• Carmen, with a good cast: Harry Bicket/Isabel Leonard, Bryan Hymel/Michael Fabiano, Michael Sumuel, Sylvia D'Ermano, David Crawford.
• Tristan und Isolde, James Gaffigan/Simon O'Neill, Tamara Wilson, Jamie! Barton!, Nicholas Brownless, Eric Owens.
• Falstaff, Paul Daniel/Quinn Kelsey, Alexandra LoBianco, Roland Wood, Elena Villalón, Eric Ferring, Ann McMahon Quintero, Megan Marino.
• The Barber of Seville, Iván López-Reynoso/Emily Fons, Jack Swanson, Joshua Hopkins, Kevin Burdette, Ryan Speedo Green.
• M. Butterfly, Carolyn Kuan/Kangmin Justin Kim, Mark Stone, Hongni Wu, Kevin Burdette, Joshua Dennis.

The Tristan is a must-see for me, because Tamara Wilson and Jamie Barton are must see in those roles. Carmen: I never want to see it again, but maybe Bryan Hymel will sing all of his assigned performances? And if not, perhaps Michael Fabiano is covering! Falstaff is a favorite opera and Quinn Kelsey is a fine singer, but oh man I panned Paul Daniel both times I saw him conduct, in very different works many years apart: Die Walküre at ENO in 2004 and The Thirteenth Child (admittedly a hapless work) in 2019 on my last trip to Santa Fe. It's definitely a conductor's opera.

Critical Opinion

Jonas Kaufmann is on a recital tour of the United States, with his usual pianist, Helmut Deutsch. Kaufmann is famous, cute, and rarely seen in this country, where he hasn't appeared much in opera west of the Hudson River, if ever, and hasn't done a concert tour in about a decade. He has many fans. It turns out that two of the critics who've seen him aren't among them.

• Alex Ross, The New Yorker
• Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle

Both of these reviews are well-reasoned and make similar points about where Kaufmann's strengths and weaknesses are. The two reviewers are by no means in accord at all times when they've reviewed the same performances.

Joshua got some heated blowback and wrote a commentary about it, which you can read here.

I'm genuinely shocked at his mention that "a fellow music critic asserted that I should never be allowed to review anything at all." There is no other reviewer I agree with all the time and it would not be a good thing if there were. Suggesting that someone shouldn't be "allowed" to review over a single disagreement is ridiculous and wildly unprofessional for someone in the business. (I'm not sure whether to read Joshua's Twitter timeline and FB feed to see who said this, out of concern that it might be someone I respect...and would respect a little less.)

As for me, I missed this recital, but both of the reviews I link to are in accord with what I heard at Kaufmann's 2011 recital and in a couple of opera broadcasts, including the Met HD of Die Walküre. I didn't blog the earlier recital, which was mostly Lieder with a couple of light classics thrown in for fun. I recall wondering what all the fuss was about. I found Deutsch a recessed and anonymous player, much more of an accompanist than a partner, which is unfortunate. The right pianist can make an enormous difference.

Kaufmann's interpretations seemed generalized and worked best with the most operatic of the songs, where a good line and dynamic control can take you a long way. I did not find his interpretations particularly insightful or detailed. I did note in email to a friend that "Die Rose, die Lilie" from Dichterliebe was not very successful, because it didn't have the requisite light touch.

I found Kaufmann similarly generalized in opera. I'm sorry to have missed him in the Met Parsifal, in a role that's a real dramatic test for the tenor.

It's not, by the way, that I haven't read ludicrous reviews and reviews that I disagree strongly with. I have blogged about a fair number of eye-rolling reviews or specific remarks from reviewers. Bernard Holland criticizing an amateur group for having the nerve to sing a challenging work at Carnegie Hall comes to mind. And back in 2017, the year that Mason Bates premiered a better opera than John Adams, there was a fair amount of disagreement among critics about both The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs and Girls of the Golden West. You could look it up! Reasonable people can, and do, disagree all the time.

Museum Mondays

 

Detail of a Pompeiian arca

Palace of the Legion of Honor

San Francisco, August, 2021

Friday Photo

Stained glass Michelin Man, aka Bibendum

Former Michelin Building, Chelsea, now a restaurant

London, November, 2019

 

Museum Mondays

Detail of Pompeiian seafood mosaic

Palace of the Legion of Honor

August, 2021

 

Sartorial Report, San Francisco Symphony Edition

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

An issue that has come up fairly regularly over the last 20 years in discussions of western classical music's accessibility is what orchestral musicians wear on stage during performances. For many many years, the standard was black tails and white tie for men, long black for women, with some orchestras putting restrictions on what exactly "long black" means. (I understand from a FB post by violinist Holly Mulcahy that there are often restrictions about high heels, lace, length of long black (NO ANKLES), whether your forearms show, etc. "Nothing fashionable that you might want to wear" was part of what she said.) This uniformity of dress is intended primarily to focus attention on the music rather than on the musicians themselves. Conductors have always had somewhat more flexibility in dress (Nehru collars, for example) and soloists even more, although female soloists generally have had much more latitude than male soloists. See, for example, photos of Leila Josefowicz playing the violin in concert.

This style sets a particular standard of formality, which is potentially intimidating to people who aren't well-off, don't wear tails or tuxedos, are put off by the degree of formality, and so on. For a lot of people, this style of dress is also heavily coded white, notwithstanding traditions of very formal dress in some Black communities. The style also leads potential audience members to wonder whether they will be welcome if they dress informally. (The answer here is a resounding YES just about anywhere in the United States.)

This season, both San Francisco Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra have decided to go with a less formal style. At SFS, the men are wearing black jackets and black button-down shirts, tie optional; black shoes with black socks. The women are wearing long black, which can include a long dress; long skirt with black top; slacks with black blouse or shirt. I have seen heels of varying heights, varying degrees of low-cut-ness of blouses, varying degrees of forearm showing, lace at the neckline or wrist or forearm. 

I'm fine with this, to be honest; I'd be fine with practically anything on stage short of shorts and bathing suits. It'd be interesting to see what an orchestra would look like and how the audience would respond if everybody dressed like Josefowicz, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. I would be....surprised...if concertmaster Alexander Barantschik turned up in the male equivalent of Josefowicz's dresses, for example. That would be some distance from his artistic personality.

In any event, there were also some individual style changes since the pandemic.

• Esa-Pekka Salonen has a short, stubbly beard. From where I'm sitting, I needed my binoculars to be sure of this.
• Principal clarinetist Carey Bell's shoulder-length hair and goatee are back.
• Principal bassonist Stephen Paulson now has wavy, shoulder-length, white hair and I keep wondering why associate concertmaster Nadya Tichman is sitting with the bassoons. (For pre-pandemic images of Paulson, look here.)

Belated Friday Photo

Visiting dog, our cat

July, 2021

Dessner / Schubert / Beethoven at San Francisco Symphony

"Eternal Notes" for Dia de los Muertos

by Fernando Escartiz

Seen at Davies Hall on Friday, October 22, 2021.

This week, SFS presented the U.S. (and obviously local) premiere of Bryce Dessner's new violin concerto. Dessner is one of Esa-Pekka Salonen's collaborative partners, and so is the Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, who played the solo part.

Holy cow! If this is the kind of thing that we can look forward to from the collaborative partners, wow wow and more wow. The piece itself is grand; it incorporates stylistic nods to vernacular fiddle music and to the western classical concerto tradition (three connected movements with a dramatic cadenza); it's very very colorful, to the point that I could not figure out how certain sonorities were produced; the solo part is wildly demanding.

Kuusisto, who looks like a highly animated owl on stage, played this thing flawlessly, as far as I could tell. He is a wonderful player! (And here I want to nod to Claire Chase, also a collaborative partner, who played Kaija Saariaho's flute concerto Aile du Songe splendidly last week. Would be something to see these two great musicians together.)

Joshua Kosman has a longer description of the violin concerto in his review, where said this about the Schubert 5th that occupied the second half of the program:

After intermission, though, Salonen and the orchestra offered a weirdly genteel and bloodless account of Schubert’s Fifth Symphony, all lace doilies and tiresome good manners. After the eruptive fervor of Dessner’s concerto, this landed as a limply ineffectual conclusion.

There are a bunch of things going on here. One is that the Schubert was on this program at all. It was not a particularly good choice to accompany the exciting, flamboyant, and colorful Dessner, to start with. 

It makes sense only because the orchestra has played a ton of music new to them, or rarely performed by them, in the last few weeks. The works new to SFS included the Dessner, Unsuk Chin's Graffiti, and Hannah Kendall's Tuxedo: Vasco ‘de’ Gama. The orchestra last played Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques in 2010. I have not checked out the works that appeared on opening weekend.

So they have spent a lot of time rehearsing this stuff, and there's only so much rehearsal time in a week. It's not a big surprise that a comparatively short, uncomplicated, and familiar work was programmed in there someplace -- although, of course, SFS has played Beethoven's 7th innumerable times and did a great job with it two weeks ago. And maybe there are other easy-to-rehearse works that would have gone better with the Dessner (I would enjoy hearing your candidates!).

I thought last night's Schubert okay, if not great. I found Salonen's interpretive choices mostly defensible. The scherzo was distinctly dull; it should have been faster and more mysterious. The whole work would have sounded better with a larger orchestra and gutsier conducting and playing, for sure. Maybe it was better than Thursday. But I'm pretty sure that in this case, the context contributed a lot to how Joshua reacted to it (and it could have been a lot worse on Thursday).

(Oh, yeah, the Beethoven was the third (thanks, Mike!) second Leonore overture, which opened the program. Best thing about it was the 10 second solo by Mark Inouye (I presume), from somewhere waaaaay up in the hall.)

Welcome News from the New York Philharmonic, MTT Edition

Michael Tilson Thomas

Photo by Brandon Patoc, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony

Michael Tilson Thomas will conduct his scheduled programs at the NY Philharmonic in early November. From their press release:

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS RETURNS TO CONDUCT THE
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC 

___________________

 

GIL SHAHAM To Perform BERG Violin Concerto

 

Program Also To Include

CRAWFORD SEEGER Andante for Strings

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3, Eroica

 

Alice Tully Hall, November 4, 5, and 7

___________________

 

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas leads the New York Philharmonic in works by Crawford Seeger, Berg, and Beethoven, November 4, 5, and 7, 2021, at Alice Tully Hall. These performances mark Tilson Thomas’s first conducting appearances since undergoing brain surgery in July 2021. Tilson Thomas, who served as Music Director of the Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts from 1973 to 1977, last conducted the Orchestra in 2011. He said:

“Through these past difficult months, my love and appreciation of music has remained undiminished. The thought of sharing it with New York audiences gives me great joy.”

Tilson Thomas is joined in these concerts by frequent collaborator Gil Shaham, who performs as soloist in Berg’s Violin Concerto. In 1989 Tilson Thomas conducted Shaham’s breakthrough performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, in which the violinist replaced Itzhak Perlman. The two have bonded over and explored many works together throughout the years, including Berg’s Violin Concerto, which Tilson Thomas strongly encouraged the young Shaham to integrate into his repertoire. Their latest collaboration, a recording of this concerto with the San Francisco Symphony, was released by the SFS Media label in February 2021.

Again, best wishes to MTT for successful treatment and the best possible outcome.

Openings at San Francisco Symphony

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

You might recall that San Francisco Symphony had an unusual number of retirements last season and this, for reasons that surely include existing plans, the pandemic, and - who knows? - a new music director coming in. In addition, principal cellist Michael Grebanier died at 82 after a period of ill health. (See the links below for my previous comments on this.)

If you want to follow along with the audition process, the organization's audition page is public and always contains interesting information; I once tipped off a couple of people about a not-yet-announced retirement because I spotted a planned audition. The page is here. As you can see, the preliminary and semi-final rounds of the principal flute and principal cello auditions have been held, with the final rounds coming soon. 

Watch for guest artists in those chairs, because typically the final candidates get a week of playing with the orchestra to see how they work with Salonen, members of their section, the concertmaster, etc. And how they sound with the orchestra. (Noting that there have been guests in the first flute chair at the last two concerts - I believe different flutists - but I do not know whether they are regular guests or auditioning. Ya gotta have flutes in the flute section, after all. But I did not see anyone unfamiliar playing first cello, because Peter Wyrick and Amos Yang are both fully able to fill that seat.)

Previously:

• Retirements, Many of Them, at San Francisco Symphony
  
• Further Thoughts on SFS Retirements
  

 

Media Round-up: Fidelio, San Francisco Opera

Soloman Howard as Don Fernando, James Creswell as Rocco, Anne-Marie MacIntosh as Marzelline, Elza van den Heever as Leonore, Russell Thomas as Florestan in Beethoven's "Fidelio."

Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera 

I was pretty darned happy with this production, which was so so much better in every way than the poor showing the company made back in 2005. 

• Joshua Kosman, Chroń
• Steven Winn, SFCV
• Janos Gereben, SFCV (about Eun Sun Kim)
• Thomas May, Musical America
• Michael Anthonio, Parterre Box
• Opera Tattler
• Mike Stickland, SF Civic Center
• Lisa Hirsch, Opera News

Coming Up at San Francisco Opera

War Memorial Opera House

Photo by Lisa Hirsch, 2015

Joshua Kosman chatted with San Francisco Opera music director Eun Sun Kim the other week, and she revealed some future plans for the company:

Part of the problem, she says, is that there are only eight productions each season — and she is eager to conduct everything. For the time being, though, Kim has settled on a plan to conduct one Verdi and one Wagner opera each season, as well as cultivating the contemporary repertoire.

“The reason I picked Verdi among the Italian repertoire — not Puccini, but Verdi; I love every composer — is because Verdi is something I can build my relationship with the orchestra with,” she explained.

“The same thing with Wagner. I want to go through ‘Tristan,’ through the early operas, and through ‘Parsifal,’ so that when we get to ‘The Ring’ Cycle in five or six years I can do it with my orchestra, where even if I don’t say anything, they understand what I want.”

So: currently, they're planning to continue with eight productions annually. Boo, hiss: I had hoped that one of the goals of the centennial season fundraising would be a return to nine- or ten-opera seasons. Isn't there a big donor who'd like to be associated with this?

But it's good to know that there's some Wagner in the future. In addition to the Ring, done in 2011 and 2018, here's what we've had in this century:

• Die Fliegende Holländer, 2004-05 and 2013-14
• Die Meistersinger, 2001-02 and 2015-16
• Parsifal, 1999-2000
• Lohengrin, 2012-13
• Tristan und Isolde, 2006-07
• Tannhaüser, 2007-08

That's a little thin on the ground, except in the context of the shrinking number of productions each season. Certainly the change of music directors in 2009 had something to do with this; of the above, former MD Nicola Luisotti conducted only Lohengin. Mark Elder conducted the second Meistersinger and Patrick Summers conducted the second Dutchman. Donald Runnicles conducted the rest, including the two bring-ups of the Ring.

It's interesting that there's a plan for another Ring in five or six years. I am contemplating the current ages of the available singers for certain roles in the work and betting that some of those who sang in 2018 won't be returning. I'll guess that the Zambello production will get another outing, because it's a lot cheaper to use an existing production than go through creating a new one.

As for the Verdi, if I had my druthers, we'd get I Vespri Siciliani / Les vêpres siciliennes, the only middle or late Verdi opera that I have never seen. Beyond that, maybe one of the early rarities; I would love to see a staged Il Corsaro, which does come with colonialist / Orientalist problems, it's true. Maybe a convincing Otello?

Museum Mondays

Half-sized replica of a statue of Asklepios

Palace of the Legion of Honor

August, 2021

 

Salonen's Beethoven 7

Davies Symphony Hall

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

Last week, I tweeted that Esa-Pekka Salonen's Beethoven 7th Symphony was the best I'd ever heard, and also that I'd blog about the two reasons for this. I guess there might be more than two reasons, now that I think of it. Here they are:

1. Judicious tempo choices. That last movement can be completely exhausting when it's taken at a manic pace, which I've heard at least once. But each of Salonen's tempo choices made sense for that movement and in relation to the tempos of the other movements.

2. Dynamics within phrases. This was particularly apparent in how Salonen shaped the second movement. I took a look at the score, and there were a ton of small dynamic inflections in the performance that aren't in, but might be implied by, the score.

3. A concept of the structure of each movement that made sense at some deep level. I know that this is very very handwavy, but without hearing the performance again, preferably a couple of times and maybe with a score open, I can't get very much more specific about this. I will say that somehow every phrase made sense within the structure of each movement; there was something organic about his conception of the piece and each movement as a whole. I'm reminded of how Herbert Blomstedt took the Schubert Great C Major and made me love it. That's an hour-long piece that other conductors turn into a 90-minute piece, but Blomstedt turned it into a half-hour piece. Time: it's relative!

I should also note that there were some moments during this piece when from my seat in Row S the orchestra sounded too darned loud. I'm not sure why this was. Are my ears more sensitive after lockdown? Is Salonen still taking the measure of the hall and its weirdnesses? Did anyone else notice this?

[Context: the 7th is...oh, my next-to-least-fav of the symphonies.]

San Francisco Opera: Livestreams and the Return of OperaVision

Interior of the War Memorial Opera House

December, 2019

Back in May, 2019, a letter from Matthew Shilvock, general director of San Francisco Opera, to some subscribers included this:

Knowing that you are a subscriber who attends OperaVision-supported performances in the Balcony of the Opera House, it is with great sadness that I share, while we will have OperaVision this June, we will cease this service going forward.

The equipment was past its useful life and would be very expensive to replace, therefore, etc.

So imagine my surprise when I opened an email from SFO the other day and noticed this:

Please note the following performances of Fidelio will have OperaVision in the Balcony: October 14, 17, and 20.

I couldn't recall a press release about this, so I made inquiries, and Jeff McMillan of the company's communications department told me this:

As we announced in May 2019 when San Francisco Opera had to curtail OperaVision, the Media Suite was in need of critical capital upgrades that we were not in a position to make at the time.

During the pandemic, the Company received a generous gift from Dianne and Tad Taube, long-time champions of San Francisco Opera’s innovative work. That gift allowed for the replacement of much of the internal workings of our Media Suite, bringing it up to a contemporary level of operation, and ensuring the stability needed to provide such offerings as the Livestreams. With the advent of Livestreams, we have the chance to bring OperaVision back for select performances. 

This is good news all around. OperaVision sells tickets; there are folks who buy their balcony seats specifically for OperaVision dates. I myself was initially skeptical, but the direction of the OperaVision streaming has ranged from good to superb; the 2017 Elektra was especially great. And the investment in the Media Suite has made livestreams of SFO's productions possible. If you want to see the Fidelio livestream, there's information here. Note that they are really and truly live, taking place during the live performance. They can't be streamed after the fact, only in real time.

Big thanks to Dianne and Tad Taube for making this possible.

 

Friday Photo

Front Page of The NY Times

May 24, 2020

It didn't have to be this way, and now, 18 months later, we're at 700,000 deaths. 

At this point, 95% or more of deaths are among the unvaccinated.

Museum Mondays

Roman strongbox (arca)

Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco

August, 2021

 

Friday Photo

Cimitiere Montparnasse, Paris

October, 2018

 

Visa Issues

Big sigh over visa issues at the NY Phil....

Alessio Bax To Make His New York Philharmonic Debut Replacing 
Leif Ove Andsnes in Works by Clara and Robert Schumann
October 14–16, 2021, at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center

Pianist Alessio Bax
Photo credit: Marco Borggreve

 

Pianist Alessio Bax will replace Leif Ove Andsnes, who is unable to enter the United States due to visa issues. Bax will make his debut with the New York Philharmonic in these performances led by Music Director Jaap van Zweden, October 14–16, 2021. The program — featuring Clara Schumann’s Romance in A minor for solo piano, Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and Brahms’s Serenade No. 2 — is unchanged. 

and at the Boston Symphony:

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES ARTIST CHANGE IN PROGRAMS TAKING PLACE AT SYMPHONY HALL OCTOBER 7-12 

With great disappointment, Dutch pianists Lucas and Arthur Jussen have had to withdraw from their BSO performances, October 7, 8, 9, and 12, at Symphony Hall, due to unprecedented delays in the issuing of their travel visas. 

The program will remain the same with the Philadelphia-based Naughton sisters, Christina and Michelle, making their BSO debuts performing Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat for Two Pianos, K.365. The opening two works on the program are Strauss’s Love Scene from Feuersnot and Death and Transfiguration.

Rolling My Eyes, part 285

Found in The NY Times:

On Monday, for the first time in its 138-year history and as it returned from an 18-month closure, the Metropolitan Opera presented a work by a Black composer: Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” By opening the season with this work, the Met filled a gaping hole in its repertory at a time when the performing arts are rightfully being challenged to become more diverse. 

Here are all of the operas that the Metropolitan Opera has performed that weren't written by white men:

• Der Wald, Ethel Smyth (2 performances)
• L'Amour de Loin, Kaija Saariaho (8 performances)
• The First Emperor, Tan Dun (12 performances)
• Fire Shut Up in My Bones, by Terence Blanchard (7 performances)

That's 29 performances, total, of four operas. For contrast, looking at the Met's repertory report, La Boheme has gotten a total of 1344 performances, Aida 1175, and, scrolling way down past dozens of works, La Damnation de Faust and Der Freischütz have each gotten 30.

Staging Fire Shut Up in My Bones isn't filling a gaping hole. It is going to take years to do much about those gaping holes.

Museum Mondays (Belated Edition)

Bacchus

Last Supper at Pompeii

Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco

August, 2021

Friday Photo

Sweets, El Chaparro Restaurant

Richmond, CA

July, 2021

 

Museum Mondays

 "Mama Ray" by Wangechi Mutu

Palace of the Legion of Honor

August, 2021

For more information, read this interview with Mutu.

 

Someone's Priorities are Right.

Lincoln Center Fountain

Photo by Lisa Hirsch

No sarcasm here: Anthony Tommasini reviewed the NY Philharmonic's opening program for 2021-22, spending three paragraphs on the concert and eleven evaluating Jaap van Zweden's tenure and speculating on the future. 

He raises the important issues: was van Zweden the right conductor at the right time? He doesn't explicitly answer, but he's obviously thinking "no" or maybe the more equivocal "probably not." His evaluation is really interesting, because he found JvZ most persuasive in new music and wanting in "core repertory." I don't think that is what anyone expected when the conductor was appointed to the post.

In any event, this does bring up the question of who will be next in one of the hottest seats for a conductor.  Whoever it is has to take into account these things:

• The orchestra has a reputation for being difficult to work with. I have no specifics on this; I just know it's been their reputation for as long as I have known they existed. You have to wonder about the social culture of the group if they've managed to stay difficult to work with for forty or fifty years.
• The orchestra has been playing in a terrible hall, though this might be fixed: it's currently under renovation and should re-open in September, 2022. It's an ill wind, etc., and the lack of performances during the pandemic sped up the renovation process by eighteen months.
• The orchestra had weak management for decades before Deborah Borda's return.
• Borda has evidently been hinting that she might step down after the renovation is done. She is 72 and so one can understand that she is considering when to retire. But she's also in a position to be a genuinely transformative CEO for the organization.

So who might be willing to take this very difficult position? Tommasini more-than-hints that he'd like the orchestra to have a woman as its music director. Let's consider some possible candidates, not all of them women; I will note that there are some female candidates I'm not saying anything about because I don't know enough about their careers. Some of the possibilities are conductors suggested by friends. In all cases, you should ask yourself why the NY Phil is a good career move for the possible candidate and whether they already have any kind of working relationship or history with the orchestra.

• Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. MGT has given notice at a really great post, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The CBSO is an excellent orchestra with a long history of launching the careers of top-notch conductors: going back a ways, we have Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramu, Andres Nelsons, and MGT. Brexit might well have something to do with this; also, her two young children, also, having a partner whose job is in Germany, if I have this right. She is a huge talent who could be hired by any number of orchestras in Europe.
• Susanna Mälkki. Well, she's music director at the Helsinki Philharmonic and principal guest conductor of the LA Phil. Gustavo Dudamel, that orchestra's music director, has a new job at the Paris Opera. He might not want two jobs that are five thousand miles apart, and Mälkki could very well be next in line to be music director of a well-managed, forward-looking, financially-sound orchestra that plays in one of the greatest halls in the world. If you had a choice, would you take the NY Phil over that? I sure wouldn't, although it's true that New York is closer to Helsinki than LA is.
• Marin Alsop. She'll be out of the Baltimore job at the end of this season. She's a New Yorker with deep NY roots; her parents were both professional musicians in NYC, with each having a long career with the orchestra of the New York City Ballet. The NY Phil has already tried this with Alan Gilbert....and that didn't last.
• Barbara Hannigan. She conducts, she sings, she's a fantastic musician and was amazing the one time I've seen her live. Does she want to be a full-time music director of a difficult orchestra?
• Vladimir Jurowski. He has one of the best jobs in the opera world, at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, succeeding Kirill Petrenko. Would he consider adding the NY Phil to that?
• Jeri Lynne Johnson. Music director of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. I have never heard her conduct and haven't read much about her; a friend who is familiar with her work said "She has cross-section of skills that fit with what the new music director is going to need in terms of background, key mentors, ability to present new music, while maintaining a schedule with older works, and ability with community outreach."
• Krzysztof Urbański. Here's another huge talent; anyway, that's my view based on the astonishing concerts he has led with the San Francisco Symphony. He's currently the music director of the Indianapolis Symphony and very likely would be available for a job at a bigger and more important orchestra. I'm counting him as a candidate because Deborah Borda already has a proven record of hiring a young talent who doesn't have a lot of music director experience.
• Gustavo Dudamel. Well, he does have this big job coming up in Paris, where there are two opera houses and a gigantic budget. Would he leave LA for NY? It's closer to Paris but a much bigger headache than LA. Of course, Deborah Borda is a great administrator, so maybe it will be less of a headache than it has been.
• Manfred Honeck. Has a great reputation, but just re-upped in Pittsburgh. Presumably not taking the CSO job (see below), maybe not available for NY.
• Osmo Vänskä. He's the outgoing music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, where he has done great work. I believe that he is generally considered to be demanding, but in adult ways: he isn't a bully, just knows what he wants and how to get it. He is probably tough enough for the NY Phil, but didn't they try this with Masur?
• Riccardo Muti. They could try again, I guess! His contract at the CSO will be up fairly soon, but he is 80, his programming at the CSO has been incredibly dull, and he's probably not the kind of transformative talent that the NY Phil needs.
• Esa-Pekka Salonen. Forget it. He made it pretty clear that he didn't want this job, and as you know, he likes California.

Friday Photo

Cactus

Laurel District, Oakland

March, 2018