The Classical Music Network (English) Sat, 21 Dec 2024 13:17:32 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/ http://www.concertonet.com/images/concertonet.jpg http://www.concertonet.com/
I. M. Dan, H. Montague Rendall


Six years ago, La Scala gave its first performance of the most popular Viennese operetta, Die Fledermaus (1874). Last December was the famous operetta’s debut at Madrid’s Teatro Real. Barcelona’s venerable El Liceu, more open to the idea, has produced it a few times since the early sixties. However, its last time there was in 1984.


The dichotomy between opera and operetta may have lasted too long in Mediterranean countries. A Spanish form o]]>... Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16665
(© Giacomo Orlando)


The plays of Victor Hugo (1802-1885) are the second most popular source for opera libretti after Shakespeare. Among the many operas based on his plays are Donizetti’s Il castello di Kenilworth (1829), based on Leicester, ou le château de Kenilworth and Lucrezia Borgia (1833); Pacini’s Maria, regina d’Inghiterra (1843) after Marie Tudor; Verdi’s Ernani (1844) and Rigoletto (1851), after Le roi s’amuse; Marchetti’s Ruy Blas (1869); Ponchielli’s Marion Delorme (1885); Franz Schmidt’s Notre Dame (1914); Mercadante’s Il giura]]>... Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16652
S. Hernández (© David Ruano)


Of Puccini’s most frequently performed operas (Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot), Madama Butterfly is the opera that has fared the poorest over time, in terms of posterity. The “Orientalist” view of the victimized Asian girl was not considered patronizing at the time of the opera’s creation, but times have changed. Even after European countries lost their colonial empires in Africa and Asia, this outdated view prevailed for much of the second half of the twentieth century. The Korean and Vietnam Wars continued to confirm this]]>... Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16664
M. Werba, M. Mariotti (© Fabrizio Sansoni/Teatro dell’Opera di Roma)


Since the end of WWII, Rome’s Teatro all’Opera has been an afterthought in Italy’s musical life. Oddly, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, Venice’s La Fenice, Naples’ San Carlo, Florence’s Maggio Musicale and Bologna’s Teatro Comunale have all eclipsed that of Italy’s capital. This was the case in opera and even more so for orchestral music. However, I’m pleased to report this has changed in the past few years.


Michele Mariotti (b.1979) is the instigator of this amelioration. Rome’s opera house and its orchestra are indeed fortunate that he i]]>... Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16643
L. Tézier, B. Jagde (© Brescia e Amisano/Teatro alla Scala)


La forza del destino is a problematic opera. Among Verdi’s mature operas (his middle period, from Rigoletto onward), its libretto is the weakest. If it can be imagined, the story is even more implausible than that of Il trovatore.


In the mid eighteenth century, Don Alvaro, a nobleman of mixed blood from South America, has fallen in love with the daughter of the Marquis of Calatrava of Seville. The Marquis is vehemently opposed to this relationship. The two are interrupted while attempting to elope and the father is acciden]]>... Sat, 07 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16650
K. Yamada (© Jean-Charles Vinaj/Monte Carlo Symphony Orchestra)


“The ‘Concerto In E Minor’ is for the most part a series of rambling passages, with one or two pretty motivi, which but little is done.”
London Times, 1855


“I was glad to be once again among a thorough genius, not one of those half‑virtuosos, half‑classics who would like to combine in music the honors of virtues and the pleasures of vice.”
Felix Mendelssohn


The ultimate test for music professors, pedants, pedagogues, critics and reviewers is not Stockhausen or Bou]]>... Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16624
L. Salsi, E. Buratto (© Fabrizio Sansoni/Teatro dell’Opera di Roma)


Genova, where Simon Boccanegra takes place, is rarely featured in opera. Despite its glorious history and stunning monuments, it rarely registers with tourists visiting Italy. Many know Genova as the birthplace of Christopher Columbus (1451‑1506) and as the origin city for the culinary magic of garlic, pine nuts, basil leaves and grated cheese, known as pesto. Yet, the ubiquitous blue jeans that we wear are named after bleu de Gênes, the French appellation of a blue dye made in a nearby town and exported through Genova. The materi]]>... Sun, 24 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16636
Sir S. Hough (© Sim Canetty-Clarke)


“One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot‑button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.” Stephen Hough


Should Ken Burns ever decide to make a sequel to last month’s documentary on Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Stephen Hough would obviously be the subject. Da Vinci was th]]>... Sun, 24 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16615
K. Mäkelä (© Marco Borggreve)


“If you try to be anyone else when you’re holding a baton and you assume a different persona, it won’t work. A sense of authority can’t be created by external, artificial means.”
Klaus Mäkelä


“Music is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one’s head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning.”
Arnold Schoenberg


I once asked a very esteemed Dutch conductor why, with Mahler’s German/Jewish/Austrian/Czech heritage, the only country which continuous]]>... Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16610
Cassatt String Quartet (© David Acosta)


“For some reason, people think that music must tell us only about the pinnacles of the human spirit, or at least about highly romantic villains. Most people are average, neither black nor white. They’re gray. A dirty shade of gray. And it’s in that vague gray middle ground that the fundamental conflicts of our age take place.”
Dmitri Shostakovich


From the first dark fugues of the late Dorothy Rudd Moore’s Modes for String Quartet through a Shostakovich Quartet with secret symbols, to Lawrence Kramer’s pre‑universe sounds]]>... Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16606
K. Petrenko (© Monika Rittershaus)


“My musical creed may be called the inspired idea. With what displeasure one hears this concept nowadays! And nevertheless: how could the artificial construction, the most exact musical mathematics, triumph over the moving principle of the inspired idea!”
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Interview, May 1926)


“To have a wonderful idea is nothing special. The idea comes of its own accord and, if it’s fine and great, man cannot take the credit for it. But to take a fine idea and make something great of it, that is the hardest thing to do; that is what real art is!... Sun, 17 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16601
E. Madore (© Vivien Gaumand)


Premiered in Paris in 1868, Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet has since been forgotten, save for Ophelia’s mad scene, familiar to Callas lovers through live and studio recordings (Milan 1956; Athens 1957; Paris 1958). In the 1980’s, it was revived for Dame Joan Sutherland, en fin de carrière, and to a lesser extent for American baritone Sherrill Milnes. Since then, it’s mainly been a vehicle for star baritones, such as Bo Skovhus, Thomas Allen and Simon Keenlyside. This is understandable, as Hamlet is a role in which the baritone, a voice reserved for villains and fathers, can go full̴]]>... Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16622
J. Adams (© The Kennedy Center)


“I’m trying to inject new energy into an art form that I don’t think is dead but needs to show its relevance to the world we live in. I don’t pick these subjects to be controversial. I pick them because I think they are at the psychic center of our collective consciousness.”
John Adams


“I try to put in all the emotions, but joy is the one I care most about. It’s the joy that I experience from the natural world and, honestly, the joy of making music.”
Gabriella Smith


Memorial ... Lost ... Quiet ... Dark ...<]]>... Thu, 14 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16599
O. Herbert, M. Uchida, B. Guterman Chu, S. Zyzak (© Samuel A. Dog)


“I realized I should compose in the way that felt right to me, not to others, that I should seek the truth.”
Győrgy Kurtag


“I am interested in music as ecstasy, as something that transports you away from the every day to another place.”
Mitsuko Uchida


Like repeatedly walking down the same forest path, each Mitsuko Uchida performance is a singular experience. Yet her one essential quality is poetry. Not dreamy poetry, not lounging over the keys or giving excess peda]]>... Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16594
(© Roman Boldyrev)


Flamenco likely comes to mind when one thinks of Spain. It’s indelibly associated with it, along with such singular pursuits as tauromachy (bullfighting) or such culinary delights as paella. This irks some Spaniards, especially those not native to the south (Andalusia), from which this genre originates. However, this aversion is rooted not only in regional differences, but also in class and political orientation. When Flamenco became known in the early nineteenth century, the bourgeoisie viewed it with suspicion and contempt as vulgar and lascivious. During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, many Flamenc]]>... Sun, 10 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16626
Gesualdo Six at Byrd Table (© Courtesy of the Artists)


“Since singing is so good a thing/I wish that all the world would sing.”
“My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joy therein I find/That it excels all other bliss/That God or Nature hath assign’d"
William Byrd


“I’m sure you share my belief in universal human rights, but Byrd whispers something beyond belief.”
Bill Barclay, Creator/Director The Gesualdo Six,


How do you turn the 20-minute William Byrd masterpiece, Mass for Five Voices, into a full questionable hour? Cre]]>... Sat, 09 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16588
(© Astrid Ackermann)


It seems that Simon Rattle, not yet knighted at the time, first performed Mahler’s 7th Symphony in Birmingham as early as in 1980. For younger generations, this was likely to have been a bold move. At this time, orchestras were not as familiar with Mahler’s music as they are today so this might have been a taxing task. Furthermore, musicians tend to look down this symphony as not in the same league as the Second “Resurrection” or the 9th.


This is not the case with Rattle, who has championed it on multiple occasions and toured with it with the City ]]>... Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16587
S.-M. Rouvali (© Chris Lee for NY Philharmonic)


“Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.”
Franz Liszt


If, as rumor has it, that the young Finnish conductor Santtu‑Matias Rouvali may be spending much more time with the New York Philharmonic, last night’s performance gave us a trio of motivations to make that come true. In fact, he took three most dissimilar works, gave them his individual stamp and gave a cohesive splendid sense to the whole evening.


Actually, I must apologize. The New York Phil premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Fountain o]]>... Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16586
D. Grammenos (© Samuel A. Dog)


“The man who makes the finest mixture of exercise with music and brings them to his soul in the most proper measure is the one of whom we would most correctly say that he is the most perfectly musical, while harmonized in himself.”
Socrates (As quoted by Plato)


“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautiful.”
Plato


Lacking Aristote]]>... Sun, 03 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16580
A. Artaud/R. Falconetti


“You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.”


“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”
Joan of Arc


As succinctly as possible: Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is still unimaginably grand, Richard Einhorn’s oratorio Voices of Light is a massive well‑constructed oratorio, David Hayes’ direction of]]>... Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16575
S. Mälkki (© Jiyang Chen)


“All that has dark sounds has ‘duende’. There is no deeper truth than that.”
Federico García Lorca


“The flamenco of the Gypsy has nothing to do with the flamenco for tourists. Real flamenco is sex.”
Klaus Kinski


If two hours of sudden mood changes be associated with psychoses, then count me–and Susanna Mälkki–amongst the Crazies. This weekend’s New York Philharmonic Orchestra concerts bounced from the totally other‑worldly top‑of‑the‑violin ethereality to a murky dark Tartarus, the lowest rank of the G]]>... Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16574
Y. Kuroki (© Courtesy of the Artist)


“I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I’m not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisations are written, of course, and they became much better; it improved them.”
Nikolai Kapustin


“Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She would be as swift in motion as a ball.”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet


A strong suggestion: Don’t ever ever be decei]]>... Tue, 29 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16569
M. Volle, O. Sigurdarson, N. Ernst
(© Brescia e Amisano/Teatro alla Scala)


There was considerable excitement in the air at La Scala preceding the performance of the first installment of a new Ring Cycle. Though there are other Ring cycles happening the world over at any given moment, more than in any other period since its creation, this one is at the world’s premiere opera house, not known for Wagnerian tradition. Its previous Ring took place a decade ago under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.


There was also disappointment in the air, as this Ring was supposed to be Ch]]>... Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16579
(© EnneviFoto)


Verdi’s early operas are of variable quality. Some, such as Oberto (1839), Un giorno di regno (1840) and Alzira (1845) are forgettable. But two in particular, Ernani (1844) and Macbeth (1847), are masterpieces. Composed between Luisa Miller (1849) and his huge hit Rigoletto (1851), Stiffelio (1850) is from the composer’s middle period. Despite some beautiful arias and several memorable scenes, it compares unfavourably with the master’s other works of the period. The problem is the libretto, based on a now mercifully forgotten French play Le Pasteur, o]]>... Sun, 27 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16570
Vox Luminis (© Vox Luminis)


“So sorry you died/We miss you so much./Wherever you dwell now/Please stay in touch.”
Traditional Greeting Card sent to the deceased


“I always said God was against art. And I still believe it.”
Sir Edward Elgar


Talk about ecumenism! Here were 12 works of Lutheran liturgy, presented in the 120‑year‑old Roman Catholic Corpus Christi Church. Sung by a Belgium‑based choir, whose choices were penned around 1648,when Belgium converted en masse (no pun intended) from their new‑style R]]>... Sun, 27 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16562