Opera Chic

JDF Introduces The Pavarotti Stamp

Juan Diego Florez, last seen singing (not too well) "Grenada" at an incredibly cheesy version of "Dancing With The Stars" on Peruvian TV, suddendly remembered his status of más grande tenor ligero de todos los tiempos, and gracefully introduced to the public the Peruvian postage stamp dedicated to the memory of Luciano Pavarotti. Video here.

(via)

Luisi Meets the Armed Forces in a BSO Showdown

In commemoration of tomorrow's Veterans Day holiday, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is offering two complimentary tickets for all active members of the military. Those awesome patriots will be treated to the November 12th concert at Symphony Hall where Fabio Luisi, the Italian conductor with a German brain and an Italian heart, will be making his BSO debut.

In a concert of all things French, Saint-Saëns’s artful Piano Concerto No. 2 gets treated by young French pianist, Lise de la Salle (obvs Krystian Zimerman was not invited to perform for America's men and women of honor). Luisi, the chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony and the Staatskapelle Dresden, will also be leading the short & sweet Pastorale d’été of Swiss-French composer Arthur Honegger and Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1947 version). The program will be repeated the evening of November 14. If you can't get to Boston, you can catch Luisi's breezily intelligent reading of Mozart's Le Nozze at the Metropolitan Opera, where the maestro conducts through December 12.

Passé Esther for NYCO Needs a More Thorough Revival

 

(Above: View of Grand Tier lobby from NYCO's David H. Koch Theater)

Sixteen years after its world premiere at the New York City Opera, Hugo Weisgall's atonal grand opera, Esther, was a cunning attempt from George Steel to level the playing field for the newer audiences that he's actively rustling. Opera Chic didn't attend the 1993 unveiling for a few good reasons (OC was too busy with Pokemon and the Spice Girls). Esther's a win for NYCO because it's contemporary American opera wrapped in an easy sell: a classic heroine worthy of Puccini's and Verdi's craftiest lionesses coupled with a digestible English libretto (by Charles Kondek) aided by a familiar plot. But what's clear after its 16 years of absence (where Weisgall's opera was virtually untouched upon), is that for such grandeur -- twelve scenes spanning over three acts -- Esther remains an opera that flits soon from memory, and the goddess fails to inspire.

Although we don't blame Hugo Weisgall, the late Jewish American composer -- who passed away in 1997 -- for his oft-soaring composition nor Kondek's streamlined libretto. Instead it's a dreadfully pseudo-minimalist production that turns a potential masterpiece into a footnote of American contemporary opera.

Weisgall had always shared a healthy relationship with the NYCO, having premiered his "Six Characters in Search of an Author" in 1959 and "Nine Rivers from Jordan" in 1968 under NYCO's auspices. Esther, after a blighted commissioning process in the late 1980s, was ultimately conceived as a joint commission with San Francisco Opera and premiered in the Fall of 1993 as part of NYCO's World Premiere Festival for their 50th anniversary.

The Old Testament tale is about young Persian-Jewish maiden, Esther, who becomes queen and uses her pardoning powers to save her fellow Jews from extermination via bargaining prowess with King Xerxes, while ordering the death of the King's anti-semitic Prime Minister, Haman (of the delicious Hamantaschen legacy) -- scarily barbaric, 5th Century B.C. stuff.

David Lang Goes Greene

This past Sunday WNYC's show "New Sounds Live" invited American composer David Lang to their very cool performance venue, The Greene Space, an intimate, environmentally-conscious yet audibly superior hall on the ground floor of WNYC's new home on the corner of Charlton and Varick. While LCD ribbons of text spiraled above, Lang chatted with WNYC host John Schaefer, introducing the American premiere of his choral version of The Little Match Girl Passion, performed by the New York Virtuoso Singers and broadcast live via WNYC.

The work was originally commissioned by Carnegie Hall, and was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer. Lang's libretto and music, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s cruel tale of poverty and solitude, invokes the format of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. Voices skillfully personified as percussion, the half-hour performance was unique and expertly sung by a 20-odd mixed SATB chorus, followed by Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna.

Bolle + Ferragamo by Testino

While the world waits spasmodically for his book, Roberto Bolle struts his stuff in Ferragamo's new ads, photographed by Mario Testino.

Florez @ 'El Show de los Sueños'

Roberto Bolle, the man whose public image is by far the best-managed in classical music, refused several times a lot of money that had been offered to him to appear on a monstrously successful Italian reality TV show, "Amici", a sort of "American Idol" (said Bolle: "Their success makes me happy; it's a good way to expose the TV watching public to dance. But ballet is different, it needs a different kind of TV show, and that's why I would not appear there").

Juan Diego Florez, the man whose public image is the second-best-managed in classical music behind Bolle's (thanks to the always solid advice of our dear Maestro Palacio), chose instead to appear last night on the Peruvian "Dancing with the Stars", "El Show de los Sueños".

The results are here: click below to watch:

"Je m'exalte, j'oublie... Angelaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

French tenor Roberto Alagna as Cyrano de Bergerac during the dress rehearsal of "Cyrano de Bergerac". The opera, in Seville, is directed by Alagna's brother, David. Show opens tomorrow. (ph. EPA)

Neeme Järvi and the New York Philharmonic, reMixed with Zemlinsky

We all have a secret place we only share with the special people in our lives, maybe a secret restaurant in the Cinque Terre, a secret little church somewhere in Val di Chiana, a secret view of old industrial Chicago at a certain time near dusk, a secret konditorei in a little Voralberg town, a secret garden in the Isola del Giglio, a secret foggy little square in London that's still lighted in the nighttime -- dimly -- by gaslight.

We all have places and sounds and views that we hold dear to our hearts, that you can't share indiscriminately because the wrong people will just ruin it, somehow, for us too, because those places and sounds and views and flavors somehow seem too delicate -- too magic -- to be there just for anyone, and they're not, oh no they aren't.

Alexander Zemlinsky's music is one of those secret places -- its delicate, deep beauty just resonates so much. And the debate's open on when exactly the twentieth century, as far as music is concerned, began -- on the night of "Salome"'s premiere, on the morning nerdy Arnold Schoenberg woke up on the atonal side of the bed, you name it -- what-ever.

For Opera Chic the twentieth century was born when Alex met Alma, and everything began.

There's a solid argument to be built around the fact that no composer as great as Zemlinsky has had to suffer the same kind of neglect, that no artist as great as poor sad Alexander has been mistreated the way he has had to endure, in the hour of his desperate penniless death and even after it.

Every once in a while, a few major conductors -- all men of personal generosity, it's interesting to notice -- give Zemlinsky's music the kind of treatment it deserves: the late wonderful Maestro Sinopoli's concerts, Riccardo Chailly's and our James Conlon's recordings of Zemlinsky's works. Still, his music remains somewhat obscure, his name almost always absent from most playbills of important orchestras.

Therefore, whenever Zemlinsky is played, it's a good day for classical music.

We just spent a Friday night with the New York Philharmonic, and while Gilbert is away, the Phils play -- and they play Zemlinsky.

In a concert that was originally supposed to herald Count Vlad Jurowski's New York debut, the young Russian conductor had mysteriously double-booked himself (he's currently in Torino performing with the Rai Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale and Radu Lupu). So while Jurowski is in Torino sampling delicious brioche & caffé espresso, Mr. Reliable Neeme Järvi stepped-in to cover the open slot. Not only a new conductor but a new program, too, as Matthias Pintscher's "towards Osiris "got the axe for its U.S. Fall 2009 debut and will premiere instead in March 2010.

In a round of 4 nights, Järvi leads a Beethoven, Mozart, Zemlinsky program (ending on Tuesday) with Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony the headliner...all interconnected via a Prague influence of various and tenuous shades.

It opened with Beethoven, the overture of “The Creatures of Prometheus” (shorter version of the Greek myth: you play with matches, you get burned) When Zeus disposed of Prometheus by chaining him to a rock where he was to be eaten alive by an eagle, he might have thought of Järvi's interpretation -- this one literally felt like it was chained to that same eagle-feasting rock. He galloped along at a worthy pace, but in the end was a shallow, tensionless color that barely sparked Beethoven's fire.

Next was Mozart's magic Prague Symphony, a half-hour foray by Järvi into soaring, polite Mozart  -- the Prague is unique for the three compact movements, shelfing the critical fourth for compositional transitions instead. Järvi's slow and thoughtful tempi wrapped the orchestra in a thick, velvety swath -- an earthbound translation of Mozart's joyful manuscript. Adagio -- Alegro was preoccupied and absent minded, lacking the crackle and good nature of Mozart. Andante and the final Presto was much of the same: Järvi showed mastery of dynamics and pacing, but it never soared nor explored the infinte layers of the score nor captured the exultations of the Mozartian bubble.

Although he fizzled and plunked through the first half, Järvi's final Zemlinsky absolved the Estonian conductor of his former transgressions. Järvi's spot-on interpretation of Alexander Zemlinsky's "Lyric Symphony" was the highlight of the evening with its humongous instrumentation and ballZ-to-the-wall soloists. The Lyric Symphony in Seven Songs, after poems by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener, in Hans Effenberger’s 1914 German translation is structured in seven interrelated songs for baritone, soprano, and orchestra, running in a succinct, woven pattern without the aid of breaks. The work premiered in Prague for the International Society for Contemporary Music festival in 1924 to which Zemlinsky -- friend of Mahler, teacher to Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Arnold Schoenberg, the latter later his bro-in-law (ungenerous Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister Mathilde) found great success.

The work is greatly evocative of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde -- Das Lied predates the Lyric Symphony by at least a decade, but still hearkens greatly to Mahler's song cycle masterpiece: both evolve with half a dozen poems; an immense orchestral scoring; two alternating soloists; and are based on texts translated into German. On paper, yes, the two are similar, but Zemlinksy's savors a frilly depth with his seven gorgeous songs that soar on a more musical, operatic scale. The transitions are marked with such lovely and ethereal segues, scarily harmonious and intuitive. Colorful expressive passages are tinged with graceful foreshadowing.

It's quite obviously a masterpiece of the Twentieth Century, a work of ambition and greatness and awesome power -- incredibly, the New York Philharmonic had only played it once before, in 1979 under the baton of James Levine. Thirty years later, Swedish soprano Hillevi Martinpelto and our dear booming hulking self-loving American baritone Thomas Hampson were well-matched, never straying far from each other in alternating movements. Hampson's first movement, Ich bin friedlos, demands a deafening baritone entering after a breathless, rumbling, Asiatic-tinged overture. Blooming, billowing vocal lines soared over an intricate, gorgeous composition. Hampson mastered movement III's Du bist die Abendwolke with an introspective, melodic and thoroughly modern interpretation.

Swedish soprano Hillevi Martinpelto exercised a fabulous, solid voice, well-suited against both Hampson's professionalism and Lieder's stringent demands. Her first solo via Mutter, der junge Prinz was musical and muscled, but not overbearing. The music, as it is often the case with Alex's work, just shimmered there, in its greatness, not flaunting its beauty but simply allowing it to illuminate the night.

Come for Zemlinsky and stay for Zemlinsky -- this is a rare treat.

Pappano Takes La Scala With Puccini & Berlioz

Antonio Pappano, coming soon at la Scala for the season opener of the symphonic season with the Filarmonica, will conduct two operas there in 2012 and 2014. "Manon Lescaut" directed by Liliana Cavani in '12, and in '14 "Les Troyens", a co-production with the ROH.

American Voices for an American Opera Company: NYCO Dazzles NYC

An inscription to $100 million gift-giver, David H. Koch, on the inside cover of the evening's program, first and foremost, to fête the philanthropist responsible for the extensive (and much needed) renovation to the home theater of the New York City Opera (and NYC Ballet) -- Koch accepted the theater's namesake, but under the implicit terms that the right should expire after 50 years time, joking that he would hope someone else would take-on the surmised, estimated renovations in 2060.

And so George Steel's first season for NYCO launch last night to a well-coiffed & heeled crowd in a program of mix & match musical theater and operetta, American Voices, shared among past, present, and sometimes tenuously-linked NYCO singers (with the noticeable exception of ~star power~ Measha Brueggergosman and Rufus Wainwright).

Steel spoke to the audience about the renovation benchmarks. In addition to the dissolution of the amplification-acoustic system and the removal of carpeted swaths, the theater now has a better layout with new seats (quite comfortable, evocative of the Salzburger Festspiele's Haus für Mozart's seats with aisles wide enough to accommodate the passage of the widest row-colleagues); new bathrooms (bright enough to reapply faded Dior Addict); a new metal stage curtain (one of the gear-boy stagehands loudly whooped from backstage at the mention); new artist dressing rooms; new lighting; and the coolest yet -- a larger orchestra pit that sinks and raises from pit to stage level, according to repertoire and whims of the conductor. Giddiness in the air, the new theater was gleaming and inviting.

Singing mostly in English (with a smattering of French), singers took the stage in recital format with sparkling dresses and smart suits. All in good spirit, with light hearts (with the exception of the scary Southern Gothic Revival Scene from Susannah sung by a booming Samuel Ramey). Measha Brueggergosman, in bare feet and a Magpie dress (which OC thought was a Vivienne Westwood -- that is, if Vivienne Westwood had explored a Scottish fetish while vacationing, pantyless, in the Wild West), was full-on fierce, belting-out a swooning Gershwin "My Man's Gone Now". Jersey boy Marc Kundisch gave a witty Rodgers and Hammerstein "Billy's Soliloquy", while the crowd warmly-received Mezzo Joyce Castle's "I am Easily Assimilated" from Bernstein's Candide. In the only mic'd-up performance of the night (a hearty good riddance to NYCO's amplification system), Rufus Wainwright sang "That's Entertainment" replete with a cane (although top hat missing -- Rufino wouldn't' *dare* mess-up his hair even in the name of low-brow art). Spotted with selections from Barber, Golijov, and Bolcom, the New York City Ballet tickled the stage in an excerpt from Adams' Hallelujah Junction. Ending the night on a cool note, Joyce DiDonato sang Bernstein's "Take Care of This House".

In a night that New Yorkers weren't sure would ever happen, NYCO gracefully absorbed the blows from the past two years of mounting debt and managerial shake-downs, proving to the city (and more importantly themselves) that NYCO could remain as buoyant as ever.

NYCO Opening Night Gala: The Photos

 

A healthy mix of opera-for-the-people people and NYC socialites greeted New York City Opera's Opening Night Gala last night in Lincoln Center, where George Steel's ambitious initiatives for the newly renovated David H. Koch theater raised two million dollars, the most lucratively-successful opening night in New York City Opera's 50+ years.

(Above: George Steel)

Click the link below for many more...

Anna Netrebko, Tree Whisperer

 

The Russian soprano sings to the Ents (you know what I'm Tolkien about).

~*Youtube hilarity ensues*~

Classical Music @ The White House: JFK & Obama

"Now, if any of you in the audience are newcomers to classical music, and aren’t sure when to applaud, don’t be nervous. (Laughter.)  Apparently, President Kennedy had the same problem.  (Laughter.)  He and Jackie held several classical music events here, and more than once he started applauding when he wasn’t supposed to.  (Laughter.)  So the social secretary worked out a system where she’d signal him -- (laughter) -- through a crack in the door to the cross-hall".

Oh, and Tim Smith wuz there.

27 & Broadway

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can’t do,

Now you're in New York

New York City Opera Countdown!

The season is upon us! And although everyone's prematurely breaking out the vintage Alber Elbaz embroidered Xmas sweaters and the Marni seasonal jewelry, it's the season of New York City Opera's resilient & pragmatic 5-opera mini-season. Tomorrow night opens a preview of the 2009-10 season (which operatically-officially begins on Saturday, November 7 with Hugo Weisgall’s Esther), with NYCO hosting an Opening Night Gala concert honoring renovated theater namesake, David H. Koch. The evening's festivities will also honor the many unique voices that have shaped NYCO's illustrious history, with a guest appearance by the New York City Ballet.

No doubt GM and Artistic Director George Steel will be on hand to welcome his guests and benefactors, still less than a year into owning his official title. The Little Engine that Could, Steel's the great hope for spiriting the cash-strapped NYCO back to its humble roots when NYCO was known as a financially accessible and artistically courageous Volkstheater, championing American singers and composers to diverse audiences.

As inviting as comfort food (think pumpkin purée and crispy braised chicken), this season offers the classic rapey/zombie-knight opera, Mozart-Da Ponte's Don Giovanni. Director Christopher Alden directs the hawt, impressionable young cast in a new production heavy on sexual angst. Daniel Okulitch leads as a swaggering rockstar in his NYCO debut. Opening on November 8 and running until November 22, this opera also boasts an "Artist Dialouge (on November 12) at the MUSEUM OF SEX! Fo'reals!

Check out this clip below for a preview. Highlight? Daniel Okulitch says "panties are dropping" and our Pavlovian panties (vintage Cadolle, of course) drop with it.

From the House of the Met: Chéreau/Gelb/Esa-Pekka tête-à-tête

Debut, debut, debut for the Metropolitan Opera's encroaching premiere of Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, which drops to the delight of OC (and her European brethren in NYC) on November 12.

The Czech opera, the last penned in Janáček's career, has never before been staged in the MET's entire history -- quite fittingly adept for producer Patrice Chéreau and Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen's house debuts next week. Thanks to The Gelbster, Americans will be privy to a (variation of a) production that blazed through cultural headlines in prestigious dailies abroad as a roundly bulletproof work, and untouchable coup d'theatre that had critics and Janáček fetishists (OC fits in somewhere on that spectrum) clamoring for tickets.

Pierre Boulez, who had conducted the FTHOTD European runs, bowed out of the USA duties, citing travel preparations as just too strenuous for his advanced years (the reality is, he actually thinks we're all barbarians over here in the Colonies). Picking up the baton is former MD of the LA Phil, Esa-Pekka Salonen, who joined Gelb and Patrice Chéreau, glorious Frenchman and stage, film, and opera director (who could easily be a 007 film extra/James Bond advisor) on stage last night in a free chat with future ticket holders about their gloriously terrifying Janáček vision.

In what Gelb called a theatrical renaissance for the MET, Patrice Chéreau is undoubtedly most qualified to breathe life into Gelb's inspired strategy -- first known to the opera masses after a 1976 Bayreuth Ring cycle, although past collaborations with theater luminaries such as Giorgio Strehler at Milan's Piccolo Teatro mark his long, theatrical career. Although Chéreau may have been the most appealing project leader, he petitioned for many stipulations regarding the Czech opera. He hired professional actors to mix with the singers, as his vision for effectively presenting the opera relied on a predominantly theatrical convention. Also, main characters have to spend the evening completely untethered without the aid of a prompter, as Chéreau wanted the actors absolutely focused on personal interactions. Nor was the prompter's box harmonic with the clean visual aesthetics of the stage setting, carefully planned by French set designer Richard Peduzzi (longtime Chéreau collaborator who also designed the sets for Tosca).

In co-production with Vienna, Amsterdam, and Aix-en-Provence, what unfolds on stage for the MET is markedly different than what has been seen in Europe, along with a new crop of singers and actors. Even costume designer Caroline de Vivaise stepped it up for the cast: after vacationing in Hungary and exploring the local flea markets, new inspirations came for guard and prisoner costumes, each painstakingly chosen to match the idiosyncrasies of each singer. Swedish baritone Peter Mattei sings Shishkov, Czech tenor Stefan Margita sings Filka Morozov, American tenor Kurt Streit sings Skuratov, British tenor Peter Hoare sings Shapkin, and bass-baritone Willard White sings Gorianchikov, and will all have their turns at encapsulating the trenchant themes of hope and survival, the steely pulse of Dostoevsky's book, written after spending soul-crushing years in a Siberian gulag.

After the MET run, FTHOTD heads to Milan in March 2010 where Scala gets its horny hands on it -- this time as Da una casa di morti where Esa-Pekka Salonen and crew get to kick up their post-game heels at Da Giacomo over steaming plates of garganelli alla bottarga, and Opera Chic will be throwing her Carine Gilson handmade panties -- well, culottes, actually -- in the orchestra pit, hoping E-Pek catches them.

May The LOLS Be With You

Darth Vader conducts Icelandic orchestra Háskólabíó. The hawtest thing since Knappertsbusch. A playful slap to Giacomo for the clip!

Jan and Dan: The Podcast

Daniel Harding and Janine Jansen in conversation with moderator Sarah Willis, as part of the Berliner Philharmoniker's podcasts. The duo was at Berlin's Philharmonie a few weeks ago for three concerts of Bartók, Britten, and Strauss.

Gloves Off: Angela Gheorghiu Blasts Alagna ("He Wants Me Back") & His Family, In "Corriere della Sera" Interview

 

Excellent stuff as always in today's "Corriere della Sera" arts coverage: an exclusive interview by journalist Valerio Cappelli where Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu severely blasts the French-Italian tenor -- and at this point almost-ex husband -- Roberto Alagna.

The couple's divorce is getting ugly. Gheorghiu explains that after reading the Le Figaro interview where Alagna mentioned how she didn't want a divorce. [All translations are copyright of the Opera Chic blog.]

"I fell off the chair: I filed for divorce in Switzerland, where we live. It's all filed... he calls me every day, our relationship is civil, but he wants me back. We both suffered, this is for the best. I won't come back... I did everything I could to save the marriage, we had already suffered a crisis in 2003... I didn't want to do Aida or Cyrano, that's his repertoire...".

She has little love for the Alagna family:

"Roberto was sad because I didn't want to take part in productions directed by his brothers... He has a clannish mentality, I'm the opposite... His Sicialian blood speaks volumes... He's the one who insisted he wanted to marry me, he was free, I wasn't, I had to divorce my first husband Andrej... The media thinks I'm capricious, it's a cross I have to carry... Conductors need to think more about the people who buy tickets because my name's on the playbill. People don't care if I skip a few days of rehearsals"

Why did the marriage end, asks Corriere:

"I come from a family of means that treated me like a princess: they (ed: Alagna's family) have humble roots, I'm sorry, but the difference mattered in the end... Men can't stand a successful woman. When I made the Butterfly CD he disappeared for 10 days. But he checked on me to see if I betrayed him...".

She then denies to have a boyfriend, but says she can't vouch for Alagna's fidelity.

And drops the final nuclear bomb:

"Two composers, the American William Maselli and the Romanian Vladimir Cosma, are writing two operas about me. 'Bonnie & Clyde' and 'Draculette'. My nicknames have become trademarks. At first I thought, how dare they? But if the music's good, I'm singing them both. We just need a tenor now".

J. D. McClatchy On The High-Stakes Game Of Writing Libretti, On Frank O'Hara, Conrad, Van Gogh, And Much More: The Opera Chic Interview

Very few American poets writing today can be mentioned in the same breath as J. D. "Sandy" McClatchy, editor of the Yale Review and president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters. (To read an excerpt from his latest, "Mercury Dressing", click here; his 2004 collection, "Hazmat", is another OC favorite).

McClatchy, who's also an extraordinarily insightful critic, and a co-executor of James Merrill's estate, is an opera librettist, too: he has given words to the music of composers such as Ned Rorem, Lorin Maazel, Lowell Liebermann, Tobias Picker and Elliot Goldenthal. And he has written the libretto for Giorgio Battistelli's forthcoming opera, "An Inconvenient Truth" (from Al Gore's book) that will open at la Scala in 2011.

Opera Chic: How did your transition from poet to librettist go -- how much of the job is learned as-you-go, especially considering that most librettisti indeed start out as poets, which is obviously a very different business altogether?

J. D. McClatchy: Everything is learned on the job. There are no courses to take. We go to the opera house as kids, and watch and listen. The Met radio broadcasts were a way for me to learn the repertory, but also to listen to the drama as music. Later, in the upper balconies, I could see how people entered and exited, how the soprano’s lonely solo was followed by a chorus, and so on. Operatic dramaturgy has its own rhythms. I think being a poet trains you to be concise, to move in language by images, to understand the dynamic of speech. Advancing a plot and revealing a character in opera—well, there’s very little time to do that. Poets seem best equipped for the task. And some of the greatest poets who wrote libretti—Metastasio, Romani, Hofmannsthal—were able to give psychological depth to their characters in astonishingly effective ways.

OC: How’s working with the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli for the Al Gore opera “An Inconvenient Truth” that you've written for la Scala for 2011?

JD: I don’t know how Giorgio’s music will sound because he hasn’t written any of it yet—or none that I’ve heard. That’s because, when we took on a new director for the project (ed: William Friedkin was originally scheduled to direct), the supernaturally talented Robert Lepage, he had new and provocative ideas and we all decided to take the libretto, which was then g]finished, in an entirely new direction. We’ve had strategy sessions in London and New York, and I’m just now finishing up the new version. Since the curtain doesn’t come up until October 2013, there’s plenty of time, though I know Giorgio is itching to start composing.

OC: How difficult is it to make something that’s beautiful and not simply, so to speak, “educational” when writing an opera about the environment ? The Gore book can be dry at times. Is it paradoxically liberating for you as a writer to have such an unconventional source? How do you make a nonfiction work sound poetic? How much harder is it than turning, say, Orwell's "1984" into an opera for Maazel?

JD: “1984” was, more or less, a straight adaptation, and the material was a well-known novel, with a plot and characters, a villain and a denouement. “An Inconvenient Truth” is another kettle of fish, but that’s what makes the whole project so intriguing. What we’re doing is interlacing the story of Gore’s coming-to-his-decisions with a grand technological panorama of the world and its environmental problems. That’s essentially Lepage’s portfolio. What I’m doing now is crafting Gore’s story—and it leads up to the time the first shaky slide goes into his projector—as the development of an environmental conscience. It’s less a personal story than a moral fable.

OC: What are you working on now besides the “An Inconvenient Truth” libretto?

JD: I’ve done the libretto for a children’s opera, “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” that will be written by composer Daron Hagen for the Sarasota Opera. Next year, in San Antonio, “The Secret Agent” by composer Michael Dellaira opens; the libretto is based on the Joseph Conrad novel about terrorists in London. And in the spring of 2011, “Vincent,” an opera on the life of Van Gogh, with music by Bernard Rands, will open at Indiana University’s music school. For the Metropolitan Opera I’ll be making an English version of “The Bartered Bride,” and I’ve just finished a book for W. W. Norton that gathers new translations of the seven major libretti for Mozart operas, all in their original verse forms.

OC: Which American poet do you think would make a good librettist?

JD: I’m sure they could. Paul Muldoon, Robert Pinsky, Dana Gioia, Gardner McFall—of, and many others already have. More poets than ever are bringing their skills to the business of making new opera, a very exciting development.

OC:You’ve edited “Frank O'Hara: The Voice of the Poet”, for Random House. O’Hara, as a student, wanted to be a composer – did you see (or hear) any of his compositions? And do you think he’d have made a good librettist?

JD: I don’t know if O’Hara ever actually wrote music, but, no, I’ve never heard any. Yes, he would have made wonderfully goofy libretti. In a sense, his friend the poet Kenneth Koch wrote what O’Hara might have. He wrote a libretto or two for Ned Rorem—exuberant and witty.

OC: On October 22, the Center for Contemporary Opera will premiere a semi-staged version of the opera “The Secret Agent”, based on Joseph Conrad's book with music by Michael Dellaira. Is this your first collaboration with the CCO? What's it like working on American opera for a smaller arts organization, as opposed to the larger American and European houses? Is it a more organic process to write the libretto and can you take more artistic liberties?

JD:I’ve worked with CCO before. They produced and recorded an opera I wrote with Francis Thorne, “Mario and the Magician,” based on the Thomas Mann tale. So this was a happy re-union. These sorts of complete readings—it was the first time I had heard the whole piece—are enormously valuable to the creators. I sat there on both evenings, the score on my lap, a pencil in hand, furiously making notes about what could be cut, what needs to be added, what could better be shaped into an aria, what needs loosening up. I work in exactly the same way, whether it’s for the Met or for CCO. For me, the stakes are just as high, the responsibilities just as great. What I like most about the opera world is the extraordinary dedication of everyone involved. Lots of ego, sure, but in the end it’s all focused on what happens on stage when the curtain goes up. It’s an elaborate, expensive, exhausting undertaking, but nothing else in my life has ever been so exhilarating.

There's Always Gonna Be Another Mountain: Hans Werner Henze @ Work On His Next Opera "Gisela". AKA, 2010 Is The Year Of Henze

The struggles he's facing, the chances he's taking, sometimes might knock him down, but no, he's not breaking: Hans Werner Henze, the greatest living composer (check out the photo above by Ursula Kauffman, he's also one of the world's best dressed men), and probably a Miley Cyrus fan, at 83 he's at work on his next opera that will open in September 2010, after the triumphs of L'Upupa and the otherworldly -- in many ways -- Phaedra (the photo below comes from the 2007 premiere in Berlin directed by Peter Mussbach). 

The old master, undefeated by old age and personal tragedy, is hard at work on "Gisela",

an opera commissioned by the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010 and the Semperoper opera house in Dresden: "Gisela or: The Strange and Memorable Ways of Good Fortune". The opera will be premièred as a Ruhrtriennale production directed by Pierre Audi. Inspired by the open-to-view stages of industrial venues, Henze is developing a musical work for an ensemble comprising children, young artists, amateurs and professional musicians.  The story will be set in Oberhausen and Naples. The plot races ahead to a dark age in the future that lays bare the spells and shocks that have buried the past and the present in these locations.

Because, in short, 2010 will be the Year Of Henze.

The Oslo Opera House Sounds Right

 

(photo from here)

Norway. OC thinks of fjords, Martin Luther's black beret with viking horns, and gag-inducing lutefisk chased by akevitt. And death metal. Cultural stereotypes, sure, but such super-unsexy ones at that. At least the Oslo Opera House -- that white, gleaming, Italian-marble monolith (peppered with contrasting oak beams & towering glass) that houses the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet -- can add a little sleek-sexiness to downtown Oslo. And a blessed occasion to strap on a pair of towering YSL 6-inch tribute stilettos. The record-setting €550 million project was designed by the Norwegian team of architects at Snøhetta, who netted the EU's 2009 Mies van der Rohe award for Contemporary Architecture for their ambitious project. The Opera House was fully embraced by the public and even thrilled the local skateboarding contingent. I mean, c'mon...it's a giant skate park! Shred!

Blending design aesthetics with acoustic principles, the acoustically-superior structure boasts a precise fine-tuning by Norwegian studio Brekke Strand Akustikk. I.T. opera geeks can read about it in the latest edition of Hear the World magazine, produced quarterly by the Hear the World Foundationto raise awareness for all topics pertaining to hearing loss. You can browse the piece as a pdf --> [see article here].

Lunching with Caramoor, Toasting to Bel Canto

 

Caramoor's Bel Canto program hosted their fifth annual luncheon at The Union Club earlier this week, where Caramoor cheerleaders and the program's ascendant stars gathered to sing the praises of the daredevil, Italian coloratura artform and celebrate Caramoor's unique program, which since 1997 has been bringing the works of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini (and sometimes Verdi) to the masses. Director (and former NYTimes columnist, vocal coach, and all around intuitive conductor) Will Crutchfield and the Bel Canto Young Artists gave an intimate recital with arias from Mozart, Donizetti, and Bellini, tiding over the bel canto junkies who will have to wait until next summer for Caramoor's 14th season of the Bel Canto Festival. OC was in attendance for this past summer's festival, where Philip Gossett's critical edition of Rossini's Semiramide triumphed.

 

(Above: Angela Meade sings Casta Diva)

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Cybering with Ceci: NPR Hosts Webchat

  

Today at 12pm Eastern/NYC Time, NPR host Tom Huizenga will jive with everyone's favorite photoshopped castrata, Cecilia Bartoli, in a live webchat. The potential for sexy is off the charts. Ceci holds court from Zurich, where she'll answer questions thrown at her, especially ones addressing her new CD, "Sacrificium". The chat begins here at noon.

Voices of Women! Sing Out, Fight Cancer & Raise Awareness for Women's Health

 

Fran Drescher’s Cancer Schmancer -- a 2-year-old, non-profit organization founded by Ms. Drescher after her personal battle with uterine cancer -- is hosting a Manhattan event tomorrow night, giving tri-staters a chance to raise awareness (and funds) for gynecologic cancers.

The Voices of Women -- a quartet of lovely female singers featuring sopranos Elizabeth Eiel & Courtenay Schowalter and mezzos Melissa Gerstein & Christina Rosas -- will perform a cross-genre show of Francis Poulenc, Kurt Weill, Jason Robert Brown, Leonard Bernstein, and Steven Schwartz.

The event is free and open to the public (7:30pm at UWS's St. Gregory the Great Church), but a Jackson (or two Hamiltons) are always a welcome donation.

Bow Down to La Principessa: Lise Lindstrom For the Save

 

Earlier tonight, the Metropolitan Opera opened the 1987 Franco Zeffirelli revival of Puccini’s Turandot. Russian soprano Maria Guleghina was scheduled to sing in the title role but pulled-out last minute, leaving cover and Turandot second cast Lise Lindstrom to (quickly) step it up, roughly two weeks ahead of her scheduled Metropolitan Opera debut.

A tremendous auguri & complimenti to Ms. Lindstrom, who made her Metropolitan opera debut tonight, sharing the stage with Marcello Giordani's Calàf. We have no doubt she cold killed it, as she slayed the same role over the summer at Savonlinna and A Coruña -- and she'll go onto sing it next year at De Nederlandse Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and San Diego Opera.

Richard Bonynge in British Columbia! Get Your Bonynge on with the Vancouver Opera

 

Vancouver Opera will host Richard Bonynge! To conduct Norma! As part of its 2009/10 Golden Anniversary season, where the VO looks back on 50 years of performances, the Australian conductor saddles up the podium with a delicious, refreshing Bellini. Norma opens on Saturday, November 28, and breaks a 20-year stretch when it was last heard by the VO audiences. Bonynge conducted Norma for the VO 46 years ago in 1963, with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne filling-out the cast (his first performance with the VO was Faust from earlier that same year) and led as the VO's Artistic Director during the 1970s.

This time, the Tazewell Thompson production boasts Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian as Norma, Canadian tenor Richard Margison as Pollione (hopefully recovered from his NYC cooties), and American mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich as Adalgisa (who stunned the Italian audiences Teatro Comunale di Bologna, OC included, where she appeared alongside Daniela Dessì & Fabio Armiliato). The Golden Anniversary season also offers Nixon in China, The Marriage of Figaro, and Madama Butterfly.

If you can't wait for opening night, Bonynge will be reminiscing live at the Vancouver Public Library on Monday, November 9 in a free, public forum.

Older and Wiser: Netrebko & Terfel for DG

Following-up on this post, we present you with twenty-two seconds of heaven. Oh, she's just being Anna...noddin' her head like yeah, movin' her hips like yeah.

Below, Bryn Terfel takes his turn. He's talking about some random Michael Jordan stuff, but if he's not shaking his hips like Netrebko, we're not listening. Harding, you're next! And it better be good! Then it's Hilary's turn. I'm Opera Chic -- make it happen!

Bernard Haitink & the LSO Make Mahler's Ninth Transcendent. Funny Things Went Down In Our Yamamoto Panties

Good things? They come in threes a lot -- The Oresteia, triple plays in baseball, three pairs of Dries Van Noten stilettos for the price of two during sale season in Antwerp, orgasms ("How do you call three orgasms?". "A good beginning" -- from the Elizabeth I - William Shakespeare correspondence: naughty, naughty Judi Dench).

Great trilogies? Godfather (Sofia and Mascagni @ Teatro Massimo and intergalactic cannoli make N. 3 worth your while), Indiana Jones, Mozart/DaPonte, the original Star Wars, Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy, Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown trilogy, Alexander Tcherepnin's three operas, and yeah, we'll throw in Il Trittico, nominally. And so Opera Chic peered into the ranks of great trilogies with Lincoln Center's Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra triptych, all of which OC attended this past week as part of their Symphonic Masters series. (Part I review here and Part II review here.)

Sunday afternoon's idyllic sunshine lured the uninitiated into Avery Fisher Hall, unaware that Haitink would gift us with one of the most brilliant and resonant performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony ever, since the day poor tired transfigurated Gustav first put pencil to paper up there in Toblach where the grass is green and the cows are mean ("In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night,..."). Cue Star Wars opening crawl: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." An old Jedi master and his light saber baton etched out a symphony worthy of restoring freedom to the galaxy. Now OC loves her Giulini Ninth almost as much as her Sinopoli (or as much as her Barbirolli, and Claudione Abbado will always take your hand, warming it up, gently), but Haitink's superseded anything Opera Chic has ever heard.

So it began two years before Mahler's own death, his final works in the gorgeous and equally unforgiving Dolomites -- where OC has vacationed many seasons herself among the placid cows chomping on chamomile flowers, the desolate and crumbling barns, the pristine waterfalls and deep-blue lakes, and the unbelievably fresh dairy where one can taste said cow-digested-chamomile -- written by that cranky, born-old, clumsy, introspective man who was such a schlump that he was sometimes mistaken for Alma's dad. Pounded-out by Mahler in four summer months of 1909 in a shack in those Dolomite mountains, manuscripts toiled over among such clarifying, fresh air and frigid nights, so crystalline and clean -- also churning out Das Lied von der Erde and the fragment of his Tenth those last three summers of his life. Opera Chic visited Toblach three times, to try to unlock the secret, to try and understand what happened up there, that turned a composer of great, uneven, nakedly sentimental talent into a genius of Beethoven-like stature with the Ninth and Das Lied Von Der Erde -- did he glimpse another world already, knowing he was about to take leave of this one? What turned the brash, if interesting, vulgarian who wrote the Titan into the pure spirit who penned the Ninth, soaring above our world? And yes Opera Chic really likes the Eighth, the obsessive, touching, creepily stalkerish, hypnotic work Lloyd Dobler would have written had he been a composer (Alma -- and the world -- his Ione Skye), but still. The Ninth, Das Lied, what's left of the Tenth. Compare them with the rest of his output and it's the difference between Derek Jeter and Melky Cabrera (and we like Melky).

The first public performance, as we know, came posthumously after Mahler's death from young assistant Bruno Walter (funny how your assistant, however talented, can get you less than, say Krazy Otto Klemperer or Big Willy Mengelberg), good ole Bruno (no umlaut) who also handled the world premiere of Das Lied von der Erde after Mahler's death in 1911 (a year later, the 9th). And how much do we love this quote from Almschi's biography of her great Gustl? So much we're going to share it again (since it's paraphrased and reworded in every single Mahler's 9th program notes in the world):

Mahler's achievement by this time was prodigious: the Fifth, the Sixth, the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, the three "Kindertotenlieder," all his later songs and the sketches for Das Lied von der Erde, the numeration of which he wished to dodge in his dread of a ninth Symphony, as neither Beethoven nor Bruckner had reached a tenth. Beethoven died after his Ninth Symphony and Bruckner before finishing his Ninth; hence it was a superstition of Mahler's that no great writer of symphonies got beyond his ninth. At first he wrote Das Lied von der Erde as the ninth, but then crossed the number out. When later he was writing his next Symphonyn which he called teh Ninth, he said to me: "Actually of course it's the Tenth, because Das Lied von der Erde was really the Ninth." Finally when he was composing the Tenth he said: "Now the danger is past." And yet he did not live to see the Ninth performed or to finish the Tenth.

Haitink himself glimpsed something exceedingly Mahler-like in his preparations, balancing the precision of Mahler's score with Zen concentration and clarity, and a deeply lyric and musical dialog that pervaded the entire score.

Andante started as a mellow, penitent, pensive meditation. Haitink's undying love of Mahler's Ninth was transparent as he caressed and shaped touching and stirring passages. Faint motifs were given as much space and air as they needed from the patient maestro, and as the melody built towards the thundering cymbals, the sound churned and stunned. A perfectly controlled chaos of sound. Imploring, vengeful, with moments of great meditation and reflection.

Im Tempo featured witty and joyous woodwinds, and tightly-woven themes. Haitink took his time to add weight and depth, but without the static, turgid rhythms that sometime drag down slower tempi. He perfected a delicate, light touch in the midst of such loneliness, solitude and pain.

Rondo Burleske featured a rousing snap of brass, big trombones amidst a gorgeous, sweeping crispness. Haitink was able to take such big Mahlerian themes of neediness and unrequited love and turn them into heaven-bound trifles, unmarked with the clingy demands or manipulation that, at times, insist upon the listener.

It's the Adagio, and sadness is laid bare. The richness of the strings gave way to insightful swelling and ebbing, a huge wall of sound turned into a force, and enchantment that took the listener on a journey. Deep and tender, completely controlled, and undeniably transcendent. Death has marked the score, but music is alive. In the Adagio, the greatest maestri explain their vision of -- well, everything, through Mahler's notes. Carlo Maria Giulini warmed your heart in those final moments, explaining calmly to you his faith in a better world beyond our own; Sergiu Celibidache, that mean Zen master, dared us to look deeply into Nothingness instead. Bernard Haitink, calm and unsmiling and frail and serene, illuminated for us, in that big room, simply, the Sublime.

And for this we can only be eternally grateful to the Dutch Master and the Englishmen in New York.

Drink a "Castratini" and Toast to Cecilia Bartoli's New CD

 

For Cecilia Bartoli's hardcore contingent of Manhattan fans, (le) poisson rouge is throwing a free reception and film screening to celebrate the launch of her new CD, Sacrificium, in NYC's West Village. On November 16 -- although Ceci won't be there in person to welcome the castrati-fetishists -- (le) poisson rouge will screen a film with highlights from a live Italy concert (from September 10, 2009) where the Italian diva sang tracks from her new CD. A special cocktail "The Castratini" will be served, 'tho OC's afraid to even guess the ingredients.

Ceci's Castrati CD just dropped, although if you're having buyer's indecision, you can first sample a dozen Sacrificium tracks on NPR's First Listen.

Levine (Still) Out, Maazel Jumps in for BSO's Beethoven Symphony Cycle

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has just announced that Lorin Maazel will be filling-in for James Levine, who was supposed to return to the podium after unanticipated back surgery on a herniated disc on October 30. It was originally announced almost two weeks ago that Levine would be back on stage leading the BSO in four of Beethoven's Symphonies (6, 7, 8 & 9 over the span of eight days) beginning on October 30 and ending November 7. Go here and here for past announcements.

However, Maazel will be relief pitching for Levine at Symphony Hall. He'll also be conducting the BSO in Beethoven's 6 & 7 Symphonies in NYC at Carnegie Hall, scheduled for November 2 (a repeat of the BSO Symphony Hall concerts on October 30 & 31). Maazel hasn't performed with the BSO since 1972.

At this point, Levine is scheduled for his first BSO return on January 28, in a program of Carter, Berlioz, and Ravel.

Our biggest healing wishes to Maestro Levine!

Washington ~Superstars~ for the WNO, aka Ruth Bader Ginsburg In The (Opera) House

We all have people we look up to -- as role models, as the kind of grown-ups we'd like to become one day. For many kids, it's more often than not baseball players, or rappers. For Opera Chic though, it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman ever on the US Supreme Court, who despite her monster brains and wisdom and cutting wit manages to carry herself lightly -- and we like that in our heroes. Pioneer of equal rights for American women, professor at Rutgers and Columbia, the first woman to appear on the Harvard Law Review AND the Columbia Law Review, Justice Ruth -- usually the smartest person in the room, and quite often the only woman in there -- spent her life and career drilling more than a few big holes through that old glass ceiling. And if and when, one day, that ceiling is truly shattered, we'll owe Justice Ruth and women like her a debt of gratitude that's probably impossible to repay. 

 

Being so awesome, Justice Ruth is also a huge opera fan -- thus making her the perfect hero for Opera Chic. And last night, she went to the opera house with her good friend "Big Tony" Scalia (probably the most intelligent man ever to utter the zany words "gay agenda" with a straight face -- Antonio, relax, they won't give you a makeover if you don't want to; even if you really need one pretty badly).    

Last night's opening of Washington National Opera Ariadne auf Naxos boasted supernumeraries of a special kind: the above mentioned Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Antonin Scalia, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Professor Martin Ginsburg and arts philanthropist Adrienne Arsht all turned out to appear in on-stage as non-speaking party guests.

 

(Above: Justice "Big Tony" Scalia with Zerbinetta's Lyubov Petrova)

From the WNO press release:

Justice Scalia added, “I can’t remember when I’ve ever had more fun on stage.” The renowned conservative jurist chuckled throughout the performance, and at one point blushed in earnest when Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova, who played the care-free minx Zerbinetta, plopped down on his lap and draped an arm around him, leading the entire audience to erupt in applause.

Ginsburg & Scalia, both avid opera fans, have already appeared on the WNO stage, first in 1994 in Die Fledermausand again in 2006 for a 50th Anniversary Gala. All photos are credited to Karin Cooper for WNO.

 
(Above: Zerbinetta's Lyubov Petrova takes a bow while Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Antonin Scalia look on)

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Haitink Holds it Down: The Second Lincoln Center Concert

 

Continuing the Dutch Master's London Symphony Orchestra triptych at Lincoln Center, Bernard Haitink went on to the second performance of the Symphonic Masters 3 series: Schubert's 8th Symphony and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.

 

Friday night's audience boasted an audibly-noticeable contingent of Haitink fans, many of which called out "bravo" as the conductor took the stage -- the classical music version of soccer hooligans, and we were all better off for that.

Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, the Eighth, was given from a Zen master who just smoked a Dutch Master and was blissing out between a few glasses of Sancerre. Mellowness marked the two movements with a rich, soft dynamic, and smoldering notes. Haitink expressed perfect control coupled with an effortless intensity. Allegro kept sadness at bay with powerful crescendi, never muscled or brash. Andante was deliberately slow, but boasted a breathlessness that allowed the orchestra room to breathe. All in all, an unexciting but highly musical reading from a luscious baton.

 

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Center for Contemporary Opera Does it Again: Happy 27th Season Opener!

(Above: The Cell Theatre, sandwiched on West 23rd Street)

American as apple pie and Jell-O, NFL and Prozac, the Center for Contemporary Opera launched its 27th season on Thursday night with an intimate, Atelier performance of poet and librettista and generally awesome J.D. McClatchy & composer Michael Dellaira's new opera, The Secret Agent. If you were lucky enough to snag one of the quickly-selling-out tickets to the double-header (Thursday & Friday night), you coukd get an all-access, VIP pass to an intimate theater full of the brightest lights of the contemporary opera scene.

Two hours sitting among that witty J.D. McClatchy-- Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet, president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters, editor of The Yale Review -- and all other artists, Opera Chic included, was really enough to glean the very big things happening in the evolving, thriving contemporary American opera scene. For American composers, librettisti and performers ONLY, you can take your socialist a$$es elsewhere.

 

~*click the link below to read more*~

Coke Pepsi Lavazza Illy

 
In the Italian equivalent of the Coke vs. Pepsi rivalry, Lavazza steps it up against main competitor Illy to corner their prospective caffeine fiends.

Six Italian opera arias were given the Italian pop treatment for Lavazza's sickly-fluorescent Technicolor 2010 calendar campaign that has us digging out our coolest cousin's vintage Fiorucci & Canal Jeans accessories. Shot in Rome, the arias and random oldie Italian pop songs (Va' Pensiero, Guarda Che Luna, 'O Sole Mio, the Bocelli vehicle Con Te Partirò, Baciami Piccina and Nessun Dorma) were reenacted by models Bianca Balti, Georgia Frost, Lydia Hearst, Daisy Lowe, Alexandra Tomlinson, and Alek Alexeyeva by British photographer Miles Aldridge.

Is the 2010 Lavazza Calendar is a likely contender for Pirelli's famous calendar? We don't think so, but it's a worthy effort. Even thought there's lots of Italian muscle behind it (thanks to advice from Cavalli, Dolce & Gabbana, and Sergio Rossi), we feel less Fellini and more of a misguided mix between David LaChapelle, Pierre et Gilles, Jeff Koons and frankly, an American Express travel brochure.

We're so down with combining opera and coffee (really, what else could have gotten us through 5 hours of Rosenkavalier?) but we prefer the art collectibles offered by of top Lavazza competitor, Illy. C'mon...how can you beat signed espresso cups from the brilliance of William Kentridge, Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel or Almodovar?

Personally, OC doesn't care for either...she's a torrefazione kind of girl. Blue Diamond is da caffeine bomb. I'd make a "set it up as an I.V. drip" joke, but it's probably too soon. A hat tip to the many, many OC friends who had sent this her way the past few days.

 Click the link below to see the remaining four!

Légion d'honneur's Newest Chevalier & Officier: Dudamel & Abreu

 

From one of OC's dearest and kindest Paris-based friends comes photographic highlights of Gustavo Dudamel's Paris adventures, where he's just finished two nights at Salle Pleyel. Earlier tonight he played with his Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra the Tchaikovsky violin concerto (with soloist Renaud Capuçon) and Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie. The encore was (naturally) Lenny's Mambo.

But the real show started afterwards, when French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand presented Jose Abreu with the medal of Officier de la Légion d'honneur and Dudamel was made chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Félicitations!

 

 

Click the link below for more pictures!

Famous on the Internet, Purring in Our Hearts: Nora the Piano Cat Wins the Gold

In anticipation of Caturday, Tim Smith reports that Nora, the ubiquitous gray tabby who plays the piano like Joplin cuts a rag, won an ASPCA award for "Cat of the Year" (robbed from a black bear on a unicycle!) She'll be honored next week in NYC at the ASPCA's 2009 Humane Awards.

Nora the piano cat got a DVD deal?! OC must have been too busy following the Michael Phelps smoking chronic scandal seven months ago when Nora's DVD dropped.

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(All photos AP)

Meryl Does Rome, Lights Up The Eternal City

(Photo AP)

From Sophie's Choice to Angels in America to The Devil Wears Prada (let's just pretend Mamma Mia!didn't happen, ok?), we've always loved Meryl. Here the actress shares a laugh with retired/not retired ballerina, Carla Fracci, at an event sponsored by the International Rome Film Festival.

This Is James Levine, And This Is Why We Miss Him So Much

Get well soon, Maestro!

Slow and Low that is the Tempo: Haitink and the LSO at Lincoln Center

 

Opera Chic wouldn't say that she delayed her return to Milan to catch great Dutch Master Bernard Haitink's Lincoln Center Mahler and Schubert concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra, but if that's what it takes for a Milan-bound deferment, so be it. So Milan's gray skies and cashmere will have to wait, while OC lingers in NYC to take in Lincoln Center's Symphonic Masters 3 series, which Bernard Haitink has just inaugurated. In a series of three concerts, Haitink and the LSO tackle five works of Schubert & Mahler, culminating with Mahler's Ninth. For those outside of of the USA (and many European countries where Haitink doesn't tarry), the 80-year-old Dutch maestro created a bit of a frenzy among OC's Italian, symphony-loving friends who begged her to stay in NYC and witness Haitink do his thing.

The Dutch maestro holds court as Principal Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, rounding out a line-up of heavy hitters before him (Kubelik, Solti & Barenboim) and laying the groundwork for Riccardo Muti's tenure beginning for the 2010/11 season, the tasty filling between the Barenboim & Muti sandwich. His almost thirty years of experience as MD of Amsterdam's Concertgebouw adequately shaped his trademark spacious breaths, laden with relaxed paces and pensive reflection, all of which OC heard last night between the precise baton strokes of the maestro.

In all this Mahler Madness, let's not omit the Schubert Symphony No. 5 appetizer. It's a humble, restrained work, written more for Schubert's compendium than for a public venue, and scored without the tones of clarinets, trumpets, or timpani.

Allegro was an elegant, flexible Mozartian exercise that Haitink controlled with a legato-marked restraint, beat in an intimate and unhurried pace. Andante was more rigid, marked with delicate and sustained notes -- slow and thoughtful, a pastoral of reflection. The Menuetto was dramatic, but fell flat against the beauty of the prior movements. The final Allegro boasted a nice, polished snap that flourished mainly in the final measures. 

Mahler's Fourth was written while the composer was MD for the Vienna Court Opera -- and by the way, memo to Karajan haters out there, it was Herbie who, for all his human and musical shortcomings, insisted on performing operas in the oroginal language: before Herbie, even giants like Mahler conducted operas translated into German -- and the quaint city left its mark on the composition with a delicate beauty, quaint and unabashedly Viennese. Nor did it detract from the humble work (amazingly pragmatic for such exuberance) to be sketched on holiday in an Austrian spa, which aided in fleshing-out the blooming, idyllic passages. Completed in 1900, within his oeuvre of great symphonies, the fourth is relatively economic (stripped of trombones) and uses a smaller orchestra, where the language alludes directly to the Viennese sensibilities of Haydn and Schubert.

 

The Fourth breathes an atmosphere of well-being and relaxation wrapped under a blue sky, which Mahler explained as "divinely gay and deeply sad." It's overall leisure, with moments of sadness that seep into the landscape. From the first movement's spasm of sleigh bells, Haitink set his paces, calm and pastoral, but with an earthy weight. Accelerations in tempo gave birth to blossoms of color. Pensive and patient -- Haitink takes his sweet time, because you know he always has one trick up his sleeve to surprise you -- the second movement was equally languid and labored with gorgeous woodwinds hearkening rustic landscapes. The third movement in Haitink's wise reading was an experiment in sustainment, profound and serene -- very Beethovenian.

The stunning, E major coda gave way to the fourth movement's "Das himmlische Leben" (The Heavenly Life), sung by Swedish soprano Miah Persson. Blond & bubbly in a pink & lavender frothy princess gown -- every inch Sophie from her current appearance across the plaza in the MET's Rosenkavalier, even if Opera Chic loved her the most as the aggressive, brash, kicka$$ Susanna in Pappano's and McVicar's Nozze di Figaro, ROH, 2006 -- she sang with a joyful and enthusiastic freshness. A big brava to the soprano for gracing Mahler's 4th on her evening off from the MET stage.

Judged as lighter than the rest of Mahler's oeuvre of symphonic work, his Fourth Symphony is paradoxically complex: Haitink gave a noble, introspective reading of Mahler's work, a tribute to the traumatic life of the composer, marked with death and disappointment, ridicule and misunderstanding and appalling episodes of ejaculatio praecox (not exactly the stuff that Alma's dreams were made of), a Dutch master willing to delve deep into the scary pathos of Mahler. Haitink led the London Symphony Orchestra in a reliable, prudent, vision of Mahler, no one surprised, no one disappointed. But then, since Opera Chic is on the record here as being convinced that Mahler's Ninth and Das Lied Von Der Erde and what remains of the Tenth are so much superior to the rest of Mahler's works that they might as well have been written by someone else, Opera Chic is waiting for the rest of the Haitink world series -- and especially his Ninth and Das Lied.