Opera Chic

Mitsuko Uchida has Lunch with the FT

This past weekend's Lunch with the FT featured a brilliantly candid chat with pianist Mitsuko Uchida.

Mitsuko Uchida: "Mozart Is Different Every Day"

No one active today on the concert circuit plays Mozart the way Mitsuko Uchida does, Opera Chic thinks -- no one else is blessed with that clear, sparkling sound that is never shallow, never sterile, animated by great respect and love for what Mozart tells us; it is therefore always a treat to hear what the great lady thinks of the composer.

Uchida, who is about to appear at Avery Fisher Hall with the NY Phil under Riccardo Muti (Mozart sadly absent in the program, it's a Ravel/Schubert feast), spoke a few weeks ago to Die Zeit about the culture shock she experienced as a child when she moved to Vienna with her family, about how Mozart changes every day, about how she tries to trick audiences into listening to Boulez and Kurtág using Amadé as bait: all in the Zeit online interview (German language).

Click below for a reminder, as if anyone needed one, of how she plays Mozart:

Mitsuko Uchida Will Hammer Your Klavier: The Lady Of The Piano Wins The BBC, Soon To Be Instated As Queen Of England

A triple helping of propparoni to la Signora Mitsuko Uchida, the Space Age lady who always takes us to other worlds: her Hammerklavier CD has rightfully destroyed every opponent and won the two big prizes of BBC Music Magazine for 2007: Disc of the Year & Instrumental Award.

Among the other winners, we cheer wildly for Maestro Muti's Carmelites DVD (from a 2004 Scala performance) splendidly directed by Robert Carsen, and yay for la Nata & Hawt Haim, and la signora Argerich who taught us puny humans how superior beings play Shostakovich.

The list is so cool that we even forgive the Beeb for handing out an award to Lethal Koopman.

(via Mighty Yessica)