Now all is forgiven: Pappano -- music director of Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, invited by Muti to one of his Otello performances at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, has actually been introduced to Muti at the end of the night. And Pappano has invited Muti -- who is about to become a constant presence at opera di Roma, with four more operas planned over the next three years, and probably more to come since there's a new member in the Opera di Roma board, Italy's most powerful TV journalist Bruno Vespa, a big fan and ally of Muti and someone who wields about the same amount of power the late Tim Russert did in the US -- Pappano we said invited Muti to guest conduct the Santa Cecilia orchestra (in Opera Chic's view, it's probably Italy's best orchestra, all in all -- la Scala still flaunts the best string section, but as a whole Santa Cecilia has an edge, lately).
Another awesome step in Opera Chic's unstoppable march toward global domination: already name checked by Corriere della Sera, The Independent, The Associated Press, The Guardian, Wiener Zeitung, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, BBC, CBC, Classical Singer Magazine, etc, etc -- whew! -- Opera Chic has now been kindly mentioned by "The Ottawa Citizen" newspaper; OC's takeover of the beautiful Canadian capital happened courtesy of Mr. Eric Dawson, who included Opera Chic in the newspaper's Best of 2008.
"There's a lot of foolishness in blogland, and gems, too: if you haven't
already discovered Think Denk, Opera Chic, Bookslut, Broadway & Me
and many more, you owe it to yourself to seek them out."
Can't slip into that holiday spirit while shoulder-to-shoulder with your fellow man among the year-end shopping mall madness? Do as the Japanese! Your credit card debits are rewarded with strains of Beethoven's ubiquitous Ninth symphony.
A 200+ amateur chorus chorus accompanied soloists in an infectious rendition of Beethoven's Ninth at Tokyo's Mitsukoshi department store earlier today.
Celebrating their 24th annual performance, we could easily argue that the Japanese weren't the first to mix classical music with the iconic mall setting.
During his 1904 American tour in New York City, Richard Strauss himself conducted concerts at the famous Wanamaker's, one of the first department stores in the USA -- a practice that horrified those boring Europeans but actually brought fine, fine music to the US public way before the heroic maestro Toscanini thankfully brought classical music to the North American masses. Oh hay...one hundred years later, we Americans have proudly replaced Strauss with Taylor Swift and Hannah Montana (who, in fairness, all look better on a plasma screen than that old balding half-a$$ed Nazi who played Wanamaker's!) .
(Above: L.A. Phil president John Hotchkis & wife Joan with Gustavo Dudamel and wife Eloisa)
Prez of the L.A. Phil, John Hotchkis, recently threw a *Welcome 2 da Hood* party for incoming Music Director, Gustavo Dudamel.
The lavish dinner party introduced the young conductor to the L.A. Phil Board of Directors. Star power turned out in the middle of philanthropy A-listers, as Don and Kelly Johnson sipped a flute of champagne about it (see below). [saucy]
Spanish daily El Paisblasted the marketing of classical music artists today, in a commentary that notices how, as of now, "one needs to be able to sing or play an instrument, and then it helps if one is good-looking". Among the examples of heavily-hyped (because of their unusual good looks) artists they mention Danielle De Niese (photo above), Measha Bruggergosman, Lang Lang.
"But the problem will arise when the priorities change: when artists will have to be pretty, and then, they will also need to be able to sing or play the piano. This new tendency has the complicity of the new generations, conscious that a pretty appearance can as much as a high C or a complicated concert for violin".
The paper also shanks Rolando Villazon, who "covers his artistic limitations with a dangerous barrage of public relations".
Click on the link below for a NSFW & NSFL image of the protesters' posters, slamming Katherine Jenkins for supporting fur (and a few of her sitting at the piano looking really ~awkward~.
Woody Allen -- rookie opera director -- is spending the Hanukkah holidays in Italy and has been awarded the 38th Giacomo Puccini Award in Florence, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Puccini.
Of all the great actors who unfortunately did not train as opera singers, Sir Alan Arthur Bates, CBE (February 17, 1934 – December 27, 2003), is the one Opera Chic wishes the most had sung an opera: think of Bates as Werther, as the Duke of Mantua...
"Filianoti was scheduled to sing Lucrezia Borgia at 'my' Washington National Opera but he then asked me to free him in order to accept la Scala's proposal for December 7. The mistake was to organize that preview for the students that critics have been allowed to see. Someone said that singers were so-so and the conductor got scared and chose to replace the tenor. I don't want to criticize the general manager but if you selected a singer you have to go all the way, maybe someone will boo, but your decision is your decision. A bad moment for Filianoti. He had a contract with us, why did they even contact him? Having said that, I really hope to have Filianoti back to the USA; I will be back to Italy next season to celebrate my 40 years at la Scala with Simon Boccanegra"
Speaking of Filianoti, here's more of his Don Carlo at Scala courtesy of "babyfairy".
Gergiev accepted an award "For Merits for the Fatherland" earlier today from Russian prez Dmitry Medvedev at the Kremlin. Now Gergiev is off limits & they're going steady.
December 22, 1858: Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini arrives on this planet.
And opera has never been the same, not just because he could do verismo (Il Tabarro), comedy (Gianni Schicchi), tragedy (Butterfly, Manon Lescaut), western (La Fanciulla del West), and he conceived what is arguably the most successful and influential opera ever staged (La Bohème). Not just because he created some of the most famous tunes the world has ever heard, period (O mio babbino caro, Nessun dorma). Not just because his genius for orchestration has very few peers in the history of classical music. Not even because, as Riccardo Chailly -- a splendid Puccini conductor -- is fond to say, when you analyze Puccini's drafts for the Turandot ending he didn't have enough time to finish, you can see sequences of ten notes that, Chailly says, indicate Puccini was getting close to inventing the twelve-tone model.
No, the reason today is a big day for all those who love opera is that, even if you don't like Puccini and you're just sick of going to see just another Bohème (OC shares that feeling), just remember that if your local opera house -- government subsidized or not .. is still standing there, well, it's probably thanks to that cigar-chomping womanizing hunter from Lucca who was born 150 years ago today.
Oh, and Madame Kabaivanska says happy birthday, too.
(Above: Fabulous Threesome: Diane Von Furstenberg, Nico Muhly & Philip Glass)
Diane Von Furstenberg and Philip Glass hosted a private screening of the upcoming Hollywood film, "The Reader"[warning: embedded autoplay filez], Thursday night at NYC's Tribeca Grand Hotel, in advance of the January 9, 2009 USA release date. The attendance list included Glass co-collaborator/protégé Nico Muhly (obvs, as the score-wizard), Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and Emmy Rossum. Too bad "The Reader" star Kate Winslet didn't stop by...homegirl is looking ~stellar~. Check her out at the NYC premiere a couple weeks ago, rawking a Herve Leger dress & Roger Vivier heels.
Screw Glass & DVF...East Coast bebbe-phresh Nico Muhly was the man of the hour, having scored the twinkling, haunting composition for the movie's soundtrack (which is already available on iTunes).
"The Reader" is based on the 1995 novel by German law professor Bernhard Schlink, and directed by The Hours's Stephen Daldry (and with The Hours's score having been composed by Philip Glass, we now have Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in full effect). The film centers on lead Ralph Fiennes (as Michael Berg) and Kate Winslet (as Hanna Schmitz) and their complex, timeless love story, set in post WWII-Germany. With Nazis. Nazis? We hate those guys.
~*~(Above & Below: Nico Muhly tickles) ~*~
**CLICK on the link below to see more Philip Glass, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Emmy Rossum, and some random d00d in a red latex diaper...u know u wanna click click click**
Classic Voice magazine has a great interview with Claudio Abbado who, among other things, reveals that he's an admirer of Roberto Saviano, the best selling writer of "Gomorrah" -- you should also check out the movie, it's a masterpiece -- and for this reason the always politically engaged Abbado will dedicate his 2009 concert in Naples with his Mahler Orchestra to Saviano. The writer is living in a secret location and is under police protection 24/7 after mafiosi sentenced him to death for having revealed the truth about them in his book.
Last night @ the Musikverein in Vienna, Brendel gave his very last performance in front of half the Austrian government (the only question is, what did the other half have to do better than that?); and how cool that 77-year-old maestro chose the "Jeunehomme" for the night's program. It's my party, he seemed to say, I'll play what I like. I'll play what moves me because this is my night. Which is incredibly touching and incredibly cool, OC thinks.
The hall rose to thunder out such respect that Brendel returned to
play the haunting arrangement by Busoni of Bach's chorale Nun Komm, der
Heiden Heiland. The orchestra and audience listened in total silence,
then demanded more. Brendel shrugged. He waved a coquettish goodbye. He
crossed his arms over his heart and bowed. After half a dozen returns,
he played – for one last time – Liszt's Au Lac de Wallenstadt. In an
irony that would not have escaped him (he has written a poem on the
subject), he played to the accompaniment of a ghostly mobile phone
ringtone for a few bars.
A torch has been passed to a new generation of musicians -- the ringtone programmers.
(Much more Brendel stuff at Fred Child's Fredlines, with music files and YouTube)
Gilbert Kaplan -- whom we never met -- is neither the greatest conductor ever of Mahler's Second (that's Klemperer), nor the greatest conductor of Mahler's Second of this day and age (that's either Abbado or Haitink, with Chailly in third place). But "amateur with a baton"? Seriously? Given his monster knowledge of that work? How many "amateurs with a computer" are there at the New York Times, using the same standard?
Now, Opera Chic's regular readers know that one of her major beefs with the HIP movement is, among many others, that it has magically turned musicologists and various academics into conductors when they truly belonged more in the audience than on the podium. It's obvious that Kaplan is no conductor in the sense that he has no repertoire and has no specific training and his gesture is a mess. But except for point 1, 2 and 3 are common currency for so many HIP conductors (and if you want to discuss point 1, let OC mention Harnoncourt's appalling Aida).
Having said this -- if you don't like Kaplan, don't take his cash. And if you let him conduct your orchestra, make sure the players who get paid to play for (with, whatever) the guy are professional enough not to slam him on their blogs.
Unless you want an orchestra of bloggers unloading all their opinions and gossip online in real time -- which would make for great entertainment, but that's no way to run a major orchestra.
Surprise choice? If you think so, you have never heard him conduct. Fabio Luisi is Opera Chic's Conductor of the Year 2008 because he has a German brain and an Italian heart. Because with the Dresden Staatskapelle – “Dresden’s gold”, wrote the following day august Corriere della Sera newspaper -- he appeared at la Scala, in a benefit concert, and showed those of us who were ready to listen that Heldenleben (with the original finale, and Konzertmeister Kai Vogler teaching how you play the violin) is a masterpiece of subtlety and even irony far different than the usual windbaggy, sappy, irony-free piece we’re accustomed to hear (and that includes Herbie, genius as he was, photographed with his airplane and his Porsche, triumphant over his enemies). Luisi can do Wagner, he can do Italian opera (AND he recorded “Jerusalem”, that forgotten Verdi masterpiece). Because he once conducted in a Pink Panther costume (long story). Because his website seriously rules. Because he published his autobiography in Germany and Austria, and he isn’t even 50. He went so native that now he even speaks Italian with a faint Teutonic inflection. He has two cute pugs. Luisi downright rawks.
SINGER OF THE YEAR, FEMALE Diana Damrau Because if an alien race of giant rabid mutant penguins threatened to invade Earth she’d wear her Queen of the Night costume and she’d stare them into submission even before opening her mouth. Then she’d proceed to bash all their heads with a baseball bat and she’d make herself an alien penguin sandwich. On rye. With mayo.
SINGER OF THE YEAR, MALE Ernesto Palacio What? He retired years ago? Yes, he did – as a singer, OK. But he manages Juan Diego Florez in a way that he makes us wish he ran the careers of so many singers of great talent we see crash and burn for so many reasons. Maestro Palacio is behind Juan Diego’s decision to drop for the time being the Duke of Mantua after one preview in Lima and one run in Dresden; Palacio understands that the increased visibility that Verdi gives you is not worth damaging your voice; Verdi (except for Fenton, but you don’t really build a career on that role) is too heavy for Juan Diego’s perfectly tuned instrument. Hence, he will not push his voice to do Verdi. Better to be the king of Rossini and Donizetti, “el mejor tenor libero de la historia” in Placido Domingo’s words, than to be just another tenor who pushed his voice and crashed and burned. Opera Chic knows he’s busy but she’d like Palacio to be an adviser for her personal decisions, too – like a life coach. Fish or chicken? Ask Palacio. Seaside or mountains? Ask Palacio. Creme brulee or panettone? Ask Palacio.
OPERA PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR Salomé, with Nicola Beller Carbone, directed by Robert Carsen, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, Teatro Regio di Torino Salome in a Vegas casino vault? Horrible slimy old men stripping down during the dance of the seven veils instead of Salome? Salome surviving the end of the opera, in a genius plot twist? Leave it to Carsen to twist the Strauss opera on its ear finding new layers of meaning in that wonderful way of his. Whenever Carsen is on, he’s totally on. Noseda (OC did not hear him conduct when she saw Salome, it was his night off, but she's well aware of his work) may be the most underrated major conductor out there. And Teatro Regio di Torino does very interesting first class productions without the same massive amount of public financing enjoyed for example by la Scala.
NEW WORK OF THE YEAR “Elogium Musicum”, Hans Werner Henze On October 2, 2008, Riccardo Chailly conducted in Leipzig Hans Werner Henze's latest work, Elogium Musicum Amatissimi Amici Nunc Remoti, the 25-minutes elegy Henze wrote -- with prominent Classics professor Franco Serpa's Latin text -- in memory of Henze's companion of more than 40 years, Fausto Moroni, who died unexpectedly in April 2007. It's the story of two falcons always flying side by side, until one of them disappears from the sky; the music begins as a heartbreakingly beautiful string quartet, in quiet and serenity that gets increasingly animate -- then the second movement, "Nox", Night, becomes dissonant and chaotic and upsetting, a tempest of sorrow.
It's a stunning work by a man who had to endure a crushing blow and nevertheless turned it into art, a work made even more heartbreaking by the fact that, as the music in the finale seems to resign itself to disappear into nothingness, an alto saxophone appears, faintly at first, then stronger: it's Fausto. And Hans Werner Henze's dark night of the soul ends in the warm light of an Italian dawn.
Well, what to say of a work of such power? In the indifference of the blissfully distracted American media, German opinion immediately understood that we are dealing with a historic work here: Neues Deutschland called the elegy Henze's "Opus summum", the pinnacle of his work. The economy and precision of Henze's writing reminded Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Verdi's Quattro Pezzi Sacri. "History is being made again, finally, in Leipzig", exulted the Leipziger Volkszeitung.
This is just a silly blog of a silly girl somewhere on the Internet; and our calling Elogium Musicum the new work of the year 2008 is nothing. But our admiration is real -- as is the timeless beauty of that elegy.
DUMBEST DECISION OF THE YEAR La Scala unions' strike for 3 nights of Dudamel's Boheme. The winner, hands down, is the Scala unions who senselessly -- and masochistically -- chose to sink the first three nights of Gustavo Dudamel's "La Bohéme" at la Scala. A hot young conductor, an interesting young cast (among them the really cool James Valenti) and Franco Zeffirelli's super-famous staging of the work, all at la Scala, made for a really cool event. The cancellation created a flurry of reimbursements for the three sold-out shows, didn't do anything to advance the contract drama that was protracted to this month a few hours before la prima and is probably not entirely over yet anyway. What it did, it punished the audience and disrespected a conductor who had already conducted an interesting Don Giovanni at la Scala -- but who won't appear in another opera here in Milan for a while now. The opera had the eventual greenlight by the unions in the second half of July, in the semi-deserted city, in the silence of the international media -- despite Dudamel's prominence -- and even hometown paper Corriere della Sera relegated the show to a small notice. But then la Scala's leadership in shooting themselves in the foot is a well known fact.
Below, Dudamel's triumph in Berlin with the same opera.
Teatro Regio di Torino, under the musical direction of maestro Gianandrea Noseda, is currently staging Massenet's Thaïs. Opening night was awash with bewbs (thanks to Barbara Frittoli's Thaïs in a low-cut costume and topless chorus ladies -- a picture after the jump below), sensitive monkery in a black turtleneck (thanks to Lado Ataneli's Athanaël, tho we also must credit secondary cast's Simone Alberghini), twinkling orchestration (thanks to Noseda), and tumultuous chorus scrimmages, straight out of a Turner canvas (thanks to Stefano Poda's direction). The show runs until December 21, and it's a good excuse to visit Torino for Caffè Mulassano's excellent brioche (and espresso, of course). omg.
~*~ ~*~
**Click on the link below for xXx NSFW naked lady bewbs**
(Above: tenors Manuel de Diego, Juan Antonio Sanabria, and soprano Sandra Pastrana)
Tonight Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla is serving-up the opening night of Joseph Haydn's rare opera buffa from 1768, Lo Speziale. The ensemble offstage is petite, consisting of two flutes, two oboes, two horns, a bassoon, and strings. The modest cast follows with two tenors, one soprano, and a mezzo.
(Above: tenor Manuel de Diego and soprano Sandra Pastrana)
Patrick Mailler's production has costumes that turn singers into little dolls and stuffed animals with a seriously gothic flavor. The All-Spanish cast is led by tenor Manuel de Diego as Mengone, soprano Sandra Pastrana as Grilletta, tenor Juan Antonio Sanabria as Sempronio, and mezzo Angélica Mansilla as the pants role Volpino. This looks all kinds of awesome. And we're total suckers for ~the pants~.
(Above: Soprano Sandra Pastrana and Mezzo Angélica Mansilla)
(Above: Soprano Sandra Pastrana)
(Above: Soprano Sandra Pastrana and Mezzo Angélica Mansilla)
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Opera Chic -- who has much, much better hair than that awful Illinois man -- is also raising funds to buy this thing outright; OC takes PayPal. Email for more info.
Munich Opera festival 2009 opens (June 30) and closes with Verdi (July 31) -- Aida (with Barbara Frittoli in a production staged by Christoph Nel and conducted by Daniele Gatti) & Falstaff will be the tasty bread wrapped around a really cool program -- for example, the festival première of “Lohengrin” (July 5), conducted by Kent Nagano, staged by Richard Jones with Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros
and Michaela Schuster.
The unsinkable Edita Gruberova will appear in Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” (July 1). Angela Gheorghiu -- if she doesn't cancel as she so often does, the asterisk is always needed with her -- is scheduled to appear in a gala concert with the Bavarian State Orchestra on July 27; Rolando Villazón will be once again Werther” (July 4) with Vesselina Kasarova. And much more, among which recitals with Diana Damrau (July 5), Waltraud Meier (July 20) and Jonas Kaufmann (July 26).
We reported last March that Roberto was awarded la Légion d'honneur. Yesterday, he picked-up the hunk of metal at Palais de l'Élysée, with Prez Nicolas Sarkozy looking on.
Now, this is not about Mr. Peskin personally -- a gentleman who loves his Speedos, Californian friends alert us, and Opera Chic does not discriminate against the hirsute -- and this is not about whether Mr. Peskin may or may not have an axe to grind with MTT personally. Maybe -- unheard of for a politician, of course -- he may simply be out to score some cheap populist points ("classical music is for the rich", blah blah blah -- tell that to the armies of broke fans scrounging for that standing room seat or that new Rossini DVD).
The issue at large here is, the USA -- a country currently more feared than it is respected worldwide -- should obviously be proud of its splendid orchestras: the CSO, the NYPhil, Cleveland, the BSO, the LA Phil, Philly. And the SF Symphony, of course. They're the envy of the classical music world.
But if once upon a time we Americans had to import cranky Italians, certifiably insane Hungarians, and persecuted Jews in order to make our orchestras achieve the greatness they deserved, well, that era is over, thanks to Leonard Bernstein, to Thomas Schippers, and to a very few others -- little more than half a century ago, the first American who conducted the Scala orchestra here in Milan was at first regarded as some sort of mythical creature, like a unicorn -- "look, an American conductor!".
We do have foreigners running some of our orchestras now -- isolationism, quite discredited in politics, certainly has no place in the arts -- but thanks to our best conductors we also wipe that latent sense of smug superiority off off the faces of the few clueless Europeans who still have one, when it comes to classical music.
Whether the husky Mr. Peskin knows this or not, we owe it to people like -- and we're going in alphabetical order, because this issue is too important to turn it into a top 10 chart -- Marin Alsop, James Conlon, William Christie, JoAnn Falletta, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano, Andre Previn, Leonard Slatkin and, yes, Michael Tilson Thomas. And I'm certainly forgetting others.
Talk of renegotiating contracts in a big recession is one thing; insulting major artists as a bunch of freeloaders is entirely another -- by the way, the smarter Europeans, even if this is a season of budget cuts over here, too -- know that subsidizing great art makes a lot of sense because life is not all about professional sports and reality TV.
Maybe Mr. Peskin is unaware that other cities in America, not to mention the better funded, subsidized foreign orchestras and opera houses, would be thrilled to have a musician like Michael Tilson Thomas around more often. And San Francisco would be much poorer -- much less than the US$ 1.6 mil it cost to keep MTT in his place.
Opera Chic still remembers the cheering in Florence, at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, for our own James Conlon. James Levine two summers ago enchanted the Lucerne Festival -- a famously Marxist institution financed by Swiss banks.
Michael Tilson Thomas's family has helped make America great for generations. Insulting him because he dares to charge the rates that his peers -- very few all over the world, it's a small club -- have regularly charged for decades is simply douchy. With two unpopular wars costing us what will eventually amount to several trillion dollars, one supposes we American taxpayers might have other places to look into when it comes to budget cuts.
The priceless Sarah B., the goto girl for everything entertaining under the sun (or snow) in New York, alerts her readers that, among the Must-DVR events of the upcoming week, there's the spasmodically unmissable appearance of Renee Fleming at The View, on Thursday, December 18th, Live (11AM on the Disney Channel for grownups, ie ABC).