It wouldn't be La Scala without cries of dissension, but when Corriere della Sera last week outed Riccardo Chailly
as La Scala's incoming MD (for an outward-bound Barneboim), the orchestra's grumbles out-grumbled everyone.
Chailly had been earmarked for ages as Scala's MD even before the press leak (hello...2006?), but the orchestra's musicians are actively shelving the Gewandhaus director's name (via an internal referendum) for Fabio Luisi. They're not so much divided on the Chailly election (although they fear that Chailly's prominence abroad and his fat Decca contract could interfere with the theater's artistic choices and inflate salaries), but more displeased that they were omitted from the decision (and if you want to know the orchestra's sway, just ask Muti.)
The Chailly announcement followed recent meetings among Scala superpowers (including Milan's mayor/Scala's president Pisapia who hasn't denied the decision and is said to endorse Chailly 100%) as well as one with the orchestra's artistic committee, where it's rumored that incoming Intendant Pereira announced Chailly's directorship bound by a seven-year contract.
History repeats itself...
Let's go back to 2005, right after Stéphane Lissner took over as intendant after Riccardo Muti's
thorny departure. Back then, Daniele Gatti (who OC had always heard was the incoming MD, for more reasons than
just being Pereira's BFF -- reason 1, 2 and 3) and Riccardo Chailly
(and Myung-Whun Chung before his unfortunate flameout) were frontrunners.
Fabio Luisi spoke to Corriere della Sera in a long interview where he confirms that, unlike Opera di Roma (that threatened a lawsuit after Luisi's decision to pull out of Rome's Elektra in order to be able to replace the still-indisposed James Levine at the Met) Wiener Symphoniker and San Francisco Opera and Carlo Felice in Genova, where he had to cancel engagements as well, have been cooperative, actually the institutions were "happy to be able to help the Met".
Of Levine he says:
"He's been responsible for forty years of an artistic renaissance that still benefits the Met... I'm happy to be part of the Met family in a more continuing and intense. We'll see what the future brings".
Of his vision of opera conducting:
"It's important, for a conductor, to consider oneself as a partner of the singers, to indicate them a destination and the way to reach it. The good conductor doesn't give orders but motivates the singers, with his support and persuasion".
He also reveals that he loves his new Upper West Side apartment and that he sometimes makes "musica da camera" playing at home with his wife, a photographer who's also a trained violinist.
And re: his penchant for wearing a suit and tie during rehearsals:
"I am convinced that wearing an appropriate outfit during rehearsals is a sign of respect, due to the people working with me: the orchestra, first and foremost, the colleagues and the collaborators".
Last month, Fabio Luisi, The Metropolitan Opera's Principal Guest Conductor from the 2010-11 season, had been also named Principal Conductor of Genoa's glorious Teatro Carlo Felice; shortly thereafter, it was revealed that the opera house's finances were in much, much worse shape than everybody was led to first believe.
In a recent interview with "la Repubblica", the Genovese maestro had much to say about the financial crisis of the theater, which came as a surprise in its severity. Luisi's appointment, which was the result of his willingness to help Carlo Felice, was tied to certain conditions and programing that never materialized. Of course, he'll help Genova and Carlo Felice in whatever means that they'd ask for his help, but without an Artistic Director and without the prospect of immediate programming, a figure like a Principal Conductor in this moment would be a premature, unnescessary choice.
He went on to say that he's willing to help Carlo Felice as much as he can, but without a firm contract, it's impossible to keep oneself "on call" all the time. Regardless, he'll make himself available for the theater's needs as early as this October and also has batted around the idea of a New Year's Concert.
Continue reading after the jump for Maestro Luisi's ideas to help Carlo Felice out of the economic crisis and what he thinks about the state of Italian opera [all translations OC's kthnxbi].
Genova's Teatro Carlo Felice, under new management, has immediately pulled out the big guns: the opera house has a new Principal Conductor, born in Genova, and his name is Fabio Luisi.
Luisi shares his many career highlights in the USA and Europe, and recounts that he initially chose to play sports as a child, but after being diagnosed with asthma, the doctor said to cool it with the athletics. Instead he excelled at piano and was taken as pianist by legendary soprano Leyla Gencer when he was only 18-years-old.
We don't see him that much in Italy, unfortunately, which he blames partially on the gradual breakdown of Italian opera house structure. But he hints that he'll be back at La Scala in 2012 for a new production of Don Carlo. In the meantime, the Metropolitan Opera has him as PGC, where he'll become "Maestro Metropolitano".
Italian conductor Fabio Luisi will soon be officially named Principal Guest Conductor of NYC's Metropolitan Opera: his contract will go from 2010/11 through 2012/13.
From The Metropolitan Opera press office at 5pm, April 27:
Fabio Luisi will become Principal Guest Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, the company’s General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine announced today. The Italian maestro, who made his Met debut in 2005 with Don Carlo, will take up the post beginning with the 2010-11 season. [...] In the 2010-11 season, the Italian maestro will return for Ariadne auf Naxos and Rigoletto. Luisi is only the second principal guest conductor in Met history, following Valery Gergiev who held the position from 1998 to 2008.
“It is a great honor for me to work with the Metropolitan Opera continuously in the coming years,” said Luisi. “Everything in this company meets the highest artistic standards: music staff, chorus, technical department, stage directors, and the Met Orchestra – one of the very best orchestras in the world – with which I enjoy every minute that we make music together.”
Opera Chic reports that Italian Maestro Fabio Luisi will be called in to substitute James Levine for a handful of remaining Metropolitan Opera spring performances, Levine still recovering from his herniated disc.
Levine was supposed to conduct opening night of Tosca on April 14, continuing with April 17, 20, and 24th. Fabio Luisi (who Opera Chic calls "the conductor with a German brain and an Italian heart") will step-up to the podium for all four performances.
Levine has also cancelled the entire May run of Berg's Lulu (May 8, 12 & 15), and the Metropolitan Opera has called on Maestro Luisi to conduct in his place.
[UPDATE --> 10:40pm Milan time: Ten hours after Opera Chic announced that Fabio Luisi will be replacing James Levine in Tosca and Lulu, The Metropolitan Press office has confirmed.]
"James Levine has withdrawn from the four performances of Tosca and three performances of Lulu he was scheduled to conduct in April and May. He is to undergo corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem."
"Fabio Luisi will replace Levine for both Tosca (April 14, 17, 20, and 24 mat.) and Lulu (May 8, 12, 15 mat.). Luisi has conducted Hansel and Gretel, Le Nozze di Figaro and Elektra at the Met this season. Previous appearances with the company include Don Carlo (for his 2005 debut), Simon Boccanegra, Die Ägyptische Helena, and Turandot."
News out of Dresden today states that Fabio Luisi has announced his early resignation from the Staatsoper Dresden. As Chief Conductor/Music Director since 2007, Luisi was contracturally tethered until 2012. He had also announced in June 2009 that he'd be stepping in (after Gatti's 3-year contract expired) as General Director of the Opernhaus Zürich starting in the 2012/2013 season.
In advance of his heartbreaking decision, Maestro Luisi wrote an elegant, pretty harsh, open letter to his colleagues at the Staatskapelle, addressing everyone from the A.V. staff to the choir members about his resignation, marked with disappointment.
He repeats that throughout his tenure, he enforced his personal philosophy of open dialogue, teamwork, and a coexistence of musical ideas -- a cooperation shaped by loyalty and openness and a willingness to find solutions to any problem, big or small.
He says was severely disappointed by the management of the Staatskapelle. During the planning and negotiations of the 2010 Silvesterkonzertes he was left out of the loop (as Musical Director, this violates his contract) and management went ahead with the planning of the festival, regardless of his input. All negotiations from that point forward were dicey, ending in Maestro Luisi's decision.
Click the link to read an excerpt of Maestro Luisi's letter...
Fabio "Weezy" Luisi, Opera Chic Conductor of the Year 2008, the maestro with a German brain and an Italian heart, proved to the Metropolitan audiences that he can slay Strauss like the baton-wielding superhero he becomes when he picks up the baton. Currently in NYC (where he landed last month for the second run of Le Nozze di Figaro), his Elektra is exiting to rave reviews for a "voluptuous seductive sound".
Above is Weezy at the final dress rehearsal, rawking his skinny tie and black jeans. We hope the big guy in the back with all those tattoos is on his good side! What tattoos? Click the link below to get inked...
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.
Luisi, who's been rawking the Lederhosen off the Staatskapelle Dresden & Staatsoper as Chief Conductor/Music Director since 2007, will start Zürich for the 2012/13 season. He will take the baton from Daniele Gatti, who will leave Opernhaus Zürich after his 3-season contract expires.
It's bittersweet, unlucky news for Staatskapelle & Staatsoper Dresden & Dresden's audiences, but lucky news for Luisi's pugs, who will be full of fresh, clean Swiss air!
Maybe you slept through the weekend and missed out on a monumental drop from DG? Which one, you ask? Oooooh, that 2-disc drop where Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča are getting rather cozy on the cover. Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi has been given the old dust-off by the marketing wizards.
With Anna Netrebko as Juliet and Elīna Garanča as Romeo (and Joseph Calleja as Tebaldo), the 2-CD set is from a live April 2008 recording at Vienna's Konzerthaus conducted by Fabio Luisi, doing his thang with the Wiener Symphoniker.
DG describes on their website "Anna's and Elīna's voices match like pearls from one oyster". Gross.
Opera Chic took some screenshots, but you can go here for the secksiness yourselves.
Whenever Hindemith's operas are mentioned, Opera Chic cannot avoid to think that his masterpiece, by far, is Sancta Susanna -- that unholy hymn to the agony and the ecstasy of convent life, to the drily brick-and-mortar ways of the Church, not to mention an impressive treatise on emergency sex toys -- but Cardillac, a musical whodunit, has a special place in OC's heart (the DVD of the heavily-inspired-by-Fantômas 2005 Paris production -- the UK link is here -- conducted by Kent Nagano and directed by André Engel is -- visually -- strikingly elegant, if a bit timid in its conducting).
Opera, as we all know, is not a spectator sport -- certainly not a audio-stream-on-crappy-PC-loudspeakers sport -- but over the weekend Opera Chic checked out, on a Japanese friend's suggestion, Rosenkavalier on Blu-Ray (UK link here).
It's the 2007 Fabio Luisi version, recorded in Japan during a Staatskapelle Dresden tour and frankly, proper Blu Ray on plasma seems to OC to be the best alternative to the real thing -- ie, having been able to travel to Japan with the Staatskapelle, maybe to care for the maestro's cute pug. Luisi -- Opera Chic Conductor of 2008 -- shows the truth in what Opera Chic has been thinking for a while, ie that Italians make the best Strauss conductors (Carlito Kleiber being the exception to the rule), but this is a somewhat controversial point we'll discuss at length some other time: Luisi's Rosenkavalier has the right combination of grace and precision and, as Herr Doktor Strauss himself told young Georg Solti, Rosenkavalier revolves around its text -- the words themselves indicate the tempi and the phrasing. Uwe Eric Lafenberg, the director, for OC's taste could have done more to keep the comedy in check -- Rosenkavalier remains lacerated by an always-present, even under the surface, sense of sadness -- but Anne Schwanewilms (Marschallin -- and by the way Opera Chic does not subscribe to the Schwarzkopf cult), Kurt Rydl (Ochs) and Anke Vondung (Octavian) are an excellent, classy, ready-for-HDTV cast -- under Luisi's baton they make you think you're watching a play, where music becomes word. It's a beautiful alchemy.
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.
We lucky duckies who have Arte (best TV station ev4r) on our satellite feed, will enjoy on June 21 @ 9PM an almost live broadcast (a very bearable 2 hour delay) of Juan Diego Florez's European debut as the Duke of Mantua (after his Lima spectacular + wedding). Zeljko Lucic as Rigoletto, Diana Damrau as Gilda, the sehr kool Italian maestro Fabio Luisi conducting the new production by Nikolaus Lehnhoff.