Opera Chic

Gustav & Gustavo: The Mahler Project

As the Los Angeles Philharmonic's The Mahler Project rounds third base, Los Angeles Magazine reports on Dudamel's five-week long initiative (scan above) that started on January 13.

The Mahler Project brings together two of Dudamel's pet orchestras -- the L.A. Phil and the Simón Bolívar  -- for an all-Mahler program to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Austrian composer's death.

This past weekend's highlight was a monstrous performance of Mahler's Eight, the Symphony of a Thousand, with sixteen choirs (800 singers) and two orchestras (200 instrumentalists) that filled the Shrine Auditorium. 

The project officially wraps on February 18.

So Old Skool It Hurts: Willem Mengelberg Does His Thing, 1926

One Hundred Years Without Mahler

Alma Mahler, remembering the night of May 18, 1911:

Mahler lay with dazed eyes; one finger was conducting on the quilt. There was a smile on his lips and twice he said “Mozart!” His eyes were very big.

The death agony began. I was sent into the next room. The death rattle lasted several hours. The ghastly sound ceased suddenly at midnight of the 18th of May during a tremendous thunderstorm. With that last, last breath his beloved and beautiful soul had fled, and the silence was more deathly than all else. As long as he breathed he was there still. But now all was over.

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 9, Mov IV, Lucerne Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado

Thomas Hampson's Mahler Moments at his Teatro alla Scala Recital

He can't be ignored. He won't be ignored. Thomas Hampson's physique and his even bigger personality can't be hushed, and even when he's onstage -- costumed as Valentin in Gounod's Faust, the lead in Mozart's Don Giovanni, or Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca -- it comes through. In recital, however, it's a constant balance between the lightness of the composer's music/poet's text and Hampson's booming baritone. Especially in Lieder, which the American singer's been lately commited to, with the poems as the protagonist -- and the struggle to leave the lightest touch while saturating each word in emotion is a big task.

But Hampson managed it -- despite tiny, sparse moments of un-Liederlike enthusiasm -- and he showed-off his elegant Austrian/Hungarian Lieder to a packed house at Teatro alla Scala on Monday night as the Milanese went insane for his sensitive program of Schubert, Liszt, and Mahler -- and especially for the five generous encores that he kept hitting out of the park, right onto Lansdowne Street. Hampson's intuitivness and intelligence complimented the songs, and his earnest, "I'm just a boy, standing in front of an audience, asking them to love Lieder" approach was refreshing.

The program started with six Lieder from Franz Schubert's "Schwanengesang", Swan Song, a posthumous collection that used texts from 3 poets, composed in 1828 and published the next year, only a few months after Schubert's death.

Hampson sang the six songs set to poems by Heinrich Heine, all ruminations on love and longing. Der Doppelgänger -- where the protagonist looks towards the house where his love once lived and is appalled to see someone else standing there, only to realize that it's the shadow of himself, miserable and lonely /lol/ ("You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house and you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife." /lol/) -- was an expression of great, softened emotion and expression. Hampson mastered the songs through lovely passages that segued gracefully from tranquility to turbulence.

The second set was six assorted Lieder from Franz Liszt, and pianist Wolfram Rieger's beautiful expression and well-shaped phrases took the spotlight. He shadowed Hampson expertly and lovingly, giving him space to interpret and breathe through the Lieder. Hampson sang Liszt's Lieder with a dark weight, very powerful and at times uplifting. "Vergiftet sind meine Lieder" was a standout, a piece full of longing, tenderness, and remorse where Hampson saturated it with a nice balance of melancholy and nostalgia that never sunk to the depths of depression and rode the rallying undercurrent of Hampson's interpretation.

It's Mahler's centenary and everyone is going cray-cray for the Austrian composer's gorgeously romantic, lushly-pastoral works. Trendsetter Hampson recently dropped a new CD in celebration of Mahler's 100th with Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Wiener Virtuosen. So it's no surprise that the selections form Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn was the most engaging, resonant part of the program. Set to 14 poems over the span of almost 10 years, Mahler's composition was taken from a three volume collection of folk songs from two Romantic poets from the very beginning of the 19th century.

Hampson's rich, Austrian pronunciation worked well with his clean voice in a stellar reading of 8 Lieder from Das Knaben Wunderhorn and overlap in Lieder und Gesänge. He affected a convincing vulnerability, singing with a nativity, freshness and youthfulness that was much younger than his years. Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald had an uplifting hope and tenderness, one of his standouts.

Poised and lyrical, Hampson's real skill was the streamlining of his Hampsony idiosyncrasies to allow the gorgeous Lieder breathing room, always staying tender and pensive throughout the poems. And as if La Scala's audience wasn't enthusiastic enough over his concert, Hampson came out for five separate encores, all Lieder, like from Mahler's Lieder und Gesänge, with a standout by Meyerbeer.

Mahler Does Vienna, The Exhibition

 

It's a double anniversary for Mahlerites this year, marking the Austrian composer's 150th birth anniversary and the centennial of his death. Vienna was the city that Mahler lived and loved throughout his years, a city where he met luminaries like Hugo Wolf, Bruckner, (and Schoenberg), artists and philosophers, and a city that he was deeply connected to. Vienna bears witness to Mahler's legacy and Österreichisches Theatermuseum hosts a new exhibit, Gustav Mahler und Wien, uniting Mahler with the modernist contemporaries who made the city vibrant. Personal effects, photos, paintings, and documents are displayed in a background of Vienna's twentieth century glory.

Lisa Larsson & Antonello Manacorda do Mahler's 4th at Milan's Teatro dal Verme

 

O.C. is back in Milan almost two months from an extended summer in NYC -- already here long enough to saturate her tongue in delicate, fishy bagna cauda from Trattoria alle Langhe; syrupy fresh marrons glacés from Giovanni Galli (with candied violet flowers layered on top); and all the wintry grappa she can drink (Bocchino cantina privata from the mid '70s...strong with honey, cinnamon, tabasco, and sometimes bread crusts) -- but the arching shade from this past Fall's Lincoln Center events still touches her shoulders: Bernard Haitink & the London Symphony Orchestra's Mahler concerts. Opera Chic was lucky enough to attend all three concerts at Avery Fisher Hall-- Mahler's 4th, 9th, and Das Lied -- so her last tangible Fourth Symphony still resonates from the old Dutch Master, further encouraged by Sinopoli's Complete Mahler recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

This time in Milan, O.C. wasn't going to pass-up hearing Mahler's Fourth live. Although this time it wasn't the Philharmonia or the LSO, but rather the small corps of practiced musicians of Milan's Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali, a tight orchestra on Thursday night -- with only 30-ish strings, a dozen woodwinds, and half a dozen brass/horns -- a big enough challenge to master even one of Mahler's lighter symphonies that thankfully calls for a smaller orchestra. So that's where O.C. found herself, at Milan's Teatro dal Verme. Dal Verme's stood in Milan since 1872, inaugurated with Meyerbeer's The Huguenots. It also hosted the Italian premieres of Puccini's opera/ballet Le Villi, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and Lehar's Die lustige Witwe.

Thursday's concert featured Swedish soprano Lisa Larsson, who has already cut a few discs in Mozart and Bach, and Torino-born Italian conductor, Antonello Manacorda. Maestro Manacorda, one of the original founders of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, has been collaborating with IPM since the 2006/07 season when he became the Music Director.

Daniel Harding puts a Tutu over his Frac for Serata Béjart at La Scala

 

The 2009/10 ballet season of Teatro alla Scala opened on Thursday night with a triptych program highlighting three ballet styling of French choreographer Maurice Béjart, who passed away in 2007, leaving behind a legacy of fans and colleagues who spoke about his innovative vision and intellectual choreography. We were kind of disappointed that Scala doesn't make a big fuss of the first ballet like they do in NYC with the ABT and the NYCB, but it didn't dissuade us from putting on a Lanvin lace dress and Alexander McQueen lace-up heels.

Via Stravinksy and Mahler (so perfect for Béjart's rhythms of dance in the modern world), British Maestro Daniel Harding took the Filarmonica della Scala and Il Corpo di Ballo del Teatro alla Scala on a wild adventure full of snappy, intricate Stravinksy and intuitive, burnished Mahler -- his first ballet conducted in Milan was full of win. In all honesty, Opera Chic came for the symphony (we will forever admire the work of Béjart and for what he's done in revolutionizing contemporary dance, but his choreography doesn't speak to us like how we feel after a rousing Brahms or Beethoven) -- C'mon...who could pass up two of Stravinksy's coolest works? 

Sixteen lead dancers took to their skin-tight body stockings to flaunt Béjart's best moves (and their own disciplined musculature), choreographed to Stravinsky's Firebird and Rites of Spring -- then Mahler's Chant du Compagnon Errant accompanied by Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, which was sadly last heard at Scala in 1975.

Even though star etoile Roberto Bolle was forced to withdraw a month prior from Serata Béjart (where he's recovering from minor surgery in Germany), it gave 23-year-old Gabriele Corrado a chance to learn his Mahler and to also have a nice anecdote to tell his friends at dinner parties.

 

Stravinsky's Firebird began with a corps of a dozen mixed dancers in cotton peasant gear of work shirts and loose pants. The firebird, Antonio Sultera, appeared in a bright red body stocking and made Béjart's lean choreography looked effortless. The entire stage was used effectively by both leads (the phoenix was Eris Nezha) and lighting was fabulously clean. Harding's Firebird started as a tenebrous hum tinged with light. He wrapped the orchestra with a lyric, emotive gesture, and his reading expressed a tenderness and vulnerability.

The highlight of the night (for Opera Chic anyway) was Mahler's Chant du Compagnon Errant, accompanied by Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen sung by baritone Christopher Maltman. While the dancers were exceedingly excellent, (Massimo Murru and Gabriele Corrado), the baritone not so much with too many precarious high notes. Again, the choreography never overwhelmed the narrative with gesture or distraction. As lean as Bejart's choreography was, adversely Mahler's music was full of imaginative color, cleverly told by Harding, in perfect control of the soloist, the dancers, and the orchestra (he fared well enough that after the first pause he was gifted with smatterings of bravos as he walked to the podium to start the last half).

Stravinsky's Rites of Spring begins with an awakening of the dancers, lights shifting from midnight blue to golden yellow, signaling the tranition. The male dancers in unitards of greens and browns, the women in flesh-colored body stockings, the work built to a literal climax which melted into an intricate orgy, as unsexy as one could imagine -- not kinky, but kinetic.   

Harding understood well how one should be bright but not shrill, a fine line between the two which was greatly mastered, with great tension full of drive and passion. An uninhibited reading, unrestrained and unafraid to use the full fortissimo of the orchestra. 

Of course, aside from the superb music, one can always stay for the ballet.

 

  

Angelika Kirschlager Helps Keep Mahler in Vogue

Austrian mezzo Angelika Kirschlager sings on a disc commissioned by the Austrian National Tourist Office to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahler. Mahler's enduring legacy will always make him the sensitive bada$$ of composition. Xenakis = flash in the pan. Mahler = forever cool.

We saw Kirschlager in Milan last Spring at Conservatorio di Milano, where the mezzo blew away the audiences with a Kurt Weill full-loaded, semi-automatic Uzi of vocal power.

Embedding is disabled -- go here for the Youtube.

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.

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.

 

*~click to read more~*

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.

Mahler On The Subway: London's Underground Symphony

Via mighty Jessica Duchen we learn that the London Underground is pumping the Titan into the sleepy ears of unwilling Londoners, possibly in an attempt to curb their famous unruly nature.

Stürmisch bewegt: Mahler's Fifth at Teatro alla Scala With Staaaaaaaaatskapelle Berlin

Tonight OC was chillaxing @ la Scala for the Staatskapelle Berlin + Daniel Barenboim = awesome concerto of Gustav Mahler's 5th. Tomorrow night OC probably won't be there for the conclusion of the double-header: the Mahler 6th under the baton of Boulez, but we don't have any doubt the the Staatskapelle will perform with any less finesse than they had demonstrated tonight.

An oppressively humid afternoon, everyone arrived at the theater 20 minutes before a torrential rain hit (how appropriate a greeting for Mahler's 5th), which thankfully chased away the hot grody polluted winds that greeted us walking down to the theater. In an Ann Demeulemeester cream cotton wife-beater tank, a Paul Smith printed cotton cardigan (green and olive mini diamonds), a pair of lightweight stretch & cropped denim Seven capris, sage alligator Tod's driving shoes, and trusty LV speedles bag (and a black metro Burberry compact umbrella inside), OC arrived just as the first big drops were beginning to fall.

Barenboim was in modified summer frac, and instead of white shirt and tie, he wore a plain black nehru shirt beneath his tails. Thankfully, there was no scolding of the audience this time, and the evening unfolded without incident. The audience was mostly seniors, with full loggione intact. 

Ultimately, from the trumpet to the gigantic climax, I wasn't moved. But it was nevertheless brilliant, and I was duly impressed. Barenboim led a bright, moody, and very Mahlerian orchestra. They were immense, from the bassoons to the violas with a giant and dynamic sound. 

The first two movements (Trauermarsch and Stürmisch bewegt), about 15 minutes each, were constant conflicts between light and dark, turbulence and calm. The Adagietto was angst-ridden like a surly teen, and the Rondo-Finale was well-paced for the awesome climax. At the end of the concerto, the applause was insane, with constant shouts of bravi. Barenboim must have come out to acknowledge his fans like 8x. But he gave no encore, despite the audience breaking-out in hisses of ‘bis’ for his final curtain call.

On the way to the theater, there were two giant transport buses on Via Verdi from Gerhard Kanitz Orchester und Theatertransporte, stamped with line drawing representations of the Skaatskapelle that would make any fanboy cry.

Wir fahren die Gastspielreise der Skaatskapelle Berlin!!! Maybe they were transporting mountains of Eisbein and Berliner Weiße...

Come To Where The Mahler Is

(Above: The Grand Hotel, Dobbiaco, Italy in the background, and an ode to Mahler's 'Das Lied Von Der Erde' in the foreground)

"...The room and the surroundings are beautiful, apart from the noise that keeps disturbing me. The farmers whisper and the window-panes tinkle; or they walk on tiptoe and shake the house. The two lively children babble all day: 'Bibi! Bibi!' (that’s their volapük and it means everything). The dog too makes me feel like a 'man among men' and keeps barking from dawn until the peasants turn in. I wake up with a start every quarter of an hour and think of those that are softly snoring. To hell: how nice the world would be if you had two jugers of land to enclose within a fence and rest alone inside..."

(An excerpt of a letter written from Gustav Mahler to his wife Alma from their house in the Italian Dolomites, June 24, 1909.)

After Opera Chic passed a relaxing Easter break, (breathing the intoxicatingly fresh Dolomiti air, sampling the ecstatic mountain food and dairy [Ristorante al Capriolo in Vodo di Cadore where much 2001 Hofstätter Yngram was imbibed, the Hotel Belvedere restaurant at Cima Sappada for the freshest food, and Latteria Tre Cime Dobbiaco for, well, everything else], taking in the sights [Titian’s birth house was pretty cool in Piazza Tiziano in Pieve di Cadore], and stocking-up on all the delectable foodstuff at La Bottega Di Sappada [polenta, dried funghi, cheese such as malga and latteria, etc]), I was ready to download all the awesome pictures and spin the yarn.

One of the adventures during the break brought me to the heart of “Mahler Country” ["Come To Where The Mahler Is"], to a town nestled in the hills of the Dolomites by the Austrian border, called Toblach (in German) / Dobbiaco (in Italian).

(Above: Runners to celebrate Mahler erected at the park of the Grand Hotel.)

During his brief run as Principal Conductor of NYC’s Metropolitan Opera (1908–1910), Gustav Mahler retreated to the small Italian-border town of Dobbiaco where he spent three of his summers in a sweet little house, before he passed away in the summer of 1911. It was there among the cows and the smoked wood that he composed Das Lied von der Erde, the Ninth Symphony, and the unfinished Tenth Symphony (ie, what many consider his best work).

(Welcome to the land that Mahler <3'd. This is the park at the front of the Grand Hotel, Dobbiaco, Italy.)

There are loads of letters that were written from the quaint house in Dobbiaco to both Bruno Walter and his wife Alma (one of which was posted above) that document the pastoral heaven and pure air that he enjoyed.

Throughout the town, there are monuments to the late Austrian composer. Streets, plaques and large halls boast his name, and most ostentatiously, the grounds of historic Grand Hotel is adorned with tributes, including a Cultural Center. Every summer, the town plays host to an annual summer festival, and awards The International Record Prize (where our own caro zio Norman Lebrecht has sat among the jurors, being a member of The Gustav Mahler Society). Sweet.

   

(Above: A plaque that commemorates Mahler's 'Das Lied Von Der Erde' at the Grand Hotel, Dobbiaco, Italy. Below is a close-up of Mahler's DLVDE, or, "Il Canto della Terra" in Italian.)

Italy, I freakin ♥ u plz nev4r leav meeeee!

Christoph Eschenbach: Listening to Mahler

A new documentary, A Wayfarer's Journey: Listening to Mahler, explores the relationship of music (especially Mahler's music) to healing and survival.                           

Christoph Eschenbach appears in the film talking about how music helped him recover from the trauma of World War II. He is also shown conducting the Curtis Symphony in Mahler's First Symphony.

In addition, several Philadelphia Orchestra performances are featured, including a movement from Mahler's Fifth Symphony performed in Tokyo's Suntory Hall during the Orchestra's 2005 Tour of Asia. The film also includes excerpts from the Orchestra's recent recording of Mahler's Sixth Symphony, available in the Philadelphia Orchestra Online Music Store.

Listening to Mahler is presented by WHYY. It airs locally on WHYY-TV12 on Thursday, April 5, at 10:00 p.m. and Sunday, April 8, at 3:30 p.m. For show times on WHYY-DTV or WHYY-Arts, visit www.whyy.org/tv12/schedule.html. For show times in other areas, visit www.PBS.org.

"Here Comes Santa Claus" & György Ligeti; Also, Mahler The Utahn

The carefully tousled & Boston Popstastic Mr. Keith Lockhart, who just got rave reviews for his Mahler 7, part of his Mahler cycle with the Utah Symphony (lovely season with Xmas carols & Ligeti btw):

"The great thing about Mahler is that it's always worth the trip".

Totally. Even to Utah. For reals.

Pierre Boulez: Mahler and Me

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Pierre Boulez in the Süddeutsche Zeitung:

Süddeutsche Zeitung: Do you have to be 80 years old to understand Mahler?

Pierre Boulez: *cries*

Well, no, not exactly -- the maestro reacts with extraordinary coolness, no matter how lame the question. And the interview is much better than the first, superdumbo question.

* photo BBC