Opera Chic

Everyone's a Winner at the Wiener: Garanca in La Clemenza

Here's Elina Garanca as Sesto in the upcoming Jürgen Flimm production of Mozart's La Clemenza that opens at the Wiener Staatsoper on May 17. Louis Langrée conducts Michael Schade as Tito, Juliane Banse as Vitellia and Chen Reiss as Servilia. We'd swap tickets of Clemenza's Roman bonfires (when you've seen Graham Vick's slick-haired Tito-as-Mussolini transported to Facist Italy, you're tapped out) for the bone-chilling biblical teen lust of Salome with Lise Lindstrom killing it (with Dame Gwynnie Jones) in Boleslaw Barlog's production, ending on May 18.

Joshua Kosman Cuts Off The Wiener

(1997 Riccardo Muti © Foto Terry)

We all know that there's a perfect place in American life for politically-correct adolescent posturing -- it's called college. It's a made-to-measure outlet for the formerly (read: back in high school) unpopular kids who can cloak their middle class resentment under the pretense of political engagement. But whenever actual grownups living outside the great walls of academia seriously argue that one should boycott the Wiener Philharmoniker because of their stubborn refusal to follow other people's (mostly American liberals) guidelines whenever it comes to hiring new musicians, well, the easily amused among us cannot resist a polite eye-rolling motion. 

The case in question, Joshua Kosman's rant against the Wiener that can be summed up in its final paragraph::

Or to put the matter more bluntly: How can a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony truly give voice to the composer's all-embracing humanism when the performing ensemble, by its very nature, stands in opposition to those values?

If one disagrees with VPO's hiring policies one is, of course, free to not go to their concerts and to boycott their CDs and DVDs; short of a government intervention -- not Kosman's government, by the way -- to change the VPO there's little else one can do. Opera Chic, personally, is content to notice that the best living interpreter of Mozart's keyboard works is Japanese and that the foremost Wagner conductors throughout the decades have consistently been Jewish, from Levi to De Sabata to Barenboim.

But then of course the classical music lover, following Kosman's quota theory, must follow-up the VPO boycott with a merciless analysis of her classical music collection and make sure it's diverse enough: with at least a 50/50 ratio between male and female composers and a significant quota of non-European classical music composers from the 19th century. Well, good luck with that! This is just as viable as OC boycotting Wu-Tang Clan because they don't emphasize racial diversity in their hiring practices.

Neujahrskonzert 2009: Barenboim Gives The Viennese Some Strauss on Strauss Action

Daniel Barenboim conducted the annual January 1st New Year's Day tradition, and played his first performance in the yearly Wiener Philharmoniker Neujahrskonzert @ Vienna's Musikverein.

Since 1939, those patrons lucky enough to snag tickets from the massive waiting list have shared in the schmaltzy, traditional concert that invites a rotation of honorary conductors.

Strictly Strauss (with Josef Hellmesberger's Valse espagnole and Joseph Hayden's Farewell Symphony thrown in for a little variety) was no challenge for Barenboim, who led the Wieners right through to encores of "The Blue Danube" and the "Radetzky March".

But Barenboim couldn't bite his tongue when it came to the goodwill speech, and rallied at the podium that 2009 should be a "year of peace in the world and of human justice in the Middle East." oic.

Last year the man of the hour was Zubin Mehta, while for next year it was just announced that Georges Prêtre has been invited. Meanwhile, we're holding onto the hope that one day ASIMO will be invited to conduct.

~*~

~*~

Who wants more? You want more! There's some more Barenboim axxion under the cut. Click the magic link!

Georges Prêtre: I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost!!

Here's one from the crates: an old article heralding Georges Prêtre's appearance this past January 1, 2008 as his inaugural appearance in the annual Vienna Philharmonic Xmas concert at the Musikverein, where the Neujahrskonzert has been held every year since 1941.

What caught our eye in this article was on second glance. omg background??? We had a very ghostly Three Men and a Baby flashback. Dr. Venkman, get a load of this ectoplasmic residue! omg e-haunted by cyberspirits! L@@K!!!!! Aahhhhhhhh!

 

Muti Shows Off the Wiener

Palazzo Mauro de André was built outside of downtown Ravenna in 1990 for big sports events and conventions, and is capable of holding 3,800 spectators. Probably 3,799 showed-up last night in Ravenna for Riccardo Muti and the Wiener Philharmoniker in a weird Austria + Spain flavored program, Schubert + Mozart and Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody and De Falla's Sombrero, like eating Wiener Schnitzel washed down with some gazpacho made by a French guy or something. ne way...

The crowd packing into the balloon-topped structure with such enthusiasm that the concerto started 20 minutes late to accommodate the swamped at-call windows, the claustrophobic line to get in (it was like being wedged into a slightly more elegant NYC Times Square Countdown-to-New-Years-crowd), and the process to find seats.

Muti was in high spirits, dressed in frac, much more comfortable on stage than I had seen him in NYC, or in Ravenna for Don Pasquale, and much happier than he was when a OC friend saw him in Florence last month for Gluck's Orfeo e Euridice -- after 30 years of special relationship with the snarky Viennese musicians, he really works SO well with his Wieners. sry. You can't even imagine all the wiener jokes that you have been spared by second edits.

First up was Schubert's Die Zauberharfe Overture D 644, a piece of flowery Apollinean beauty (there's a killer Fritz Lehmann version out on DG) and a gorgeous, rich sound swelling from the orchestra. Three omg omg females filled-in the ranks of the boys club and their sausage-fest: two strings, and one on harp. What is this blasphemy?!

Next was Mozart's Haffner Symphony (KV385), which is still giving OC little goose-bumps in all the right places. Muti -- the most extraordinarily intuitive conductor alive -- is just brilliant light and gorgeous force when he conducts Mozart -- he just gets it, in a unique manner -- he just gets it right with his scary, unique bond with the composer who was "charged with such boundlessness", in Muti's words, making the works seem as light as wind -- un soave zeffiretto, fo'reals. I swear Mozart talks to him at night when he's in his Moroccan-style bed with a tower of pillows at his feet, and whispers conducting pointers in his ear. And last night when the andante began, after a few bars you really thought the entire stage was about to lift itself up and levitate, fly away toward the basketball arena's dome. It's unreal his Mozart. Muti breaks your heart with Mozart.

Then time for intermission, which OC drifted through, still under the influence of Muti's Haffner. After the break, that mix of unabashed brilliance and utter vulgarity, Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody, which we are not huge fans, but the Wiener flaunted superb technique and wonderful mastery of tempi changes, dynamics, and style.

The last work on the program was the super-banal Manuel de Falla's El sombrero de tres picos...which was so boring that I stopped listening at some point and started thinking about making a chess set or something out of wood or clay or cork that would include chess piece in the likeness of all the great maestri, including debate over who would be the King & Queen (does Plácido or Fischer-Dieskau count?), all the way down to the pawns. Anyway, the concert ended in an enthusiastic climax, shouts of bravi and bravo for both maestro and Wiener.

Then after a bunch of ovations (half of the floor gave him a standing ovation), old bankers mooning the parts of the audience that didn't join in, along with bejeweled old ladies waving big foam hands with "MUTI RAWRKS" written on the palm.

Muti then spoke to the audience in soft Italian. He said that it's been a peculiar program, and with the set list beginning with Schubert, he would choose Johann Strauss as an encore, because Schubert opened the door for him. And then he was like 'here is the Wiener and we are going to play Strauss for you'. At that point, he turned around to face his orchestra, but an old lady's voice broke loose in the silence with a strained 'bravo'. Muti didn't turn around to confront the audience, but like an impatient father, he dropped his hand to his side and motioned for her diminuendo. omg so hawt. like emperor ming with an execution order or something.

So the Wiener played Johann Strauss's jr overture to Indigo And The 40 Thieves laying thick their famous rubato like Sacher Torte chocolate, and OC can count herself among the special who have heard the VPO's rubato live. Of course, it was breathtaking. They were like, "We're the Wiener. Strauss is what we do. Deal with it."

More standing ovations, applause, and then everyone disbanded to go eat some agnolini. yum yum yum. At the end of the night, it was clear that we were all  -\(º_o)/-wned by MAESTRO MUTI!

How Did We Spend Our Sunday: Listening To Wiener Philharmoniker + Riccardo Muti in Ravenna

In a sold-out Ravenna basketball-arena-turned-into-auditorium, the
Wiener Philharmoniker and Riccardo Muti have just flaunted some impressively massive musical muscle (and really, the strange program itself -- Schubert, Mozart, Ravel, DeFalla + an impromptu Johann Strauss encore was worth the 300 km. trip)

Needless to say, Opera Chic was there and you weren't.

Full review, pictures, inside gawssip and much more coming tomorrow. Now Opera Chic is tired, overfed, drunk with that unique creamy sound of the VPO strings and their to-die-for rubato, and she needs to rest on Pratesi linens.

Georges Prêtre, Wiener Philharmoniker in Bergamo; Waitin' For Some Kissin

Maestro Georges Prêtre will open the 44° Festival Pianistico Internazionale Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, next Saturday, April 14, with the Wiener Philharmoniker at Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo (the fine city a 20-min drive from Milan that Juan Diego Florez calls home).

The 83-year-old unsinkable great maestro, who'll conduct the male-only Wieners (heh) the New Year's Day Concert on 1/1/08, will fascinate Bergamo's audience with Brahms 4 and Beethoven 7.

A handy .pdf file with the program is here, the Festival's homepage is here. And on May 24, the Benedetti Michelangeli Festival will give the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli International Award to our friend Evgenij "I Can Play Longer Than Any Of You Decadent Capitalists" Kissin, who'll probably thank them by giving encores all night long, until dawn.

The Barenboim X-Factor; and the Wiener Boys Club Boycott

The New York Times analyzes the Barenboim X-Factor (which is pretty easy to analyze: he's a brave, unapologetic humanist dude with an unimpeachable resume & an impressive one-man brass section).

And our caro signor Alex Ross, one of Opera Chic's first readers and dearest friend,  agrees with the anti-Wiener Philharmoniker stance of Newsday (the paper goes so far as to boycott -- huh, OK, w-evs -- the effectively all-male orchestra).

Now, it's certainly funny that in the year 5767 (aka 2007 for various infidels) a bunch of silly-looking middle-aged Austrian dorks is still against letting girls play with them (literally), because they have too much fun singing old yodel in their locker room and don't want to build for-her restrooms in their underground social club facilities and on their beloved tree houses. And they like to tell dirty jokes and stuff like that.

But then, let dorks be dorks if they like it so -- their unique sound is impossibly beautiful, and even if it's clear that they're giving up the chance of hiring so many great female musicians, it's also true that the VPO sound is exactly that sound -- an oldskool sound of a lost era that manages to survive into the 21st Century. It is certainly not the sound of politically correctness, of equal opportunities and of sensitivity-trained musicians. Music -- well, classical music at least -- is not a democracy. And invoking  the need for "a dynamic cultural organization", nevermind the sound they make, like Newsday does? Pointing out that the Weeners "fetishize(s) sound at the expense of spirit"? We're opening the proverbial can of worms, guys.

"Spirit"?

Opera Chic doesn't really know about the "spirit" of Oswald Kabasta -- tho she knows that the sublime conductor of the German repertoire, a man whose Bruckner is so devastating that he will change your entire outlook on the composer, was also a enthusiastic Nazi supporter who signed all his post-1933 letters with a "Heil Hitler" (and, we like to imagine, a smiley face too).

Opera Chic also has doubts about the "spirit" of Gino Marinuzzi, very possibly the greatest conductor of all -- at least that what Richard Strauss thought, he considered Marinuzzi to be better than Von Bulow -- and Maestro Marinuzzi was just SO comfy and toasty in Mussolini's Italy.

So many examples -- we've been recently listening to a preternaturally beautiful concert of religious music --- a truly transcendent moment -- conducted by a world-famous conductor who -- we hear -- is also one of the world's most dedicated brothelgoers.

We'd like to keep our Kabasta records and our Marinuzzi (so terribly few) cds and we generally like to listen to the beautiful music of awful human beings (except Wagner -- Opera Chic follows her dear Uncle Normy -- aka Norman Lebrecht -- boycott of the Bayreuth Gang -- we all have our pet peeves don't we).

So let the Vienna dorks be dorks -- you know, they're also the ones who managed to trick the famously  greedy conductors  into accepting a nominal, laughable fee -- 2,000 euros, barely enough for one night in a Sacher Hotel suite plus minibar and tips -- for the honor of conducting the biggest, dorkiest, most happily misogynistic boys club in the history of classical music.