There's a pretty cool new website devoted to classical music called SinfiniMusic.com.
It's full of features, videos, interviews, podcasts, columnists, reviews and, of course, music (although you do have to download the Spotify streaming service to listen to more than short excerpts). The site covers just about any subject you can think of: artists, composers, trends, history, you-name-it.
And it's done in a very easy-going and, yes, fun way.
What's cool is that it's designed for all levels of interest in classical music. If you're just curious or mildly interested, there's bound to be something to attract your attention and guide you along. And if you're more of a seasoned expert, there's plenty of meatier commentary to dig into.
Right now there's an interesting featured section on "The Conductor," complete with a video of Roger Norrington explaining what a conductor actually does; a list of the "Top 20 Greatest Conductors" (always subject to disagreement, as the comments show); a podcast interview with the American conductor Marin Alsop, who's now stationed in Brazil; an in-depth look at the 82-CD box set of all of Herbert von Karajan's orchestral recordings from the 1960s (yes, that's 82 CDs!); an interview with Sir Georg Solti's widow; and a look at what has been deemed the greatest classical recording ever: the Solti Ring.
Go check it out!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Elementary, my dear Isolde
My wife and I are hooked on the new CBS show Elementary, the latest in the genre of "this guy is half nuts but he can solve crimes like Sherlock Holmes!" And in this case, it's true, because the show puts a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, a recovering drug addict, in New York City, where he helps the NYPD get the bad guys, assisted by Dr. Joan Watson. Holmes is played by Jonny Lee Miller and Watson by Lucy Liu.
In the pilot, there's a scene in which Dr. Watson has gone to the opera, but Holmes needs to talk to her about the current case, so he shows up mid-performance, finds her and climbs over several patrons to discuss it, occasionally being shushed by others in the audience. I wouldn't have been so polite.
But what grabbed my attention was the music -- the opera he interrupts is Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It's part of the enchanting second-act duet, and the two singers are shown briefly although the music continues throughout the scene with Holmes and Watson.
The producers chose two up-and-coming young opera singers for this short scene -- soprano Melissa Zapin and baritone Randal Turner. That's right, a baritone, even though Tristan is a tenor, or more specifically a heldentenor. Turns out the real opera singers playing the scene were lip-synching the Tristan duet.
Turner told his home-town newspaper: "People wondered why they couldn't just get an actor to do it. ... It's because it would be difficult for an actor to memorize and sing in German and to breathe where an opera singer would without actually being trained on how to do it."
So, like everybody on TV, these singers were apparently chosen for their looks -- Ms. Zapin is a former Miss Hawaii, and the buff Mr. Turner has been featured on a website called Barihunks. Who knew?
Anyway, in the second episode of the show, Holmes and Watson are walking in Manhattan and pass a sidewalk cafe, where he makes a point to his assistant using a patron's drink. As they're walking away, we see a sign in the background that says "Cafe Isolde."
I was hooked. Not only is it a good show, but it looked like the Tristan references, or maybe similar ones, were going to be a regular occurrence.
Alas, it has turned out not to be. I have yet to see one since. Oh, well. I still like the show.
In the pilot, there's a scene in which Dr. Watson has gone to the opera, but Holmes needs to talk to her about the current case, so he shows up mid-performance, finds her and climbs over several patrons to discuss it, occasionally being shushed by others in the audience. I wouldn't have been so polite.
But what grabbed my attention was the music -- the opera he interrupts is Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It's part of the enchanting second-act duet, and the two singers are shown briefly although the music continues throughout the scene with Holmes and Watson.
The producers chose two up-and-coming young opera singers for this short scene -- soprano Melissa Zapin and baritone Randal Turner. That's right, a baritone, even though Tristan is a tenor, or more specifically a heldentenor. Turns out the real opera singers playing the scene were lip-synching the Tristan duet.
Turner told his home-town newspaper: "People wondered why they couldn't just get an actor to do it. ... It's because it would be difficult for an actor to memorize and sing in German and to breathe where an opera singer would without actually being trained on how to do it."
So, like everybody on TV, these singers were apparently chosen for their looks -- Ms. Zapin is a former Miss Hawaii, and the buff Mr. Turner has been featured on a website called Barihunks. Who knew?
Anyway, in the second episode of the show, Holmes and Watson are walking in Manhattan and pass a sidewalk cafe, where he makes a point to his assistant using a patron's drink. As they're walking away, we see a sign in the background that says "Cafe Isolde."
I was hooked. Not only is it a good show, but it looked like the Tristan references, or maybe similar ones, were going to be a regular occurrence.
Alas, it has turned out not to be. I have yet to see one since. Oh, well. I still like the show.
Friday, October 26, 2012
A star rises over the Nile
Last March 3, I settled in to listen to the Saturday matinee radio broadcast of Verdi's Aida from the Metropolitan Opera. An announcement was made that the soprano scheduled to sing the lead role, Violeta Urmana, was ill, and she would be replaced in this performance by her understudy, Latonia Moore.
Ms. Moore had found out the day before that she'd be making her debut at the vaunted Met in an international broadcast in one of the most well-known roles in opera. She went on without a stage rehearsal. Her performance was brilliant -- not perfect, but you knew that this was one of those magical moments in the theater when you can say "I was there" (albeit via radio and with 11 million fellow listeners) for a young star's breakthrough performance. The ovation was what you'd expect if they made a movie of the whole thing.
Ms. Moore was born in Houston and went to the University of North Texas to study jazz. Somebody suggested she try singing some classical stuff, and off she went. She won several young artists competitions, and with a lot of hard work began building a career as an operatic soprano.
It turns out that I'd heard Ms. Moore in the Dallas Opera's 2004 Carmen as Micaela. I didn't remember the name, but I did remember that performance.
Her triumph with the Met in Aida is not lessened, but is perhaps better understood, when you realize that she had already sung the role, to glowing reviews, in Europe and at Covent Garden in London. Since then, she's played Aida at the Sydney Opera House (yes, the one with the "sails"), also as a fill-in, but on a month's notice, rather than a day's.
Now Ms. Moore is bringing her exceptional portrayal of Aida "home." She'll sing in the Dallas Opera's production of the Verdi masterpiece starting Friday, Oct. 26, at the Winspear Opera House, along with Antonello Palombi as Radames and Nadia Krasteva as Amneris. The conductor is Graeme Jenkins, beginning his final season as music director of the Dallas Opera. Other evening performances are on Oct. 31, Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, with matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.
Ms. Moore was born in Houston and went to the University of North Texas to study jazz. Somebody suggested she try singing some classical stuff, and off she went. She won several young artists competitions, and with a lot of hard work began building a career as an operatic soprano.
It turns out that I'd heard Ms. Moore in the Dallas Opera's 2004 Carmen as Micaela. I didn't remember the name, but I did remember that performance.
Now Ms. Moore is bringing her exceptional portrayal of Aida "home." She'll sing in the Dallas Opera's production of the Verdi masterpiece starting Friday, Oct. 26, at the Winspear Opera House, along with Antonello Palombi as Radames and Nadia Krasteva as Amneris. The conductor is Graeme Jenkins, beginning his final season as music director of the Dallas Opera. Other evening performances are on Oct. 31, Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, with matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
The Symphony
I've become known to my friends, family and co-workers as an opera guy. Particularly a Wagner guy.
But my roots are in orchestral music, going back to my days in the first violin section of a pretty decent high school orchestra.
That love of orchestral music is no doubt the reason I'm a "Wagner guy," since musically, Wagner was not so much an operatic composer as a symphonist.
Much is made of Wagner's leitmotifs, especially in his Ring of the Nibelung. But what sets those motives apart are not that he invented them (they've been used to varying degrees by countless opera composers before and since), but how he developed them musically, much as a symphony composer develops themes.
Like millions of musicians and music lovers over the past 200 years (and I'm firmly in the latter category, as much as I'd like to be in the first), I really learned to appreciate the concert orchestra by listening to the symphonies of Beethoven. That was true of Herr Wagner, too, who idolized Beethoven.
My parents bought me a set of Beethoven's complete symphonies on LP for Christmas one year, after some not-so-subtle hinting from myself. When my brother was in college, he somehow came into possession of a friend's "miniature scores" edition of the Beethoven symphonies, which mysteriously ended up among my possessions. I still have it and refer to it occasionally.
And when the Dallas Symphony performed all nine symphonies in order over five concerts a few years ago, I was there for every one. The concert that included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies was my first exposure to a fellow named Jaap van Zweden, who was "guest conducting" but had just accepted the job of music director of the DSO. What a great introduction to a great conductor!
And like millions before me, I went out from Beethoven to discover the other great symphonic music -- symphonies, concertos, tone poems, overtures and all the rest. Some, like Haydn and Mozart, came from before LVB, and many came after. But the symphony remains my favorite form of music.
Now, if you'll indulge me, here's a list of my favorite symphonies, more or less in chronological order. I dare not attempt to "rank" them. If you do a Google search on "greatest symphonies," you'll get one entire boatload of "rankings," all purporting to be "correct," and all of them different!
Yes, I'm aware that this list reveals my "mainstream" nature, but I'm not apologetic about that. It also leaves off several that I'm just not familiar enough with to include, like the Mahler 5th or the Shostakovich 10th.
I'm sure my many thousands of followers on this blog (Not thousands? OK, scores? All right, maybe a dozen) will disagree with at least some of this or insist on additions. If so, please comment or let me know.
But if you like this kind of stuff, you can't go wrong enjoying any of these.
But my roots are in orchestral music, going back to my days in the first violin section of a pretty decent high school orchestra.
That love of orchestral music is no doubt the reason I'm a "Wagner guy," since musically, Wagner was not so much an operatic composer as a symphonist.
Much is made of Wagner's leitmotifs, especially in his Ring of the Nibelung. But what sets those motives apart are not that he invented them (they've been used to varying degrees by countless opera composers before and since), but how he developed them musically, much as a symphony composer develops themes.
Like millions of musicians and music lovers over the past 200 years (and I'm firmly in the latter category, as much as I'd like to be in the first), I really learned to appreciate the concert orchestra by listening to the symphonies of Beethoven. That was true of Herr Wagner, too, who idolized Beethoven.
My parents bought me a set of Beethoven's complete symphonies on LP for Christmas one year, after some not-so-subtle hinting from myself. When my brother was in college, he somehow came into possession of a friend's "miniature scores" edition of the Beethoven symphonies, which mysteriously ended up among my possessions. I still have it and refer to it occasionally.
And when the Dallas Symphony performed all nine symphonies in order over five concerts a few years ago, I was there for every one. The concert that included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies was my first exposure to a fellow named Jaap van Zweden, who was "guest conducting" but had just accepted the job of music director of the DSO. What a great introduction to a great conductor!
And like millions before me, I went out from Beethoven to discover the other great symphonic music -- symphonies, concertos, tone poems, overtures and all the rest. Some, like Haydn and Mozart, came from before LVB, and many came after. But the symphony remains my favorite form of music.
Now, if you'll indulge me, here's a list of my favorite symphonies, more or less in chronological order. I dare not attempt to "rank" them. If you do a Google search on "greatest symphonies," you'll get one entire boatload of "rankings," all purporting to be "correct," and all of them different!
- Mozart: No. 39 in E-flat Major; No. 40 in G minor; and No. 41 in C Major "Jupiter"
- Haydn: No. 102 in B-flat Major; No. 104 in D Major "London"
- Beethoven: I want to say all nine, but if I had to cut that down, it would be No. 3 in E-flat Major "Eroica"; No. 5 in C minor; No. 6 in F Major "Pastoral"; and No. 9 in D minor
- Schubert: No. 8 in B minor "Unfinished"; and No. 9 in C Major
- Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
- Mendelssohn: No. 4 in A Major "Italian"
- Schumann: No. 1 in B-flat Major "Spring"; No. 4 in D minor
- Brahms: I couldn't possibly choose a favorite: No. 1 in C minor; No. 2 in D Major; No. 3 in F Major; and No. 4 in E minor
- Bruckner: No. 7 in E Major
- Saint-Saens: No. 3 in C minor "Organ"
- Franck: Symphony in D minor
- Tchaikovsky: No. 5 in E minor; and No. 6 in B minor
- Dvorak: No. 8 in G Major; and No. 9 in E minor "From the New World"
- Sibelius: No. 2 in D Major; and No. 5 in E-flat Major
- Nielsen: No. 4 "The Inextinguishable"
- Shostakovich: No. 5 in D minor
Yes, I'm aware that this list reveals my "mainstream" nature, but I'm not apologetic about that. It also leaves off several that I'm just not familiar enough with to include, like the Mahler 5th or the Shostakovich 10th.
I'm sure my many thousands of followers on this blog (Not thousands? OK, scores? All right, maybe a dozen) will disagree with at least some of this or insist on additions. If so, please comment or let me know.
But if you like this kind of stuff, you can't go wrong enjoying any of these.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Tragedy in Arlington
There's only one word to accurately describe the Wagnerian end of the Texas Rangers' 2012 season:
Götterdämmerung
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Wahn! Wahn! Überall wahn!
I was disappointed to read recently that the Seattle Opera has canceled its plans to present Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in August 2014.
This news isn't particularly surprising, given the state of arts organizations here and around the world these days. What makes this cancellation particularly sad is that this production was intended as a farewell to Seattle Opera's renowned general director Speight Jenkins upon his retirement.
Seattle already had a reputation for performing Wagner, especially The Ring of the Nibelung, before Speight came along in 1983, and he has turned the company into perhaps the top U.S. venue for Wagner's music-dramas outside of New York, as well as one of the country's leading regional opera companies.
And on top of that, he's a native of Dallas. His distinctive East Texas accent belies the fact that he's one of the most knowledgeable people around on Wagner's operas and how to go about producing them.
What better way to mark Speight's departure than with Wagner's most light-hearted opera, whose hero is the wise and avuncular Hans Sachs? Problem is, Meistersinger requires casting 17 good opera singers -- yes, 17, all but two of them men -- and a big chorus, and is the longest single opera around today. All that makes Meistersinger very expensive to produce, which put it out of reach for the now-struggling Seattle Opera, which is going ahead with its even more expensive but highly acclaimed Ring next summer.
Replacing Meistersinger on the Seattle Opera schedule for August 2014 will be the International Wagner Competition, which Seattle Opera has produced for several years, intended to showcase young and emerging Wagnerian singers. Perhaps that's as fitting a finale for Speight, given his long-standing reputation for finding and championing good young singers.
This news isn't particularly surprising, given the state of arts organizations here and around the world these days. What makes this cancellation particularly sad is that this production was intended as a farewell to Seattle Opera's renowned general director Speight Jenkins upon his retirement.
Seattle already had a reputation for performing Wagner, especially The Ring of the Nibelung, before Speight came along in 1983, and he has turned the company into perhaps the top U.S. venue for Wagner's music-dramas outside of New York, as well as one of the country's leading regional opera companies.
And on top of that, he's a native of Dallas. His distinctive East Texas accent belies the fact that he's one of the most knowledgeable people around on Wagner's operas and how to go about producing them.
What better way to mark Speight's departure than with Wagner's most light-hearted opera, whose hero is the wise and avuncular Hans Sachs? Problem is, Meistersinger requires casting 17 good opera singers -- yes, 17, all but two of them men -- and a big chorus, and is the longest single opera around today. All that makes Meistersinger very expensive to produce, which put it out of reach for the now-struggling Seattle Opera, which is going ahead with its even more expensive but highly acclaimed Ring next summer.
Replacing Meistersinger on the Seattle Opera schedule for August 2014 will be the International Wagner Competition, which Seattle Opera has produced for several years, intended to showcase young and emerging Wagnerian singers. Perhaps that's as fitting a finale for Speight, given his long-standing reputation for finding and championing good young singers.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Not the usual 'Pictures'
The Dallas Symphony got its 2012-13 season off to a rousing start this weekend with a concert that included a spirited rendition of Schumann's Piano Concerto with Joaquín Achúcarro and concluded with Respighi's Pines of Rome.
What better way to bring the house down on opening night than with the extended crescendo of the Pines' finale from this amazing ensemble under the baton of Jaap van Zweden, complete with extra brass (positioned on a balcony above the Meyerson's Choral Terrace) and Mary Preston blazing away on the hall's organ?
The orchestra's second set of concerts (Sept. 20-23) will no doubt end with a similar blast of sound when it lets loose with the "Great Gate of Kiev" at the end of Leopold Stokowski's version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.
If you're a fan of Pictures, you no doubt know that Mussorgsky wrote it as a solo piano work and that it's been orchestrated by several different composers. The most famous of those, of course, and the one most of us grew up on, is Maurice Ravel's.
The Stokowski arrangement that the DSO will perform is quite different from Ravel's in some areas and similar in others. Stokowski is said to have wanted to make a more "Slavic" version of Pictures, viewing Ravel's as too "French." That led Stokowski to omit one of the promenades and two sections, "Tuileres" and "The Market at Limoges," of which he may have had doubts about their authenticity as Mussorgsky's.
There are some striking distinctions in orchestral colors, starting with the opening Promenade, which relies on strings and woodwinds rather than the brass of Ravel. In "Il Vecchio Castello" (the Old Castle) Stokowski gives the melody to the creepier-sounding English horn as opposed to Ravel's alto saxophone. And in the "Great Gate," Stokowski -- always the showman -- adds the organ and plenty of percussion to the already large orchestra.
If you go, be prepared to get your socks knocked off.
What better way to bring the house down on opening night than with the extended crescendo of the Pines' finale from this amazing ensemble under the baton of Jaap van Zweden, complete with extra brass (positioned on a balcony above the Meyerson's Choral Terrace) and Mary Preston blazing away on the hall's organ?
The orchestra's second set of concerts (Sept. 20-23) will no doubt end with a similar blast of sound when it lets loose with the "Great Gate of Kiev" at the end of Leopold Stokowski's version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.
If you're a fan of Pictures, you no doubt know that Mussorgsky wrote it as a solo piano work and that it's been orchestrated by several different composers. The most famous of those, of course, and the one most of us grew up on, is Maurice Ravel's.
The Stokowski arrangement that the DSO will perform is quite different from Ravel's in some areas and similar in others. Stokowski is said to have wanted to make a more "Slavic" version of Pictures, viewing Ravel's as too "French." That led Stokowski to omit one of the promenades and two sections, "Tuileres" and "The Market at Limoges," of which he may have had doubts about their authenticity as Mussorgsky's.
There are some striking distinctions in orchestral colors, starting with the opening Promenade, which relies on strings and woodwinds rather than the brass of Ravel. In "Il Vecchio Castello" (the Old Castle) Stokowski gives the melody to the creepier-sounding English horn as opposed to Ravel's alto saxophone. And in the "Great Gate," Stokowski -- always the showman -- adds the organ and plenty of percussion to the already large orchestra.
If you go, be prepared to get your socks knocked off.
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