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Rossini’s La donna del Lago at the Royal Opera House boasts a superstar cast. Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez are perhaps the best in these roles in the business at this time. Yet the conductor Michele Mariotti is also hot news.
It would seem a logical step for the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey to take on
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“Aim for excellence”, says Douglas Boyd, new Artistic Director of Garsington Opera at Wormsley, “and the audience will follow you”.
When I spoke with Zandra Rhodes, she was in her large San Diego workspace, which she described as having walls decorated with her own huge black and white drawings.
Palm Beach audiences are famous for their glamour, but in recent years a special star has sparkled amid the jewels, sequins, feathers and furs (whatever the weather).
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Mountain by Charles Wuorinen is part of Madridʼs Teatro Real coming
season.
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A new festival hall has been inaugurated in the small town of Erl in the Tyrolean mountains.
Yesterday, Conductor Riccardo Muti opened the Rome Opera, where he is “honorary conductor for life,” with a gala presentation of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.
When tenor Michael Spyres takes the stage at Carnegie Hall on December 5th, he will be in heady company.
One of the most noteworthy and controversial productions in recent memory
arrived in Belgium with hurricane force as Director Terry Gilliam’s inaugural
opera, an inspired interpretation of Hector Berlioz’s Le Damnation de
Faust, blasted into Ghent, followed by a run in Antwerp.
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Exciting developments at Glyndebourne ! Many new initiatives which could transform Glyndebourne from a summer festival to a truly international, year-round opera experience.
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A record 278,978 people attended events of the 2012 edition of the famed Salzburg Festival in Austria, the largest number since its founding 92 years ago.
Just after things were settling after the scandal of baritone Evgeny Nitikin supposed swastika tattoo at the Bayreuth Festival, another one seems likely to take its place.
Three quarters of the way through this discussion, a question that inhabits the mind of anyone putting any thought to the subject — but no one dare ask — was rhetoricised, “what is opera?”
Commentary
29 Dec 2004
Marketing Classical Music
Folks tirelessly trying to market classical music these days will settle on almost any hook to lure customers, from martini bars in lobbies and cutesy program titles to that reliable, when-all-else-fails measure, the deeply discounted ticket price.
I’m just old-fashioned enough to prefer come-ons that actually have something substantive to do with the music itself, and I’m a sucker for promotions that involve historic pegs – the anniversary of a composer’s birth or death, or of a composition’s first performance, for example.
Lament for lost opportunities for concert lineups this year
Look to calendars to see if composer's time has come
By Tim Smith
Sun Music Critic
December 28, 2004
Folks tirelessly trying to market classical music these days will settle on almost any hook to lure customers, from martini bars in lobbies and cutesy program titles to that reliable, when-all-else-fails measure, the deeply discounted ticket price.
I'm just old-fashioned enough to prefer come-ons that actually have something substantive to do with the music itself, and I'm a sucker for promotions that involve historic pegs - the anniversary of a composer's birth or death, or of a composition's first performance, for example.
Almost every calendar year contains such built-in musical hooks, notable dates from the past worth acknowledging in some form, from a single concert to a whole festival.
This is hardly news. In fact, it's bleedin' obvious. But, aside from a memorable, cross-genre celebration of St. Petersburg's tri-centennial in 2003, Baltimore's music community hasn't revealed much interest in using historic angles to spice up a season and get people thinking more, not just listening.
Consider 2004. It's about to slip away with hardly any local notice having been paid to two milestones involving Czech composers - the 150th anniversary of the birth of Leos Janacek and the centenary of the death of Antonin Dvorak. What a missed opportunity all across Baltimore's musical board.
Yes, there were a few nods in the direction of these guys in the occasional recital or chamber music program by local and visiting artists, as well as in at least one choral concert. But nothing major, and nothing to speak of from our biggest musical guns.
As for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, it programmed a little bit of Janacek and Dvorak - in 2003, not 2004.
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