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Oct. 25, 2007, Sala Cecilia Meireles
I met the young gaucho composer Dimitri Cervo at the 2003 Bienal of Contemporary Music, where his works for solo flute and strings, Pattapiana [named for Pattapio Silva, a great Brazilian flutist who died tragically
young at the beginning of the last century] made quite an impression.
There’s still a hint of jest in the comparison, but it’s not without reason that Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally are mentioned now and then in opera circles as “the Strauss and Hofmannsthal of the 21st century.”
Incoming general director of Santa Fe Opera, Charles MacKay, has made clear he is “in the tradition -- I will not be an agent for radical change,” at the celebrated New Mexico summer opera festival, MacKay says.
Composer Frederick Carrilho was born in 1971 in the state of Sao Paulo, and has studied guitar and composition, most recently at UNICAMP in Campinas. His music has been heard at the recent biennial festivals of contemporary music in Rio, with the Profusão V – Toccata making a strong impression at the Bienal of 2007. We spoke in Portuguese.
October 23, 2007, Sala Cecilia Meireles, Rio de Janeiro
What makes the first visit to Guanajuato’s Teatro Juárez breathtaking is the suddenness of the encounter.
Oct. 25, 2007, Rio de Janeiro.
José Orlando Alves is a young composer, originally from Minas Gerais, but who spent many years in Rio de Janeiro, where he has been active for a decade with the composers’ collaborative, Preludio XXI.
In the long ago, when the best source of music reproduction in the home was a handsome piece of furniture, fitted with hidden audio components, and usually called radio-phonographs, my family had one — from Avery Fisher I believe — that had among its controls a switch labeled ‘presence.’
Uncut with Canada’s Mistress of the trouser-role: the multifaceted Kimberly Barber.
Glimmerglass Opera is in a watershed year. With the departure of Paul Kellogg, who had considerable success developing that annual festival, General and Artistic Director Michael Macleod has chosen to begin his tenure with a variation on the usual four-opera-season, namely a thematic collection of pieces based on the “Orpheus” legend. “Don’t look back” is the marketing catch phrase.
Almost thirty years ago a century old tradition ended with the last performance of I Maestri Cantatori.
Santa Fe Opera’s announcement August 10 that English-born impresario, Richard Gaddes, General Director of the company since 2001, will retire at the end of season 2008, took the local opera community by surprise.
The week just ended was certainly of historic moment in the world of North American opera companies.
Perhaps it is a sign that, at last, the countertenor voice has come of age in the hearts and minds of both audiences and the opera establishment.
Back in the early 1980’s two good ideas came to fruition: the much-needed new concert hall for Cardiff, capital city of Wales, and plans to hold within it the first “Singer of the World” competition.
Charleston, S.C. — For over 20 years it was two operas a season here at Spoleto USA, the all-arts festival brought to this cultural capital of the Old South by Gian Carlo Menotti in 1977.
It is every young opera singer’s dream.
On May 9th, when Santa Fe Opera finally announced that Alan Gilbert had left his post as Music Director of that company, a long-standing rumor was made official.
Robert Gierlach wishes he could rewrite “Anna Karenina,” the Tolstoi whopper turned into an opera by librettist Colin Graham and composer David Carlson. It’s not that Gierlach, who sings Vronsky in the world premiere of the work at Florida Grand Opera on April 28, has misgivings about the author’s artistry; he simply wishes that the story could have a happy ending.
Based on reading the New York Times’ account of Met opera soprano Ruth Ann Swenson’s distemper with her home company in New York, published Thursday 5 April over the byline of Daniel J. Wakin, it is hard to find either motivation or reasonable expectation of reward for any of the participants in this travesty – reporter, newspaper, opera manager Peter Gelb (who comes off best), or, least of all, the distraught diva.
Perhaps Swenson has played too many mad-scene heroines on the great stage at Lincoln Center and has gone a touch daft herself? After twenty Lucia di Lammermoors and a few Puritani Elviras, Swenson knows how to pull off a scena. But her angry denunciation of the Met, and especially General Manager Gelb, in the Times may well come back to haunt her as well as the newspaper editors who made the, in my opinion, unfortunate and unprofessional decision to print such clearly un-fit ‘news.’ The lady feels ‘snubbed’ and some of her trophy roles are being given to arch-rivals. Head for the hills!
Swenson, a native New Yorker, made a successful Met debut in 1991 as Don Giovanni’s Zerlina, and has sung leading roles at least 225 times for the company, according to the Met’s archives, including not only the many Lucias, but 49 Gildas (perhaps a house record) in Rigoletto, 25 Rosinas in The Barber of Seville and dozens of La bohemes, Elisir d’Amores and so on. Alas for Swenson, this all came to a screeching halt last autumn when she was sadly diagnosed with breast cancer. Surgery followed, and as recently as six weeks ago, according to the Times, she was completing chemotherapy. Her famous long mane of red-gold hair is gone, “I have peach fuzz,” she says – no problem on stage as the Met’s wig department is renowned.
The problems derive from the fact Gelb has reduced Swenson’s upcoming performances of Violetta (La traviata) in season ‘08 from nine to five and given four of them to Renée Fleming. Ouch! Is there any poisonous snake or spider more lethal than a diva threatened by another? Swenson’s angry tone, claiming weight discrimination, perhaps age discrimination, and just plain “he does not like me” on the part of Gelb rings a little hollow.
Swenson came back from her cancer treatments only a few weeks ago to sing (presentably) Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust, including the broadcast, and as I write is singing Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, which will be featured on the Met broadcast of April 21, and will air several times on the Met’s satellite connection via Sirius Radio. . .; hardly a lack of exposure for any singer. In addition, Gelb is quoted by the Times as commenting during the Cesare rehearsals that Swenson “is singing beautifully... she not only survived this marathon opera but flourished in it... That’s the uniform consensus of the artistic staff and her colleagues.” Gelb tried to water down the complaints but may have added fuel to the fire by mentioning, “Any time we can get Renée Fleming to sing at the Metropolitan Opera is a good day...for the opera..”
Critics have been divided on Swenson’s Violetta finding she sings the demanding coloratura showpieces of Act I well enough but in the later acts of the dramatic Verdi chestnut can lack in theatrical effect. Fleming, on the other hand, is generally praised for performing the entire role splendidly.
So what was behind all this display of hubris and, perhaps, sour grapes? No one really knows, but this observer can make some guesses: chemo is miserable treatment; not only does your hair fall out, but you lose energy and often feel ill and terrible. So, do you go on one of the world’s biggest stages and sing a major role six weeks after completing such a course of medication? And do you talk to the New York Times? Unwise, to say the least. In the Times article Swenson claims to have little knowledge of public relations or press technique (“I am not a PR animal”), so she probably did not expect how chilly are the waters into which she has strayed. Was she ill-advised? Quite possibly. Finally, one has to wonder if Swenson was aware that Peter Gelb is the son of Arthur Gelb, for many years top editor of the Times and one of their revered elder statesmen – the Met manager has ‘a friend at the Times,’ to say the least. Anyone who seeks to air grievances against the mighty Met had better find a different venue from The Paper of Record, just for starters.
How much better it would have been if Swenson, herself, had announced she was cutting back on Violetta and thanked her friend Renée for taking on four performances to help share the burden! How much better it would have been for Swenson to pay tribute to the great opera company and express her appreciation for all the opportunities it has given her! She might even have said she hopes to return to the Met frequently in fresh health and voice to sing many more times over future years Instead, she said “I totally comprehend” where Elizabeth Edwards ‘is’ in terms of cancer treatments and the Edwards’ decision to include Elizabeth in John’s presidential campaign. “You can’t crawl under the covers,” said Swenson. True. But you don’t set the covers on fire before you depart.
I cannot imagine walking into the Met to sing the prima of the Handel opera (April 6) with all the Times’ poison drifting around the place, inflammability that Swenson herself uncorked. I do lament the “new journalism” of that newspaper and other media that will take a scandalous story just about anywhere they can find one, with little respect for damage done to the participants. Yep, Ruth Ann should have kept her yap shut, but the Times should never have poured the hot lead. Nobody wins.
© 2007 J. A. Van Sant
