Month: January 2011

Buoyed by a Groupon and the Northwest premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s Symphony No. 4 the Seattle Philharmonic sold out their concert last Sunday — the first one that I can remember in my seven years in Seattle. Normally, Seattle Philharmonic concerts are sleepy affairs which attract a devoted audience interested in Adam Stern’s eclectic and challenging programs (I hear Stern is aiming to perform Arthur Honneger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake next season).  No jostling. No hunting for seats. No crowds.

There were so many people trying to get tickets, trying to find seats, that the start of the concert was delayed nearly thirty minutes. The Philharmonic’s ticket crew was overwhelmed. No matter, the Philharmonic achieved what every classical music organization — professional, amateur, community — butts in seats. Take note Seattle classical music organizations: Groupons sell tickets.

The Groupon deal — $9 for any concert — was good enough to pack Meany Hall with plenty of new concertgoers. According to the expired Groupon page 990 tickets/vouchers were sold. Wow. I am willing to bet at least some of them were unfamiliar with the Seattle Philharmonic and Adam Stern. I am also willing to bet that the Phil might actually have set an attendance record for a community orchestra in Seattle.

In the end it hardly matters because the Seattle Philharmonic capitalized on technology to fill the hall. Hopefully the Groupon audience doesn’t stop going to concerts by the Seattle Philharmonic.

Continue reading Philharmonic sells out with help of Henze (and a Groupon)

By R.M. Campbell

The winter season of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, which celebrates its 30th season this summer, was always a splendid idea. It was the first venture outside the confines of Lakeside School. This wise expansion was followed by the addition of a summer Eastside venue at the Overlake School. Both have proven to be splendid additions to the core festival for artistic and financial reasons. Among its other attributes, the winter festival opened the doors of Nordstrom Recital Hall which became the summer home of the Seattle festival last year. The festival had the advantage of knowing exactly where it was going when it left the wretched acoustics of St. Nicholas Hall at Lakeside for Nordstrom, a vastly superior space in spite of its quirkiness.

There were four concerts over the weekend, beginning on Thursday evening and ending Sunday afternoon, all sold-out or nearly so. Repertory rarely went beyond the canon, but there were points of interest. The concert Saturday night was devoted to the piano trios of Johannes Brahms — talk about intellectual comfort on a winter’s day — and pianist Adam Neiman played all of the “Transcedental Etudes” of Franz Lizst over three days.
Continue reading Neiman tackles Transcedental Etudes as part of SCMS festival

By Philippa Kiraly

This has to be one of Concert Spirituel’s more intriguing titles for a concert. Jeffrey Cohan, the moving spirit behind Concert Spirituel, found an early edition in the National Library of “Trios pour coucher du Roi,” and other contemporary works of similar type, and put together a charming program from them. Louis XIV lived from 1638-1715, at the same time as France nurtured a group of fine composers, of whom Jean-Baptiste Lully, Andre Danican Philidor l‘Aisne, Marin Marais, Michel Richard de la Lande, Pierre Gaultier de Marseille, Robert de Visee, Andre Cheron and Jacques Hotteterre were featured in this program.
Continue reading Putting Louis XIV to bed

By R.M. Campbell

Most likely Seattle Opera has hit on its hands with Rossini’s ineffable comedy, “Il barbiere di Siviglia,” aka “The Barber of Seville,” which opened this weekend at McCaw Hall. Laughter, sometimes guffaws, sometimes giggling, was omnipresent, and the applause at the end was loud and enthusiastic. Seven more performances are scheduled, a sign the company believes there will be that kind of demand at the box office.

Is it necessary to say, once again, nearly 200 years after its premiere, that the opera is a masterpiece, one of the greatest comic operas ever written and the oldest opera of an Italian composer never to go out of the repertory. Cesare Sterbini’s libretto — based on a play by 18th-century French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron Beaumarchais — is a model of coherency, well-developed personalities, comic situations and marvelous humor that has not worn out its welcome. It remains fresh, even the old jokes. In a fit of genius, Rossini composed the opera in an astonishing two-three weeks, borrowing when necessary from previous works. The music ripples with memorable tunes — lyrical, original, ironic — uncommon elegance and rhythmic acuity.
Continue reading Seattle Opera’s “Barber” Opened a Two-week Run at McCaw Hall This Weekend