Tag: Opera

Road report: LA Ring, Das Rheingold


By Jonathan Caves

Overall I really enjoyed the production and I am glad to say that the masks did not, at least to my ear, interfere with the singing. I also must state up front that this is indeed a very literal production – I did not see anything that wasn’t in the libretto – Wotan didn’t kill Loge, no one sat at a bar drinking martinis – it was werktreue all be it in a very fantastical form.

I won’t describe too much of what I saw (I know some people reading this are attending later performances) but more my impressions.

The stage really is very heavily raked – but it did not seem to impact the singers too much – though, especially in the case of the Gods, they did spend a lot of time standing, or sitting, on small unraked platforms on either side of the central rotating circle. I only noticed one fall and that was by Loge and he quickly recovered – in fact it was so well done I almost thought it might be on purpose.

Continue reading Road report: LA Ring, Das Rheingold

Quarter notes: Amelia trailer

Seattle Opera is up with their Amelia trailer on YouTube. If RM Campbell’s review doesn’t make you want to see Speight Jenkins’ first commissioned opera, surely this trailer will.

Seattle Opera premieres Amelia

Nathan Gunn as Paul. Photo by Rozarii Lynch photo.

By R.M. Campbell

During the past 25 years or so of Speight Jenkins’ tenure as general director, Seattle Opera has traveled in many music waters. However, none involved commissioning a work. That absence was rectified this weekend at McCaw Hall with an often compelling and poignant “Amelia.” The climate for new operas has changed considerably since Jenkins took over the reins: then new opera was rarity, now it is common, despite the huge costs (“Amelia” cost $3.6 million) and huge risks of artistic or box office failure.

Jenkins did not go about the task of commissioning an opera with little thought. He began the process in 2002 with a search for a composer. The following year, Daron Aric Hagen was approached as the composer. Hagen suggested the subject of flight. The next year Hagen introduced Jenkins to the poetry of Gardner McFall, and, in 2005, Hagen and McFall began to toss ideas around at Yaddo, the artists’ colony. A story on flight emerges, and Stephen Wadsworth joins the team to create a story based in part on McFall’s own history in which her father, a flight commander in the U.S. Navy, was lost in a training mission, in 1966. A workshop of the complete opera was given in Seattle two years ago.
Continue reading Seattle Opera premieres Amelia

Haptadama comes to a close at Olympic Sculpture Park on Saturday night

Composer/conductor Eric Banks explains Haptadama to a capacity audience Saturday night.

With Haptadama: The Seven Creations of Ancient Persia, Eric Banks unexpectedly challenges audiences to reconsider how they think about opera. It’s not that Banks is dabbling in new forms or means of expression – although he does have a tremendous gift for contemporizing ancient languages and melodies in ways that observe texts, respect original ideas, and avoid kitsch. Banks calls Haptadama a choral opera. However the piece synthesizes opera, song cycles, and sacred music that leads listeners in a number of different directions.

Banks got the idea to write Haptadama after two visits to India. The material for the piece comes from the Persian creation story of the Zorostrians drawn from both the Gathas and Bundahisn. The Gathas, perhaps the oldest written music in history, provide an austere framework for the piece. The Bundahisn, on the other hand, gives the music its mystical quality. The creation story follows a well worn formula. A benevolent creator coexists with evil. The creator creates life and the known world. Evil strikes back causing cataclysm and robbing the world of its innocence. The creator redeems the world by wiping everything out with a cleansing flood.
Continue reading Haptadama comes to a close at Olympic Sculpture Park on Saturday night

Quarter notes: Le Grand


Gyorgy Ligeti supposedly spent the last years of his life worried that when he died no one would remember him or his music. His worries weren’t entirely unjustified. The work of many, many composers has slipped into obscurity. For Ligeti, an artist on the fringes of the musical mainstream, the possibility of anonymity is even more pronounced.

Thank goodness for the NY Philharmonic then, which is preparing a concert performance of Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre May 27-29. When the opera hits the concert stage later this month it will be the NY premiere of this 20th Century masterpiece. To prep listeners, the orchestras have released three new videos in their FlipCam series.

Doug Fitch, Le Grand’s director, takes the Phil’s FlipCam camera man (or woman) on a tour of his studio and reveals some of the designs that will be used.

The NY Phil has a number of other videos — non FlipCam — worth investigating too. In this video, Douglas Fitch and Edourad Getaz give an overview of the opera and the project.

In another video (a non FlipCam video) Alan Gilbert shares his own thoughts on Le Grand.

The adventurous can always download (or buy a CD version) of Sony’s EP Salonen led performance of the piece.

Closer to home, don’t forget Seattle Opera’s Amelia which will be unveiled to the concert going public for the first time tonight. Amelia, unlike the photo of Ligeti at the top of this post, is guaranteed not to frighten (that’s my own personal guarantee not Hagen’s or SO’s.) There is lots of good information about the opera (especially J. Dean’s listening guide) over at . If you don’t like to read, here is the final video is SO’s series.

Only the Vancouver Opera could go to (Nixon in) China

By Colton Carothers

Nixon in China is the operatic interpretation of Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China.  Equally historic was Vancouver Opera’s staging of John Adam’s Nixon in China in its Canadian premier for Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad near the end of March.  With an Olympic sized cast and an Olympic sized budget, you would expect a gold medal.  In selecting this piece itself, Vancouver Opera went for the gold: Nixon is a behemoth of an opera, requiring large orchestrations, costly sets and a large ensemble.  Did it live up to these Olympic sized aspirations?

Continue reading Only the Vancouver Opera could go to (Nixon in) China

Amelia sneak peek

Daron Hagen, the composer of Amelia.

Reminder

: I’ll be live blogging the Amelia sneak peek tomorrow afternoon.  Check back here at 2 pm and you can access my live blog of the event.  To watch the live blog, click the link below and a new window will open up.  Or, if you prefer, you can click the Live Blog tab at the top of the page and you can watch an embedded version of the blog.  I hope you tune in, It should be fun and interesting.

Seattle Opera is holding a “sneak peek” event for bloggers on April 13 from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm.  Seattle’s community of arts bloggers (who are they?) will be meeting with the creative team responsible for Amelia.  It is the first commission for the opera in more than 40 years.  Perhaps more striking is Amelia is an American opera, set in America, about American things.  American opera isn’t as cemented in the repertory as its French, German, and Italian counterparts.  Of course, there are exceptions.  Nixon in China (John Adams), Porgy and Bess (George Gershwin) and Vanessa (Samuel Barber) are successful relative to other American operas, but I would hesitate to call them repertory staples.

Amelia is a big deal for Seattle Opera and could be considered a more important operatic achievement than the every-four-years Ring cycle.  In any event, you can use the link below to open up a pop out window that will let you follow the live blog.  Or, you can always check out the Live Blog page by clicking the tab at the top of this page.

Quarter notes: Levine, the Ring, and Amelia

Scary clowns in the LA Ring.

has hit Los Angeles.

Levine on the rest of the Met season.

Morlot to Seattle to fill in for Roberto Abbado.  More than a few are looking forward to his return.  According to the SSO, Dutilleux and Morlot are close.  Will the second date be as good as the first?

The Seattle Chamber Music Society is out with their

Next week, I will be attending a media availability with the Seattle Opera’s creative team to discuss Daron Hagen’s new opera Amelia.  Don’t know Hagen?  Check out his Frank Lloyd Wright inspired opera Shining Brow on Naxos.  Live blogging will ensue.  Stay tuned for more details.

Quarter notes: Chamber Music Madness, the Met, James Gaffigan, and La Traviata

On this Easter Sunday some classical music bits and pieces to tide you over.

Chamber Music Madness, a local organization that helps kids grow as musicians is looking for a new executive director.  String players with good administrative and fundraising skills should apply.

Vanity Fair is out with a piece questioning whether the Metropolitan Opera’s economic model is sustainable.  The article comes on the heels of Alex Ross’ own critique of the current Met season which includes the now infamous Luc Bondy Tosca.

Speaking of sustainable economic models, the Honolulu Symphony has a plan to save the beleaguered orchestra.

Ariadne opens at Meydenbauer in Bellevue

By R.M. Campbell

Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” is a opera with many, sometimes opposing, characteristics. It is deft and sophisticated, a piece intended for refined tastes. High art is forced to mingle with low art, each looking unfavorably upon the other.

With the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program spring production, which opened Thursday night at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, the opera seems even more madcap than usual with the forces of the low made particularly engaging. Indeed, they appear to win the day in this fictitious battle.
Continue reading Ariadne opens at Meydenbauer in Bellevue