The Classical Beat

Links: WNO’s “Werther,” the Philadelphia Orchestra, and other highlights.

Anne Midgette — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:59:57 EST

On Saturday, I reviewed the Washington National Opera’s final production of the season, Massenet’s “Werther,” with a very good Werther, Francesco Meli.

Edited to add: Another view from Charles T. Downey on Ionarts.

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Music and Art: a CEO’s Debussy, a dissident’s “Zodiac”

Anne Midgette — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:11:00 EST

In this weekend’s Washington Post, I took an advance look at an unusual Debussy concert by the Virginia Chamber Orchestra, led by Emil de Cou, that included the premiere of an arrangement by the CEO of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, as well as another piece arranged by de Cou himself.

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You be the critic: UMD “Faun” on video

Anne Midgette — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:00:37 EST

I was strongly impressed by what Liz Lerman and the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra managed to do last week with Debussy’s ”Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” and I said so in my review. I’m not recommending that everyone rush out and try to do this kind of thing, or saying that it’s a model to which all should aspire: just that it’s a powerful reminder of some of the possibilities of classical music that often remain unexplored, and a remarkable teaching tool that I doubt any of the student players who participated will ever forget.

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Links: the week in review

Anne Midgette — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:50:21 EST

A catchup post with links to the past week’s worth of reviews. Charles T. Downey enjoyed Stefan Jackiw at the Kennedy Center. Samantha Buker checked out Denyce Graves as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Annapolis Symphony (complete with a work from composer-in-residence Gabriela Lena Frank). Robert Battey was generally impressed by the pianist Benjamin Hochman. And Joan Reinthaler appreciated the distinctive voice of the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa.

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Links: Bashmet disappoints, Steinbacher shines, and other recent reviews

Anne Midgette — Tue, 1 May 2012 11:36:59 EST

Catching up on reviews from the past few days. Robert Battey was sorely disappointed by the much-anticipated appearance of the Moscow Soloists under Yuri Bashmet and Misha Maisky. He also weighed in on the Perlman Quint Bailey Trio at the Jewish Community Center, which needed more rehearsal. (Link to come.)

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Links: Nabucco and more

Anne Midgette — Tue, 1 May 2012 09:23:35 EST

The Washington National Opera’s new “Nabucco” got people in town talking. I’ve gotten quite a bit of mail about it, from people who really enjoyed the evening and from people who absolutely hated it. I find the response really intriguing, because I didn’t feel this was “Konzeptregie” in the slightest: the director, Thaddeus Strassberger, had an idea about the piece that he wanted to get across, and it worked in some ways and not in others, but to me it was a fairly straightforward, literal staging — certainly in comparison with Hans Neuenfels’s production of the same opera in Berlin. I shudder to imagine what might happen if one put a chorus of bees on stage at the Kennedy Center. Others, however, found Strassberger’s take an offensive imposition of a concept on an innocent opera that did nothing to deserve it.

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Your dream WPAS season here.

Anne Midgette — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:44:36 EST

Every year, the WPAS season announcement gives rise, among some classical fans I know, to a certain amount of what-might-have-been. There is a school of classical programming, however, that firmly holds that too much adventurousness won’t sell tickets anywhere outside New York — and to some extent that may spill over into artists’ thinking as well (as in, “I’d better play Mahler in DC and save Cage for Carnegie Hall”). I, of course, don’t have to worry about selling tickets, so it’s easy for me to say that vision and artistic risk are rewarded with commensurate audience excitement. I also hear a lot about how sick classical fans are of hearing the same old pieces (often with regard to WETA).

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WPAS announces 2012-13 season

Anne Midgette — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:28:17 EST

Mariss Jansons, Christian Thielemann, and Gustavo Dudamel will be conducting their orchestras in Washington in the 2012-13 season. Yes, the Washington Performing Arts Society announced its season this week, and those artists are among the highlights of a roster that, following WPAS’s now-familiar template, reads like a Who’s Who of the very familiar names of classical music.

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Norman Scribner, hail and farewell

Anne Midgette — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:03:06 EST

This weekend marked Norman Scribner’s final concert at the head of the Choral Arts Society, the group he founded and led for 47 years as one of Washington’s flagship choruses.

Katherine Boyle wrote a wonderful profile of Scribner in Sunday’s Washington Post.

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The weekend in review: Concerto Köln, Verge Ensemble, A Far Cry, and Fred Lerdahl

Anne Midgette — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:43:06 EST

It was another big weekend for classical music. Here is the wealth of reviews that have appeared over the last few days in the Washington Post.

Tom Huizenga heard a Concerto Köln performance that went on in spite of visa problems that kept the group’s concertmaster stuck in Germany.

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Nabucco comes to WNO

Anne Midgette — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:42:33 EST

Meanwhile, coming next weekend, everybody’s favorite piece of early-Verdi blood-and-guts that many Americans haven’t heard. The burning question: how will they handle the (obligatory, traditional) repeat of “Va, pensiero?” In Sunday’s paper I wrote some of my thoughts about the opera, and some of the thoughts of Thaddeus Strassberger, who is directing its first-ever WNO production, opening Saturday night.

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Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:42:33 EST

The Art of Argento

Anne Midgette — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:08:00 EST

When you’re a writer they tell you that the first sentence of your story should convey the most important information. I keep sitting down to write about the Argento festival at UMD and getting stuck on sentences along the lines of, “So there’s this great festival at UMD this week and you all should definitely go.”

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Puts wins Pulitzer

Anne Midgette — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:51:29 EST

Congratulations to Kevin Puts, whose first opera, “Silent Night,” won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for music.

The opera premiered in November, 2011 at the Minnesota Opera; Mark Campbell, familiar to area audiences (“The Inspector,” “Rappahannock County”), was the librettist. Here are some critical appraisals of the premiere: by Heidi Waleson in the Wall Street Journal; by Larry Fuchsberg in Opera News.

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Eggerth on the air

Anne Midgette — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:09:50 EST

For all of you Marta Eggerth fans out there — and there appear to be a lot of you, to judge from the enthusiastic response to last week’s feature story — Chicago’s WFMT is doing a radio show on Monday night at 9 p.m. Eastern time (8 p.m. in Chicago), on the eve of her 100th birthday, featuring her and her son in conversation, with lots of music clips from 1932 to 2011. You can listen live on the Web.

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Links: Josh Bell as music director; two local opera companies make good(ish); and other weekend highlights.

Anne Midgette — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:36:20 EST

This weekend, I checked out two local start-up opera companies: the fledgling Urban Arias, devoted to contemporary music, and the established Opera Lafayette, specializing in the French Baroque. Urban Arias offered a world premiere; Opera Lafayette offered Paisiello’s version of “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” written more than 3 decades before Rossini’s.

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Link: Marta Eggerth at 100

Anne Midgette — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:22:01 EST

Marta Eggerth, the wonderful singer who was a big star of the European screen in the 1930s, made films with Judy Garland, and headlined “The Merry Widow” on Broadway with her husband, Jan Kiepura, will turn 100 on Tuesday. I use this as an excuse to profile Eggerth in Thursday’s Washington Post.

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