Plus Ca Change

"Italy's cultural system is on the brink of collapse. Opera in Italy is a museum with dusty exhibits. But it used to be the country with the greatest composers, artists and singers! I hardly perform there anymore."--Cecilia Bartoli, in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, Sept. 14, 2007.

"Italy, my dear friend, is more enchanting from a distance than close at hand. The theaters have lost much of their former splendor. The art of music, the art of song, no longer flourish as they once did, and the future does not look promising for Italian singers. The works of the masters are utterly exhausted, and one sees no young talent emerging to replace them."--Adolphe Nourrit, in a letter to the bass Gustave Euzet, January, 1839 (quoted in The Great Tenor Tragedy by Henry Pleasants).

In Today's Feuilletons - signandsight

I Hate Articles Like This

Search Is On For the Next Pavarotti - September 19, 2007 - The New York Sun

Self-Promotion

The new edition of the annual anthology I edit hits bookstores today. The Best American Science Writing 2007 has twenty smart and compelling articles that take us to the cutting edge of science, all chosen with a sharp eye by the bestselling author and prize-winning journalist Gina Kolata. You can buy it from your favorite bookstore, online or off, or just click here.

The New Power Behind the Baton

The London Philharmonic (not to be confused with the better London Symphony, which, my sources tell me, is somewhat at sea under Gergiev) has a new music director, the 35-year-old Vladimir Jurowski. New Yorkers will get a chance to hear him when he conducts Hansel und Gretel at the Met this season. The article is interesting, but leaves out an important part of the story. Jurowski, like Alan Gilbert and Franz Welser-Most, is represented by IMG Artists, the ascendant power in conductors' management now that CAMI is losing its influence.

Thanks to the Internet, just about every classical performer can be linked to his or her management--always a good way to follow why casting decisions get made.

Young, gifted and Russian - Times Online

On Clive James

Adam Bresnick is a legendary English teacher at New York's Collegiate School (my alma mater, although he started teaching after I had been graduated). His take on Clive James in the Times Literary Supplement is perceptive and keen--and worth a read.

Unforgetting with Clive James - TLS Highlights - Times Online

In Memoriam: Maria Callas

If you're having trouble watching this--my blog format cuts off the right edge--here's the link to the clip on Veoh: http://www.veoh.com/videos/v970514aqeJWQHS

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Peter Davis on Pavarotti

It's worth reading in its entirety, as it gives an excellent summary of the singer's career and a shrewd assessment of his talent.

Opera News > The Met Opera Guild

Dukas in Paris

I'm a huge fan of the music of Paul Dukas, especially his Symphony in C, his enormous piano sonata, and his only opera, Ariane et Barbe-Bleu. Alas, a new production at the Bastille in Paris fails to satisfy the critic of Le Monde. Deborah Polaski is in bad voice as Ariane, Sylvain Cambreling "trivializes" the "colorful, sensual, expressive music, 'descriptive' in the best sense of the term (musique colorée, sensuelle, expressive, 'descriptive' au bon sens du term)" and the production is banal. No accounting for degree of difficulty, I guess; it's a hard opera to stage, being static and symbolic, but its rewards are ample. I am expecting the new recording in the mail, with Botstein, who conducted it at the New York City Opera a few seasons ago (I thought he did a good-enough job), and I will probably report on it when I've heard it.

Le Monde.fr : Un "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue" filandreux

Dutilleux Redux

Le Monde's music critic attends the premiere of new work by the 91-year-old Henri Dutilleux, but what I thought was interesting was the critic's description of Dutilleux as "the greatest living French composer (le plus grand compositeur français vivant)"--bit of a slap to Pierre Boulez.

Le Monde.fr : Henri Dutilleux, grave et léger:

On Hatto

The New Yorker takes notice of the pianistic fraud Joyce Hatto. One of the interesting themes of the article is the degree to which classical-music culture has moved online--and how the same questions of authenticity that bedevil all online productions (from wikis to blogs, including, let's face it, this blog) were at play here.

It also shows how credulous even professionals can be. In classical music, it's all to easy for some to be swayed by an engrossing or sentimental back story into praising the performance. There are some music critics who draw salaries from highly regarded publications who do this kind of thing all the time.

It's also the case in book publishing, of which I have first-hand knowledge, that editors can want so much for a story to be true that they will overlook glaring inconsistencies in, or will fail to do even in this information-accessible age the simplest research of, a proposal or manuscript that they are eager to publish.

Letter from England: Fantasia for Piano: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker