Opera News articles from December 2001

Opera News archives from December 2001

Passing the baton. (Viewpoint).
December 1, 2001... This is the first issue of OPERA NEWS that covers the Met's 2001-02 broadcast season. It is also the first issue in which the new name of the broadcasts' long-time sponsor appears: the ChevronTexaco--Metropolitan Opera International Radio...

Sturm und drang: Wagner in Israel. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2001... * Since you encouraged letters on Daniel Barenboim's gutsy act to conduct Wagner in Israel, here is my reaction: And the golden "Daniel in the Lion's Den" award goes to conductor Daniel Barenboim for extraordinary courage for presenting...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
December 1, 2001... Angela Gheorghiu's CD Mysterium will be released by Decca, not EMI, as stated in "New from the Studios" [October]. The Juniper Tree (1985) was composed by Philip Glass and Robert Moran, not Philip Glass alone, as stated in "Growing Season"...

Opera watch.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... 1. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA gave a special pre-opening-night benefit performance on Saturday, September 22, to "aid the victims, families, rescue workers and relief effort of the World Trade Center tragedy." More than $2.1 million was raised at...

On the beat: Eschenbach on Arabella's complexities; ill wind in Chicago; Gilfry makes his screen debut; sixty years for the Collegiate Chorale.(News Briefs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... This month, CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH makes his Metropolitan Opera debut, leading Strauss's Arabella, with a cast headed by RENEE FLEMING. Many regard Eschenbach's upcoming appearance as the best news that the Met's guest-conducting roster has...

Sound bites.(Matthew Polenzani)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Matthew Polenzani, whose buoyant Steersman and ardent Jaquino earned kudos during the Met's 2000-01 season, sings his first David in this month's Die Meistersinger. Polenzani has the kind of sweet, ringing timbre and ease of projection that...

Do you see what I hear? (A Singer's Diary).(vocal cord research)
December 1, 2001... "What I want you to do," Alison Behrman tells me, "is sing an `aah' at the upper end of your range." But it's not easy. Behrman has pinched the tip of my tongue between two gloved fingers and is pulling it gently but firmly forward. She's...

Sacred and profane: Robert Bailey traces the influence of Bach and Handel on the musical language of Wagner's revolutionary comedy Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
December 1, 2001... Wagner's decision to create Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg was as courageous as any in the history of art. The new opera was to remain for several years Wagner's refuge against a world hostile to his artistic aims and "reforms," as well as...

Decline and fall: the luxe facades of 1860s Vienna hid the decline of the Hapsburg empire. Jorg von Uthmann examines the ways in which the city in transition provided the ideal backdrop for Strauss's Arabella.(Critical Essay)
December 1, 2001... It is not surprising that, of the six operas Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote together, three are set in Vienna. Hofmannsthal was born there and left his hometown only to move to the suburbs. Strauss too knew the city well. He...

Face To Face: Renee Fleming and Barbara Cook.(Interview)
December 1, 2001... What happens when Cunegonde meets Arabella? Last spring, Broadway legend Barbara Cook welcomed Renee Fleming, who sings Strauss's heroine this month at the Met, to her Manhattan apartment for a conversation about rhythm and repertoire. ...

Projected impact: like it or not, titles have been with us for nearly fifteen years. Barbara Jepson takes stock of the ways in which simultaneous translation has changed the world of opera forever.
December 1, 2001... It was the final act of La Boheme at Washington Opera. Mimi, failing rapidly, clutched Rodolfo's arm and pleaded, "You won't leave me?" A laptop pressed into last-minute service to deliver the text translations flashed this unexpected...

Diminuendo: today, "diva" means Britney Spears, and you'd have a tough time finding many high-school kids who know Mahler from Mantovani. Brooks Peters looks at the steady erosion of music education in America.
December 1, 2001... When American author Eudora Welty died, earlier this year, I went back and reread her short story "June Recital." It's one of her most haunting and evocative works, depicting life in Morgana, a small, fictional Mississippi town in the 1920s, in...

C-sharps by the seashore.(Carl Emil Seashore's Seashore Measures of Musical Talents)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Optometrists call it the Snellen Eye Chart, but most people who squint at its shrinking letters probably remember it best for its cryptic message: E... FP... TOZ... LPED.... The Brannock Device, a fixture of every shoe store, assigns...

Metropolitan opera broadcasts.(Engelbert Humperdinck's Konigskinder)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... The season of 1910-11 was the season of Engelbert Humperdinck at the Met. On December 8, 1910, when the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse docked, Metropolitan Opera general manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza was at the pier to greet Humperdinck, arriving in...

Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. (Metropolitan Opera).(Critical Essay)
December 1, 2001... BROADCAST OF DECEMBER 8, 2001 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO-METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWORK, 12 NOON THE STORY ACT I. As the congregation of St. Katharine's Church sings a closing hymn, the young...

Arabella. (Metropolitan Opera).(Critical Essay)
December 1, 2001... BROADCAST OF DECEMBER 15, 2001 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO-METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWORK, 1:30 P.M. THE STORY ACT I. Vienna, 1860s. In the Waldners' hotel suite, Countess Adelaide von Waldner...

La Traviata. (Metropolitan Opera).(Critical Essay)
December 1, 2001... THE STORY ACT I. In her Paris salon, the courtesan Violetta Valery welcomes her guests, among them Flora Bervoix, Marquis d'Obigny, Baron Douphol and Gastone, who introduces a new admirer, Alfredo Germont. The latter, confessing that he...

Hansel Und Gretel. (Metropolitan Opera).(Critical Essay)
December 1, 2001... BROADCAST OF DECEMBER 29, 2001 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO-METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWOR, 1:30 P.M. THE STORY ACT I. In a sunny clearing, deep in the forest near the Ilsenstein peak, stands the...

Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. (What To Read And Hear).(Richard Wagner's opera)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Barry Millington's Wagner (Princeton, paperback) is a sound, informed starting-point. Ernest Newman's The Wagner Operas (Princeton, paperback) remains the best introduction to the works. In Wagner Remembered (Faber), Stewart Spencer presents a...

Arabella. (What To Read And Hear).(Richard Strauss Opera)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Among recent biographies, go for Michael Kennedy's Richard Strauss: Man, Music, Enigma (Cambridge) or Bryan Gilliam's concise but authoritative The Life of Richard Strauss (Cambridge, paperback), avoiding Matthew Boyden's tendentious,...

La Traviata. (What To Read And Hear).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Julian Budden's Verdi (Schirmer) is a knowledgeable introduction to life and works, while Mary Jane Phillips-Matz's richly detailed Verdi (Oxford, paperback) supersedes previous biographies. Budden discusses La Traviata in Volume 2 of his...

Hansel Und Gretel. (What To Read And Hear).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... The English-language literature on Humperdinck is scanty. Amanda Glauert's articles on composer and opera in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera are an excellent introduction. The source is found in various editions of the Grimms' fairy tales;...

Chevrontexaco-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network: 2001-2002 Season.
December 1, 2001... STATION AM FM ALABAMA Birmingham WBHM 90.3 Gadsden WSGN 91.5 Mobile ...

Strauss: Adriadne auf Naxos. (Valedictory: Giuseppe Sinopoli's final opera recording is an all-star Ariadne of unusual merit).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Voigt, Dessay von Otter; Heppner, C. Genz, Dohmen; Staatskapelle Dresden, Sinopoli. Text and translations. DG 471 323 2 There has never been a completely unsatisfying recording of Ariadne auf Naxos, but there has never been an undisputed...

Verdi: Falstaff. (Opera And Oratorio).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Roschmann, Pieczonka, Doufexis, Diadkova; Shtoda, Hampson, Terfel; Berlin Radio Choir, Berlin Philharmonic, Abbado. Text and translations. Deutsche Grammophon 471 194-2 It is not mere marketing hype to suggest that Bryn Terfel was born...

Adams: El Nino. (Opera And Oratorio).(Review)
December 1, 2001... Upshaw, Hunt Lieberson; White; London Voices, Theater of Voices, Maitrise de Paris, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Nagano. Text and translation. Nonesuch 79634 Few oratorios, old or new, speak with the immediacy of the John Adams-Peter...

Adamo: Little Woman. (Opera And Oratorio).
December 1, 2001... M. Lloyd, Tappan, DiDonato, Novacek, Gwe. Jones, Ka. Ciesinskh Shelton, Belcher, Yuan, D. Parker, Maddalena; Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, Summers. Texts. Ondine ODE 988-2D (Koch, dist.) There is a great deal to admire about Little Women,...

Handel: Arminio. (Opera And Oratorio).
December 1, 2001... [] Genaux, McGreevy, Labelle, Custer; Petroni, Buwalda, Ristori; Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis. Text and translation. Virgin 5 45461 2 (2) "Handel's Arminio has had an unlucky past," concedes Alan Curtis in the notes to this recording,...

Rameau: La Guirlande/Zephire. (Opera And Oratorio).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Daneman; Agnew, Bazola (Guirlande). Mechaly, Ockenden, Decaudaveine (Zephire). Choeur des Arts Florissants, Cappella Coloniensis of the WDR, Christie. Texts and translations. Erato 8573-85774-2 Breathing no less rarefied air than the...

Vaughan Williams: Sir John in Love. (Opera And Oratorio).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Gritton, Claycomb, Connolly; Padmore, Williams, Maxwell, Varcoe, Best; Sinfonia Chorus and Northern Sinfonia, Hickox. Text and notes. Chandos 9928 "It is pointless... to listen to Sir John in Love with [Verdi's] Falstaff in mind,"...

Donizetti: Anna Bolena. (Opera And Oratorio).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Theodossiou, Ganassi, Prina; Sartori, Papi; Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, Severini. Italian/English libretto. Dynamic CDS 370-1-3 (Qualiton, dist.) Recorded at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo in the fall of 2000, this Anna...

Fekete: Roman Fever; Elegia--In Memoriam Hannah Szenes. (Opera And Oratorio).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Rajk, Sudar; Budapest Chamber Symphony, Hamar (Roman Fever). Cserna; Ambrus; Budapest Tompkins Vocal Ensemble, Budapest Chamber Symphony, Tihanyi (Elegia). Text and translation. Hungaroton HCD 31914 (Qualiton, dist.) Hungarian Gyula...

Vangelis: Mythodea. (Choral And Song).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Battle, Norman; Vangelis (electronic keyboards), Athens Opera Choir, London Metropolitan Orchestra, Neely. Sony Classical SK 89191 Sony Classical's Mythodea -- Music for the NASA Mission: 2001 Mars Odyssey was worrisome as soon as it...

Brahms: Lieder. (Choral And Song).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] "COMPLETE EDITION, VOL. 4" Funf Lieder op. 47, Sieben Lieder op. 48, Funf Lieder op. 4, Lieder und Gesange op. 57. With Banse; A. Schmidt; Deutsch (piano). Texts and translations. CPO 999 444-2 (Naxos, dist.) Music-lovers in Brahms's...

Jane Eaglen. (Recital).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] "ITALIAN OPERA ARIAS" Arias by Puccini, Cilea, Mascagni, Ponchielli, Boito and Catalani. Philharmonia, Rizzi. Sony Classical SK 89443 Jane Eaglen, whose ample voice and magnificent, gleaming top notes have brought her success in the...

Anne Sofie von Otter. (Recital).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] "BEETHOVEN/MEYERBEER/SPOHR" With Tan, fortepiano. Texts and translations. Archiv 289 469 074-2 Each new recital album from Anne Sofie von Otter seems a quietly personal statement, reflecting her wide-ranging tastes and curiosity....

Hal Cazalet and Sylvia McNair. (Recital).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] "THE LAND WHERE THE GOOD SONGS GO: THE LYRICS OF P. G. WODEHOUSE" Music by Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Novello. Blier, piano. Harbinger Records HCD1901 (Empire Music, dist.) "I'm not just an opera singer," Sylvia McNair recently told OPERA...

Dietrich Henschel. (Recital).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] "MAHLER: DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN, KINDERTOTEN-LIEDER, RUCKERT LIEDER" Halle Orchestra, Nagano. Texts and translations. Teldec 8573-86573-2 Brrr! I never expected to be chilled by a CD of Mahler, even from Kent Nagano, but this recording,...

Rodrick Dixon, Victor Trent Cook and Thomas Young. (Recital).('Three Mo' Tenors')(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] "THREE MO' TENORS" RCA 63827 Despite its title, this disc is not in the mold of the mass-market pastiches associated with the words "three tenors." Three Mo'Tenors is a wildly eclectic program, but carefully conceived and lovingly...

Wagner: The Rhinegold (in English). (Historical).(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Pring, Collins; Belcourt, Bailey, Hammond-Stroud, Lloyd, Grant; English National Opera, Goodall. Chandos CHAN 3054 (3) While the live recordings of the ENO/Reginald Goodall Valkyrie and Siegfried (already reissued on Chandos and reviewed...

Wagner: Twilight of the Gods (in English). (Historical).(Ring of the Nibelung)(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Hunter, Pring; Remedios, Haugland; English National Opera, Goodall. Chandos CHAN 3060 (5) While the live recordings of the ENO/Reginald Goodall Valkyrie and Siegfried (already reissued on Chandos and reviewed previously) can be...

Listening room.(favourite music of singers, conductors)
December 1, 2001... OPERA NEWS offers the third installment of a new semiregular column that peers into the private collections of some of the music business's brightest lights. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, soprano We're all in need of music these days. I am...

December Online Edition of opera news.
December 1, 2001... Holliger's Schneewittchen; Dvorak's Stabat Mater; recitals from Anonymous 4, Mimmi Fulmer, Jennifer Lane, Eva Lind and Patrice Michaels; a portrait of Peter Anders, Tebaldi and Corelli in Vienna Andrea Chenier, Fritz Wunderlich sings Mozart in...

Los Angeles. (North America).(Lohengrin, Queen of Spades)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)(Review)
December 1, 2001... Nobody has ever suggested that running an opera company -- let alone two companies the width of a continent apart -- might be an easy diversion for Placido Domingo. Nobody need be all that startled, therefore, by the few dark rumblings around...

San Francisco. (North America).(Arshak II, Rigoletto)(Review)
December 1, 2001... The chimera of the long-forgotten masterwork, languishing in history's dustbin, then rediscovered and newly acclaimed, fires any opera producer's hopes and ambitions. Surely no opera has accumulated a thicker coat of dust -- at least in the...

New York City. (North America).(Hollander)(Review)
December 1, 2001... Except for a few performances of Der Fliegende Hollander and Die Meistersinger in years gone by, New York City Opera has never been a Wagner house, but with this season's new production of Hollander (seen Sept. 21), the company has unfurled a...

Cooperstown, NY. (North America).
December 1, 2001... For the twenty-seventh season of Glimmer-glass Opera (July 5-Aug. 28), the repertory tilted toward the less familiar. Since Paul Kellogg's accession as artistic director of both companies, most Glimmerglass productions are destined sooner or...

Salzburg. (International).
December 1, 2001... One thing is certain: the musical standards at the Salzburg Festival are stratospheric. How can one argue with Karita Mattila as Jenufa, Bryn Terfel as Falstaff, Natalie Dessay as Zerbinetta, Christine Schafer as Cherubino? And Valery Gergiev...

Bayreuth. (International).(Ring Cycle)(Review)
December 1, 2001... Bayreuth connoisseurs say that one should never judge a new Ring cycle in its first year. The reasons are clear: the festival has about six weeks' intensive rehearsal time to get all four operas musically rehearsed and prepared for the stage in...

Pesaro. (International).(Le Nozze di Teti, e di Peleo, La Donna del Lago, La Gazzetta)(Review)
December 1, 2001... The opening production of this year's Rossini Opera Festival was not an opera at all but a staged concert -- entitled Le Nozze di Teti, e di Peleo -- constructed around the cantata of that name composed for the Bourbons in Naples in 1816, with...

Martina Franca. (International).(Review)
December 1, 2001... Deep in the heel of the boot of Italy, the city of Martina Franca is a baroque jewel. A touch provincial (though once the seat of a dukedom), it has for the past twenty-seven summers hosted the Festival della Valle d'Itria, prized for operatic...

New York City. (Concerts And Recitals).(free Carnegie Hall concert featuring Leontyne Price and others)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... It's one measure of the city's response to the attack on the World Trade Center that so many artists, who have given so much to the civic and cultural life of New York, want to give something more. That's what brought James Levine, Yo-Yo Ma and...

December online edition of opera news.
December 1, 2001... North America: Montreal hears its first Peter Grimes; Ohio Light Opera stages rarities by Kalman, J. Strauss II; New Hampshire's Opera North offers Carmen and Don Giovanni; Brandes sings M.A. Charpentier with California's Opera Lafayette;...

The Metropolitan Opera presents: telecast of December 27, 2001, on PBS at 9 p.m. (ET) *. (Video).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... THE MET CELEBRATES VERDI PART II The Metropolitan Opera concludes its yearlong commemoration of the centennial of the death of Giuseppe Verdi with a compilation of highlights from historic telecasts from the Met. James Levine is the host...

Mozart: die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail. (Video).(Neuenfels, Hans)(Review)
December 1, 2001... [] Naglestad, Ladner; Klink, Gohrig, Bracht; Staatsoper Stuttgart, Zagrosek; Arthaus Musik DVD 100179, 150 mins. (Naxos, dist.) In this 1998 Stuttgart performance of Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, director Hans Neuenfels strains for obvious...

In search of Opera. (Books).(Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... In Search of Opera by Carolyn Abbate Princeton University Press, 264 pp. $29.95 "Callas's Forza," "Wilson's Lohengrin": such shorthand is second nature to most opera-lovers, yet it typically provokes conspicuous rolling of eyes among music...

Icons of Opera: A History in Photographs 1900-2000. (Books).(Review)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Icons of Opera: A History in Photographs 1900-2000 by Matthew Boyden Thunder Bay Press, 175 pp. $17.98 This coffee-table volume -- ill informed, sloppily executed and mean-spirited -- presents short evaluations of a rather bizarre...

Obituaries.(Obituary)
December 1, 2001... BARBARA MATERA, Kent, England, July 16, 1929 -- New York City, September 13, 2001 Co-founder with her husband, Arthur, of the costume-building firm of Barbara Matera, Ltd., Matera created costumes that were featured at the Metropolitan...

Dateline.
December 1, 2001... METROPOLITAN OPERA (Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-6000; www.metopera.org) Dec. 1m La Traviata (Verdi). Stoyanova; Portilla, Michaels-Moore; Benini, Zeffirelli/Feldman, Zeffirelli/Gaetani Dec. 1 Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg...

Back to the future. (Coda).(elementary students attend opera)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2001... Like many of my generation, as we careen toward middle age, I find my fancy wandering back to the bygone days of childhood. So when an invitation came last fall, I jumped at the chance to relive a favorite grade-school ritual: the annual class...