I’ve just come off a WNYC Smackdown head-to-head with Anne Midgette on the never-ending question of my Wagner right or wrong. You can hear the debate here, I think, and I’m not going to use this space to have the last word on her.

What is extraordinary, though, is how every time one attempts to balance the monstrosity of Wagner’s ego and his cult against the musical genius of the work, you run up against a brick wall – not Anne, I hastily add – of people who pretend that it is possible to isolate a creator from the things he creates.

It isn’t. No Wagner, no Ring – as Bob Marley might have put it. The man’s odious ideology is part and parcel of the work. Eliminate it, and the Ring becomes a teddy bears’ tea party.

I’ve just come off a WNYC Smackdown head-to-head with Anne Midgette on the never-ending question of my Wagner right or wrong. You can hear the debate here, I think, and I’m not going to use this space to have the last word on her.

What is extraordinary, though, is how every time one attempts to balance the monstrosity of Wagner’s ego and his cult against the musical genius of the work, you run up against a brick wall – not Anne, I hastily add – of people who pretend that it is possible to isolate a creator from the things he creates.

It isn’t. No Wagner, no Ring – as Bob Marley might have put it. The man’s odious ideology is part and parcel of the work. Eliminate it, and the Ring becomes a teddy bears’ tea party.

The campaign to give Haitink to the world has hit new heights with another free download offer from Netherlands Radio. The very young Haitink cut his conducting teeth on its philharmonic orchestra in the late 1950s. Some of those broadcasts can be accessed here.

Repertory includes Grieg, Pijper, Brahms Bartok and Fauré. My thanks for the information to Rolf den Otter, who says it’s easy to download the concerts if you have the right software (and a few words of Dutch).

Apart from a newsbreak by an alert Tim Smith in her native Baltimore and a low-cal obit in the New York Times, America allowed the passing of its first operatic heroine to pass unnoticed.

Anne Brown created the role of Bess in George Gershwin’s opera not just by singing the opening night in 1935 but by sitting on the composer’s piano stool, prodding him to give her more to sing. Porgy and Bess is, by general consent, the first American opera. Anne Brown was the definitive Bess.

She continued to sing the role with the original cast until 1948, touring many parts of the US and appearing in a Gershwin biopic before the onslaught of racial prejudice led her to seek a better life in Norway. Stanley Henig reminds me that an original-cast recording of Porgy was taken on Decca and is still around on CD. Anne Brown is dead: you don’t have to believe that if you don’t want to.

She helped form what we think of as American heritage. Yet no part of US culture has stopped to pay her homage. No opera curtain has been held so that Peter Gelb or somesuch could share an Anne Brown moment with the audience. No music director – even in Baltimore – has revised a concert program to include a Bess tribute. And no-one in the White House has  doffed his hat to a woman who showed the world how Black Americans lived. Has nobody told the President? 

Anne Brown, who sang Bess in George Gershwin’s original 1935 production of Porgy and Bess died last week, aged 96, in Norway, where she lived since her marriage 60 years ago.

What she did with the rest of her life is known chiefly to Norwegians, but a friend in Oslo describes her as a driving force in musical life, teacher of many of the country’s best singers and actors – including Liv Ullmann – and, to the very last, ‘the most beautiful creature in the whole world’.

Anne Brown attended the opening of the new opera house last year and rose from her wheelchair to receive a standing ovation.

Someone ought to tell President Obama. A moment’s homage would be appropriate for one of the first women to show the world the real life of Black Americans. May she rest in peace. 

You can hear her teaching and interviewed here. It’s in Norwegian, but the warmth in that voice is irresistible.

Anne Brown, who sang Bess in George Gershwin’s original 1935 production of Porgy and Bess died last week, aged 96, in Norway, where she lived since her marriage 60 years ago.

What she did with the rest of her life is known chiefly to Norwegians, but a friend in Oslo describes her as a driving force in musical life, teacher of many of the country’s best singers and actors – including Liv Ullmann – and, to the very last, ‘the most beautiful creature in the whole world’.

Anne Brown attended the opening of the new opera house last year and rose from her wheelchair to receive a standing ovation.

Someone ought to tell President Obama. A moment’s homage would be appropriate for one of the first women to show the world the real life of Black Americans. May she rest in peace. 

You can hear her teaching and interviewed here. It’s in Norwegian, but the warmth in that voice is irresistible.

The Times of London, which used to call itself a newspaper of record, has turned into the puff paper of the record industry.

 

Last week, the Times published a piece by its media correspondent about 13 year-old Faryl Smith, who appeared a year back on a television talent show and, though she lost, was signed by Universal Classics & Jazz (UCJ) – yes, them again – for a reputed £2.3 million ($3.1 million).

 

The comments of Dickon Stainer, UK head of UCJ and the man who signed the cheque, are worth quoting in extenso for future deconstruction. Stainer said: “She is our major international priority. She is an absolute once-in-a-generation talent. For her age there’s probably never been anybody who can sing like she can. If she looks after her voice and is nurtured properly she will be successful all over the world. She can make classical music more accessible than any other artist since Pavarotti.”

Right. So I guess we had better take her seriously. After all, the Times reports that 80,000 copies of her disc have been shipped, a higher volume than the new U2 album.

 

Today, the Sunday Times turns the advance hype into ‘the fastest-selling solo classical album’ and states that Faryl is ‘expected’ to break into the Top Ten. The record business used to pay for advertisements in Times Newspapers. Now they get promoted for free.

 

Faryl seems like a sweet young girl from Kettering, Northants. She admits that she neither listens to nor respects classical music. ‘Classical singing is mainly aimed at older people,’ she says. So why is she being published by Universal Classics & Jazz? And why is she is expected to make classical music more popular?

 

To crack these nuggets of wishful marketing, you need to hark back to recent events. UCJ last month demolished Decca label because its UK boss, Strainer, could not agree a policy with the international chief, Chris Roberts. A great classical heritage was sacrificed on the altar of their corporate feud.

 

UCJ is now shovelling its cash into crossover trash after Warner stole its headline act Katharine Jenkins and Sony outsold it with Il Divo. This is not a company that knows – or even remembers – what classical records are about. It is a pathetic, passive offshoot of couch-potato reality television.

 

Young Faryl herself is a familiar phenomenon. She was once called Charlotte Church. Then Paul Potts. She will go on to different things. Or not. Who cares?

 

What she will never be is a classical singer. It is a sombre sign of our knee-jerk times that two newspapers which once valued intellectual rigour now suspend their critical faculties at the sight of a pretty young face.

The Times of London, which used to call itself a newspaper of record, has turned into the puff paper of the record industry.

 

Last week, the Times published a piece by its media correspondent about 13 year-old Faryl Smith, who appeared a year back on a television talent show and, though she lost, was signed by Universal Classics & Jazz (UCJ) – yes, them again – for a reputed £2.3 million ($3.1 million).

 

The comments of Dickon Stainer, UK head of UCJ and the man who signed the cheque, are worth quoting in extenso for future deconstruction. Stainer said: “She is our major international priority. She is an absolute once-in-a-generation talent. For her age there’s probably never been anybody who can sing like she can. If she looks after her voice and is nurtured properly she will be successful all over the world. She can make classical music more accessible than any other artist since Pavarotti.”

Right. So I guess we had better take her seriously. After all, the Times reports that 80,000 copies of her disc have been shipped, a higher volume than the new U2 album.

 

Today, the Sunday Times turns the advance hype into ‘the fastest-selling solo classical album’ and states that Faryl is ‘expected’ to break into the Top Ten. The record business used to pay for advertisements in Times Newspapers. Now they get promoted for free.

 

Faryl seems like a sweet young girl from Kettering, Northants. She admits that she neither listens to nor respects classical music. ‘Classical singing is mainly aimed at older people,’ she says. So why is she being published by Universal Classics & Jazz? And why is she is expected to make classical music more popular?

 

To crack these nuggets of wishful marketing, you need to hark back to recent events. UCJ last month demolished Decca label because its UK boss, Strainer, could not agree a policy with the international chief, Chris Roberts. A great classical heritage was sacrificed on the altar of their corporate feud.

 

UCJ is now shovelling its cash into crossover trash after Warner stole its headline act Katharine Jenkins and Sony outsold it with Il Divo. This is not a company that knows – or even remembers – what classical records are about. It is a pathetic, passive offshoot of couch-potato reality television.

 

Young Faryl herself is a familiar phenomenon. She was once called Charlotte Church. Then Paul Potts. She will go on to different things. Or not. Who cares?

 

What she will never be is a classical singer. It is a sombre sign of our knee-jerk times that two newspapers which once valued intellectual rigour now suspend their critical faculties at the sight of a pretty young face.

It’s an opera that never fails.

 

Leos Janacek’s psychodrama of a foster mother who murders her stepdaughter’s illegitimate baby in order to protect her marriage chances united performers and audience in a communion of grief and horror. Tears are shed in all parts of the house, including the orchestra pit. Jenufa, created in 1904, is the first reality opera, a slice of everyone’s life.

 

David Alden’s production at English National Opera strips it back to the core relationship between two women and clarifies the back story by selective analyis, much in the way a good therapist would do. The men in the story are portrayed as awful and inadequate. Steva, the mill-owner who gets Jenufa pregnant, is a swaggering wastrel with the attention span of a farmyard chicken. Laca, his half-brother, is a social reject with domestic violence issues. Neither will ever find contentment. Jenufa is just a morsel in their path.

 

Janacek’s original title, Her Foster-Daughter, says it all. This is an opera about an adult’s dilemma, not the pain of young love. Jenufa, sung with beautiful restraint by the leading British soprano Amanda Roocroft, is not so much innocent as immature. Her stepmother, the formidable American Michaela Martens, is the moral authority of the village. Jenufa cannot grow up so long as her guardian takes all the decisions. Only when the older women commits a terrible crime can Jenufa find her own light.

 

Of all the Jenufas I have seen, David Alden’s retelling is one that will not fade. Set in 1950s Czechoslovakia, it enjoys strong casting – Tom Randle as Steva, Robert Brubaker as Laca and many engaging cameos. The young Norwegian conductor, Eivind Gullberg Jensen (bookmark that name), displays a fine sensitivity for balance and rhythm. He gives the singers all the time they need for self-expression without permitting a nanosecond of self-indulgence.

 

The show was built around Roocroft who used it to announce her triumphant recovery from a mid-career dip. She may lack the Stanislavsky extremes of delight and sorrow, but a semi-muted emotional range in a landscape that is bleak rather than harsh was exactly what this production called for and Roocroft filled the role to overflowing. Hers is a Jenufa redefined for our present moral confusions.

 

 

www.eno.org

It’s an opera that never fails.

 

Leos Janacek’s psychodrama of a foster mother who murders her stepdaughter’s illegitimate baby in order to protect her marriage chances united performers and audience in a communion of grief and horror. Tears are shed in all parts of the house, including the orchestra pit. Jenufa, created in 1904, is the first reality opera, a slice of everyone’s life.

 

David Alden’s production at English National Opera strips it back to the core relationship between two women and clarifies the back story by selective analyis, much in the way a good therapist would do. The men in the story are portrayed as awful and inadequate. Steva, the mill-owner who gets Jenufa pregnant, is a swaggering wastrel with the attention span of a farmyard chicken. Laca, his half-brother, is a social reject with domestic violence issues. Neither will ever find contentment. Jenufa is just a morsel in their path.

 

Janacek’s original title, Her Foster-Daughter, says it all. This is an opera about an adult’s dilemma, not the pain of young love. Jenufa, sung with beautiful restraint by the leading British soprano Amanda Roocroft, is not so much innocent as immature. Her stepmother, the formidable American Michaela Martens, is the moral authority of the village. Jenufa cannot grow up so long as her guardian takes all the decisions. Only when the older women commits a terrible crime can Jenufa find her own light.

 

Of all the Jenufas I have seen, David Alden’s retelling is one that will not fade. Set in 1950s Czechoslovakia, it enjoys strong casting – Tom Randle as Steva, Robert Brubaker as Laca and many engaging cameos. The young Norwegian conductor, Eivind Gullberg Jensen (bookmark that name), displays a fine sensitivity for balance and rhythm. He gives the singers all the time they need for self-expression without permitting a nanosecond of self-indulgence.

 

The show was built around Roocroft who used it to announce her triumphant recovery from a mid-career dip. She may lack the Stanislavsky extremes of delight and sorrow, but a semi-muted emotional range in a landscape that is bleak rather than harsh was exactly what this production called for and Roocroft filled the role to overflowing. Hers is a Jenufa redefined for our present moral confusions.

 

 

www.eno.org

Hot on the South Bank’s announcement of a London residency by Gustavo Dudamel and his Venezuelan ensemble, the Barbican is introducing annual residencies by no fewer than four major-leaguers: the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus of Leipzig and the philharmonic orchestras of New York and Los Angeles.

 

This is a bold diversification for a multi-disciplinary arts centre that depends heavily on the London Symphony Orchestra for its music. The visiting orchestras will spend a week there each year, giving three concerts and some chamber music recitals and doing a good deal of outreach and community work in needy districts to the east of London. The scheme is being engineered with no extra sources of funding and is the first big feather in the cap of Barbican boss, Sir Nicholas Kenyon.

 

It looks so good on paper that I hate to raise a quizzical eyebrow about the necessity of having Dudamel, MD of the LA Phil, at both London venues. 

 

And I guess some folks back home might wonder why the New York Phil is doing social work in Bermondsey, Barking and Bow when they are not seen much in the Bronx.

 

It could be interesting to see how players who don’t get out of bed for less than $120,000 a year interact with Somali immigrant kids who are lucky to get a full bowl of rice at night for supper. If the scheme is more than mere window-dressing, stand by for spiritual awakenings in the band.

Hot on the South Bank’s announcement of a London residency by Gustavo Dudamel and his Venezuelan ensemble, the Barbican is introducing annual residencies by no fewer than four major-leaguers: the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus of Leipzig and the philharmonic orchestras of New York and Los Angeles.

 

This is a bold diversification for a multi-disciplinary arts centre that depends heavily on the London Symphony Orchestra for its music. The visiting orchestras will spend a week there each year, giving three concerts and some chamber music recitals and doing a good deal of outreach and community work in needy districts to the east of London. The scheme is being engineered with no extra sources of funding and is the first big feather in the cap of Barbican boss, Sir Nicholas Kenyon.

 

It looks so good on paper that I hate to raise a quizzical eyebrow about the necessity of having Dudamel, MD of the LA Phil, at both London venues. 

 

And I guess some folks back home might wonder why the New York Phil is doing social work in Bermondsey, Barking and Bow when they are not seen much in the Bronx.

 

It could be interesting to see how players who don’t get out of bed for less than $120,000 a year interact with Somali immigrant kids who are lucky to get a full bowl of rice at night for supper. If the scheme is more than mere window-dressing, stand by for spiritual awakenings in the band.