24Mar

Smackdown or touchdown?

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 […]

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24Mar

Smackdown or touchdown?

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 […]

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24Mar

Free Bernard – he's out now!

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 […]

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18Mar

She got plenty of nuttin'

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 […]

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17Mar

Bess, you is my woman now

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 […]

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17Mar

Bess, you is my woman now

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 […]

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15Mar

Nobody sings like she can

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 […]

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15Mar

Nobody sings like she can

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 […]

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13Mar

Shrinking Jenufa

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, […]

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13Mar

Shrinking Jenufa

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, […]

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11Mar

Duda here, Duda there, and the NY Phil go east

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 […]

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