Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s great opera The Passenger received its US premiere in Houston last night and we await first reviews. In the meantime, here’s how the production felt like from the inside by the young Welsh soprano, Natalya Anna Romaniw, exclusive to Slipped Disc.
I first saw The Passenger as an audience member at ENO in 2011. As I watched, I knew then it was a special piece and as luck would have it, the opera world is small enough that I am able to be a part of it now in 2014 as HGO premieres Weinberg’s masterpiece in the USA.
From a performer’s perspective the show is extremely challenging, not only musically but emotionally too. We, as singing actors, know that we are telling someone’s story, perhaps not by name, or character but someone who once existed and experienced these terrible things that burdened the victims of Auschwitz every second of every day.
We are going home after the performance and we have warmth, food, clothes and even water, at our disposal. It’s hard not to get emotional when singing this beautiful piece and I know it is something I’ve watched us all struggle coming to terms with. It really makes you think about todays society and how much we all take so many things for granted. It also makes you think about the stories of the lives of the SS officers, how they were affected and did they want to do their jobs? Did they have a choice? Did they have souls at all? The Passenger takes the audience into those characters’ lives. Certainly as performers, it is an incredibly exhausting emotional journey that leads us all into feeling slightly uncomfortable in taking a curtain call. This is something that I vividly remember at ENO, as an audience member. My eyes, filled with tears and my heart, aching with sympathy, didn’t know whether to clap or not … because it is so real and it is told and painted so well by Weinberg that we all find it very hard to take both as audience members and performers.
Would someone like to translate the Russian monologue? And supply a date?
The semi-official Russian newspaper has received its official tip-off. The new Bolshoi music director is, as we predicted yesterday, Tugan Sokhiev. The official announcement will be made Monday morning. Sokhiev, 36, is music director in Toulouse and principal conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
In the session below, newly posted on Youtube, one musician is transfixed by his iPad, another is sending an urgent text, a third is reading a magazine and a fourth is wondering if he needs a haircut. All the while, the conductor, strings and some of the woodwind are working their socks off.
No need to name the band, but we can vouch that you don’t see this sort of attitude any more with the London orchestras at Abbey Road.
The Court of Appeal has overturned the conviction of a former music teacher, Sir Peter Newson-Smith, for alleged assaults on a ten year-old boy at Clayesmore Preparatory School in Dorset three decades ago. It ruled the alleged victim had misled the court over his intentions to sue for damages.
Sir Peter has spent six months in jail. The case was an isolated one, unconnected to any other abuse investigation in the UK. It attracted tabloid attention due to the alleged perpetrator’s aristocratic background.
The Russia-Britain Cultural Exchange Year kicks off on Tuesday with nothing out of the ordinary.
A programme of Prokofiev Cinderella excerpts, 3rd piano concerto and Rachmaninov’s second symphony could be heard any time, anywhere.
The timing of the exchange, coinciding with Putin’s Winter Olympics and his anti-gay rampage, is suspect. The content is mundane. The UK end is in the hands of Ensemble Productions, run by Julian Gallant and Olga Balakleets. Doesn’t feel much like a celebration.
Riccardo Chailly has pulled out of the annual Vienna Philharmonic Ball ‘for family reasons’. The orchestra are presently on tour with Chailly and the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos. They have taken the brave decision to invite the soloist to lead the ball in place of the maestro.
It’s back to the good old days of Willy Boskovsky…
The ball is on January 23 at the Musikverein.
Here’s the press release:
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren!
Maestro Riccardo Chailly sah sich aus familiären Gründen gezwungen, das Dirigat der Eröffnung des Balls der Wiener Philharmoniker am 23. Jänner 2014 zurückzulegen.
Wir freuen uns bekanntgeben zu können, dass sich Leonidas Kavakos in liebenswürdiger Weise bereiterklärt hat, die Leitung der Eröffnung zu übernehmen.
Herr Kavakos, der soeben mit den Wiener Philharmonikern das Violinkonzert von Jean Sibelius mit überragendem Erfolg aufführte, tritt – erstmals in der Geschichte des Balls – sowohl als Solist als auch als Dirigent auf.
Er wird Fritz Kreislers „Schön Rosmarin“ spielen und die Ouvertüre zu „Oberon“ von Carl Maria von Weber dirigieren.
The following statement came in late Saturday night:
Please be advised that Judith Clark has relinquished her post as General Manager with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra and will be pursuing a number of independent consultancy projects in music and the arts. The Board wishes to record their thanks to her for her past service and, in particular, to the important part she played in making the recent appeal a success.
Karen Platt
Chairman
When David Pountney staged Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger at English National Opera in September 2011, most of the London critics reached deep into their dictionaries of scorn. Mine was one of few voices that argued for the importance of the work, not as a holocaust memento but as a masterwork of modern opera.
Since then, The Passenger has been staged in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The big news is that Houston Grand Opera is to stage the US premiere tonight in a production that Chicago Lyric Opera will share in 2015. The show will also travel to the Lincoln Center Festival in New York. Start queuing now.
Press release:
Violinist Sergey Khachatryan Receives the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award for 2014
Vienna/Lucerne, 17 January 2014. The winner of this year’s Credit Suisse Young Artist Award is Sergey Khachatryan. The announcement was made this afternoon in Vienna by the jury, which is chaired by LUCERNE FESTIVAL’s Executive and Artistic Director, Michael Haefliger, after the candidatesauditioned for them in the Vienna Musikverein. The award comes with a cash prize of 75,000 Swiss francs – one of the highest awards in the field – and also involves appearing in concert with the Vienna Philharmonic as part of LUCERNE FESTIVAL in Summer. The concert will take place on 13 September 2014 under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.
Sergey Khachatryan was born in Yerevan, Armenia. In 2000 he won the prestigious Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki and, in 2005, first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels. He has performed with such internationally acclaimed orchestras and conductors as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris under Andris Nelsons, the Bamberg Symphony under Jonathan Nott, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony. He has appeared frequently with the Philharmonia Orchestra in particular. His plans for the current season include concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic under Yannick Nézet-Séguin and with the Vienna Symphony under Markus Stenz. In June 2013 his most recent CD, of violin sonatas by Johannes Brahms, was released on the label Naïve.
It’s a great interim appointment but the suddenness begs a few questions. Press release below.
private photo, 1984
ROBERT FITZPATRICK NAMED PROVOST AND DEAN
OF SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Fitzpatrick as Provost and Dean. Fitzpatrick replaces outgoing Dean Mary Ellen Poole, who has stepped down after 10 years of distinguished service to the school. Former Dean and Chief Academic Officer of the Curtis Institute of Music, Fitzpatrick will serve in an interim capacity until the search for a new permanent dean for the Conservatory is completed.
“We are delighted to welcome Robert Fitzpatrick to the Conservatory at an exciting moment in our history,” says President David H. Stull. “Mr. Fitzpatrick has a wealth of management and leadership experience and is a highly accomplished musician and teacher. I am honored to have him join our community.” Stull notes that Fitzpatrick’s guidance in post-secondary educational administration will be particularly useful for the Conservatory’s accreditation report to WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) due later this year. “He has led numerous accreditation processes with multiple agencies and organizations, including a site visit to SFCM in the 1990s.”
“I am happy to accept the invitation from President Stull to join the San Francisco Conservatory administrative team charged with realizing his long term strategic vision,” says Fitzpatrick. “This dynamic plan will secure the place of the Conservatory among the planet’s most important destinations for aspiring musical artists who dream of becoming performers at the highest professional level, and who will influence the cultural life of their city, their country, and the world as inspiring musical citizens during the 21st century and beyond.” Fitzpatrick began his responsibilities at the Conservatory on Monday, January 13 and will meet the full community of Conservatory students and faculty when the Spring semester begins on Tuesday, January 21.
