Washington could not have got its timing worse.
Hours before the great tenor began celebrating what is commonly reckoned to be his 70th birthday, the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser announced that he is
taking over the Washington National Opera that Domingo has headed for the past decade.
Kaiser, who has experience of running the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, would never be so impolite as to shaft a singer for whom he has great respect and affection. But the content of his message – that the opera is $12 million in the red and leaderless in every way – left no doubt in anyone’s mind that Domingo’s absentee management has been a complete disaster.
The Kaiser’s move is not surprising; I
predicted it in an interview months ago. The timing, however, is unfortunate, to say the least. The company must have been coming down in flames for Kennedy to take it over on the eve of PD’s birthday.
Now I don’t want to spoil the party, but the question everyone’s asking is what happens to Los Angeles? If Placido was an admitted disaster in Washington, what’s to be done about the mighty deficit he has built up on the West Coast, with precious little to show for it in artistic substance? Domingo’s record as a great singer is secure. But his ambition to be the boss of opera houses is falling steadily to pieces.
Washington could not have got its timing worse.
Hours before the great tenor began celebrating what is commonly reckoned to be his 70th birthday, the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser announced that he is
taking over the Washington National Opera that Domingo has headed for the past decade.
Kaiser, who has experience of running the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, would never be so impolite as to shaft a singer for whom he has great respect and affection. But the content of his message – that the opera is $12 million in the red and leaderless in every way – left no doubt in anyone’s mind that Domingo’s absentee management has been a complete disaster.
The Kaiser’s move is not surprising; I
predicted it in an interview months ago. The timing, however, is unfortunate, to say the least. The company must have been coming down in flames for Kennedy to take it over on the eve of PD’s birthday.
Now I don’t want to spoil the party, but the question everyone’s asking is what happens to Los Angeles? If Placido was an admitted disaster in Washington, what’s to be done about the mighty deficit he has built up on the West Coast, with precious little to show for it in artistic substance? Domingo’s record as a great singer is secure. But his ambition to be the boss of opera houses is falling steadily to pieces.
The Venezuelan conductor Natalia Luisa-Bassa, who made such a strong impression on John Bridcut’s Elgar film, has hit a sticky patch in Yorkshire. Various correspondents have informed me that she walked out on her orchestra during a rehearsal in Huddersfield three months ago and has yet to return. It’s a question of respect, she says. She has it, the musicians don’t.
It sounds to me like something that got lost in translation. Up in Yorkshire, they don’t walk away from the crease. ‘Don’t give up yer wicket,’ bellows Sir Geoffrey every time an England batsman gets himself out at the cricket with a silly shot or a misjudged run. Good advice for conductors everywhere: don’t walk out til you’ve got a better place to go.
Come on, Natalia, strap on your pads. Get back in there.
The Venezuelan conductor Natalia Luisa-Bassa, who made such a strong impression on John Bridcut’s Elgar film, has hit a sticky patch in Yorkshire. Various correspondents have informed me that she walked out on her orchestra during a rehearsal in Huddersfield three months ago and has yet to return. It’s a question of respect, she says. She has it, the musicians don’t.
It sounds to me like something that got lost in translation. Up in Yorkshire, they don’t walk away from the crease. ‘Don’t give up yer wicket,’ bellows Sir Geoffrey every time an England batsman gets himself out at the cricket with a silly shot or a misjudged run. Good advice for conductors everywhere: don’t walk out til you’ve got a better place to go.
Come on, Natalia, strap on your pads. Get back in there.
In a weekend piece today in the Wall Street Journal, I show how Gustav Mahler created the subscription series, thematic programming and orchestral touring – all fixtures of musical life in the United States to the present day. Ahead of his time? Very much a man of ours, I would say.
There were two final paragraphs that I was planning to append to the piece on how the cities Mahler visited are marking his centennial year. I had to drop the coda for reasons of space. You can read the article
here.
And these are the two extras pars:
Visiting several of the cities that Mahler toured, I found a
mixed legacy of hope and decay. In Syracuse, the orchestra cancelled a concert
of Mahler’s fifth symphony for want of funds, but a music lover, Hamilton
Armstrong, erected a memorial on the site where Mahler conducted and a radio
producer, Marie Lamb, passes by every day to sweep off the snow. In Buffalo, conductor
Jo-Ann Falleta launched the Mahler centennial with a Resurrection concert.
Pittsburgh is doing a Mahler heritage weekend in May.
It would have been fitting had the New York Philharmonic
given a repeat on February 21, 2011 of the last concert of Mahler’s life, but
that opportunity went begging. It is the Israel Philharmonic, under Riccardo
Muti, that took up the program this week (Jan 17, 19) in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, a distant salute. New York, in Mahler’s day as in ours, does not go in much for musical sentiment.
NL
(watch amazon.co.uk for limited-period special offer)
In a weekend piece today in the Wall Street Journal, I show how Gustav Mahler created the subscription series, thematic programming and orchestral touring – all fixtures of musical life in the United States to the present day. Ahead of his time? Very much a man of ours, I would say.
There were two final paragraphs that I was planning to append to the piece on how the cities Mahler visited are marking his centennial year. I had to drop the coda for reasons of space. You can read the article
here.
And these are the two extras pars:
Visiting several of the cities that Mahler toured, I found a
mixed legacy of hope and decay. In Syracuse, the orchestra cancelled a concert
of Mahler’s fifth symphony for want of funds, but a music lover, Hamilton
Armstrong, erected a memorial on the site where Mahler conducted and a radio
producer, Marie Lamb, passes by every day to sweep off the snow. In Buffalo, conductor
Jo-Ann Falleta launched the Mahler centennial with a Resurrection concert.
Pittsburgh is doing a Mahler heritage weekend in May.
It would have been fitting had the New York Philharmonic
given a repeat on February 21, 2011 of the last concert of Mahler’s life, but
that opportunity went begging. It is the Israel Philharmonic, under Riccardo
Muti, that took up the program this week (Jan 17, 19) in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, a distant salute. New York, in Mahler’s day as in ours, does not go in much for musical sentiment.
NL
(watch amazon.co.uk for limited-period special offer)
