Toward the end of the 2000 Salzburg Festival, Gérard Mortier, the Belgian impresario whom the New York City Opera has just named to take over the company’s fortunes in 2009, delivered a memorable operatic rant that Wagner would have applauded. For a decade, Mr. Mortier had run the festival less like the world’s most exalted Read More
I can’t imagine a better way to shake the late-winter blahs than hearing the great German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff at Stern Auditorium on March 7. Mr. Quasthoff is just about unbeatable in Schubert and Brahms, but wait till you hear him in a program he’s been cultivating since childhood—the Great American Songbook, in which he Read More
“All these great soloists and conductors are family,” said Avi Shoshani, the secretary general of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. “Everyone I invited accepted immediately, and they all agreed to perform without a fee. This is the only orchestra in the world that could pull this off.” Mr. Shoshani wasn’t boasting. We were at the Hilton Read More
“He’s got everything I encourage my students to aspire to,” Marilyn Horne said to me a few weeks ago during the intermission of a recital by the young Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez in Oberlin College’s acoustically wonderful Finney Chapel. “His understanding of musical style is impeccable. His sound is glorious. And he really connects. Read More
It seemed, on that hot, hazy spring day in 1974, as though the entire population of Nashville had turned out to watch Robert Altman shoot the finale of his epic film about the country-music business. The location was Centennial Park in the heart of the city. The scene was a political rally for a mysteriously Read More
“He’s got everything I encourage my students to aspire to,” Marilyn Horne said to me a few weeks ago during the intermission of a recital by the young Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez in Oberlin College’s acoustically wonderful Finney Chapel. “His understanding of musical style is impeccable. His sound is glorious. And he really connects. Read More
Question: What does cutting-edge classical music have in common with cancer drugs? Answer: Both are made by Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company. The man behind this unlikely product line is the late Paul Sacher, the eminent Swiss conductor, music patron and Roche director, who happened to be married to the widow of the son of Read More
Question: What does cutting-edge classical music have in common with cancer drugs? Answer: Both are made by Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company. The man behind this unlikely product line is the late Paul Sacher, the eminent Swiss conductor, music patron and Roche director, who happened to be married to the widow of the son of Read More
On opening night, a red carpet led operagoers Oscar-style across the Lincoln Center Plaza. The Metropolitan Opera’s façade was partially obscured by a giant screen installed for the outdoor viewing pleasure of those who couldn’t afford to watch Madama Butterfly in the house. To further accommodate the hoi polloi, a similar screen and roped-off seating Read More
On opening night, a red carpet led operagoers Oscar-style across the Lincoln Center Plaza. The Metropolitan Opera’s façade was partially obscured by a giant screen installed for the outdoor viewing pleasure of those who couldn’t afford to watch Madama Butterfly in the house. To further accommodate the hoi polloi, a similar screen and roped-off seating Read More
Strictly speaking, the classical-music season began Sept. 13 at the New York City Opera with Handel’s delicious Semele, with a superlative young cast led by the soprano Elizabeth Futral and the mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux. On Sept. 20, the city’s newest concert hall—the Renzo Piano–designed jewel box of an auditorium at the Morgan Library—opened with “Baroque Read More
Strictly speaking, the classical-music season began Sept. 13 at the New York City Opera with Handel’s delicious Semele, with a superlative young cast led by the soprano Elizabeth Futral and the mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux. On Sept. 20, the city’s newest concert hall—the Renzo Piano–designed jewel box of an auditorium at the Morgan Library—opened with “Baroque Read More
The heat of summer seems to bring out obscure oddities plucked from the overstocked greenhouse of Western classical music. For some time, no festival has been more avid in pursuit of the unfamiliar than Bard SummerScape, whose guiding spirit is Bard College president Leon Botstein, a conductor and scholar who loves footnotes as much as Read More
The heat of summer seems to bring out obscure oddities plucked from the overstocked greenhouse of Western classical music. For some time, no festival has been more avid in pursuit of the unfamiliar than Bard SummerScape, whose guiding spirit is Bard College president Leon Botstein, a conductor and scholar who loves footnotes as much as Read More
When the great German bass Kurt Moll came out for his curtain call after the second act of Die Meistersinger at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich a few evenings ago, the audience gave him a hero’s ovation. Mr. Moll had appeared only fleetingly as the tipsy Night Watchman in old Nürnberg, but this was Read More
