Long Beach Opera continues to put it out there:
Jan. 27, Feb. 2-3: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Philip Glass)
March 24, 30: “Unicamente La Verdad” (Gabriela Ortiz)
May 11, 18-19: “The Tell-Tale Heart” (Stewart Copeland); “Van Gogh” (Michael Gordon)
June 15, 22-23: “Macbeth” (Ernest Bloch)
Pretty good, what? And this company has found its audience. It expects and appreciates the unexpected.
That’s composer Nicolas Nabokov (cousin of Vladimir) he’s chatting with. If I’m not mistaken, Orson Welles is doing the voice over.
Funny, the orchestra is performing more classical music in its park concerts series than it did July 4 at Verizon.
Click here to read Pacific Symphony to perform free park concerts
Andy Griffith explains Romeo and Juliet.
Donning a couple of different hats, working across multiple platforms in the hopes of a good branding opportunity, I give you …
July 4 is on the horizon so I feel that it’s time for another round of Inspired or Lame?, in which YOU, dear blognescenti, decide if a given program is up to snuff or not, before it is even performed!
Here’s the concert description from the Pacific Symphony’s website:
“Orange County’s favorite 4th-of-July celebration! A showcase of The Eagles’ mega-hits like “Take it Easy” and “Hotel California” headlines our extravaganza – which also includes an 80th birthday tribute to celebrated film composer John Williams, patriotic favorites, our traditional salute to the U.S. armed forces and a brilliant fireworks finale!”
A tribute band, Windborne, will join the orchestra for The Eagles’ mega-hits. But wait, there’s more!:
“The audience will have a chance to text vote for the final piece of the first half: either ‘E.T.’ or ‘Star Wars.'”
(Which one will it be? “E.T.” or “Star Wars”? The tension is killing me.)
And so we ask …
I haven’t been listening to all that much music lately — concert season over and all that — but I had an urge to slap something on the gramophone this evening so I thought I’d listen to something in my to-do stack, which by now probably amounts to several years’ worth of recordings. Specifically, I thought I’d listen to Otto Klemperer’s recording of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, which I had heard years ago and liked.
It turned out, though, that that recording wasn’t in my stack … instead, it was a Klemperer recording of “Petrushka” (1947 version), which a friend had bequeathed me, unopened.
If you only know Klemperer from his glacial and tectonic recordings of Beethoven and Brahms, it may surprise you that he recorded any Stravinsky, but he actually had a long relationship with the composer. Klemperer was a modernist to the core, when it came down to it.
Anyway, several things interested me in the recording. First, it was made in 1967 — when Klemperer was in his 80s — and was never published. The notes say that EMI felt “the performance was too flawed to be issued.” Testament, however, got hold of the original session tapes, and made the present recording mostly from the first day’s sessions, “when the orchestra and conductor were fresher and had a more spontaneous approach.”
True, there are some very minor flaws in the playing of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, but nothing untoward. The beautiful production makes them all but disappear in the listener’s consideration. The recording was made in Abbey Road Studios, and it has all the merits of a well done studio recording, namely clarity and highlighting. You hear what you need and want to hear, as if you were in the room, but also placed near the instruments with the important parts at any particular moment. It’s a recording that, to my ear at least, does not try to reproduce a naturalistic concert experience, but instead tries to lay the score in front of you. I heard many things I had never heard in the work before, particularly in the woodwinds.
As you might expect, Klemperer takes “Petrushka” pretty slowly. But I never felt it dragged. Rather, he makes sure that the rhythms are correct in relation to each other, gives each phrase its proper emphasis and due and never allows mere jumble to substitute for gesture. The result is a powerful forward momentum. Combine that with the recording — which gives a kind of microscopic look at the score — and you’ve got one impressive “Petrushka.”
Composer and lyricist Richard Adler died on Thursday at the age of 90.
Along with Jerry Ross (who died young), he wrote two of the greatest American musicals not by Rodgers and Hammerstein, namely “Pajama Game” and “Damn Yankees.”
Here’s one of my favorite numbers from “Pajama Game” — “There Once Was a Man.” For you kids out there, that’s Doris Day and John Raitt singing it. Pay attention to the words and choreography — a fine expression of the violent love these characters feel for each other — and dig the big band accompaniment.
In this month’s Opera News online, I review Long Beach Opera’s production of a double-bill featuring surrealist operas by Martinu and Poulenc.
As many of you already know, the Orange County Register was recently sold to a fellow named Aaron Kushner. You can google his name and find out more, but the initial buzz is promising, with the proviso that you never know. We were told a couple of weeks ago that the deal will take about 30 days to close.
The question I’m most often asked by friends and family is whether or not I’ll be able to return to my former beat as a music critic. I’ve been writing the celebrity column, and related online features, closing in on two years now, and have been only able to write a smattering of music criticism during that time, some of it as a freelance.
The short answer to the question is “I don’t know.” I would certainly like to. Music criticism is what I do best. But whether or not I will be able to return to that beat depends on a number of factors and unknowns (which I won’t bore you with here). I will certainly speak up about it if given the opportunity, or even a little opening in the door.
Classical Life 