By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
Dear Law and Disorder:
I am a classical concert pianist and booking representative for my small ensemble. I just finished the negotiation of a performance contract with a presenter and, unfortunately, we could not reach an agreement. In my three years of working as a self-presenting artist, it was the first time when a contract became an issue. To summarize the situation, I didn’t agree to sign the presenter’s one-page contract because it didn’t have any terms dealing with such things as cancellation or the date we would be paid. So, I provided my own, more detailed, contract. I also provided a technical rider for such things as piano tuning and how much space our group needed to perform. The presenter claimed that their contract was “standard” and that they engage lots of artists and that no manager or artist had ever objected to their one-page standard contract. So, I offered to propose changes to their contract instead, but then withdrew their offer to engage us, saying that we were obviously too hard to work with and that they had dodged a bullet. Quite a number of series send us one-page agreements and some of them react with frustration when I present a more detailed contract. I start to have a feeling that maybe while I am building my network, I have to play by the rules of the presenter and just hope that everything should be OK. However, in some ways it contradicts what I have learned from reading your blog. It also doesn’t help if its true that most managers are happy to sign these simple contracts creating a way out for a presenter to say: “we never had a problem with our one-page contract” before.
I’d like to say that these are the perils of dealing with small, unsophisticated presenters. But, alas, you have stumbled into one of the dark corners of the entire performing arts industry: at all levels it’s a business run by people who prefer to pretend it’s not a business until someone doesn’t get what they want and then they will all pretend to be experts on business contracts.
In your case, the presenter’s claim that other artists or managers may or may not have had a problem with their one page contract should be disregarded for several reasons: (1) it may or may not be true; (2) many artists and their managers are so happy just to get an engagement that they are happy to sign anything; (3) many artists and their managers often know less about contracts than presenters; and, most importantly, (4) nothing is “standard”. As for your suggestion that you have “…to play by the rules of the presenter and just hope that everything should be OK”, I disagree.
A career in the arts and entertainment in inherently based on risk. So, yes, there may be instances where an engagement or an opportunity presents itself and you may just have to take a risk. However, you can’t make this your standard policy. You need to be judicious. The only way to evaluate the risks and advantages of any offer or opportunity—whether it is an engagement or a recording contract—is through the contract process. You may not always be in a bargaining position to get what you want, but the process itself can be vital. Even if someone refuses to agree to a specific request or a contractual you may propose, that information in and of itself can be essential in helping you evaluate whether or not proceed. However, any presenter or venue that won’t even take the time to discuss your concerns should be avoided.
Nevertheless, while its fantastic that you have taken the time to devise your own contract and technical rider, you also need to know your audience. Its very different to negotiate with Carnegie Hall that it is with a group that operates out of a church basement with a broken upright. If you don’t want to unnecessarily scare off unsophisticated presenters and venues, there are things you can do to make sure your concerns are being addressed without having to send a formal contract with a rider. One approach may be just to send an email or a list confirming your specific concerns. Or you can avoid email altogether and have an actual conversation. Remember, a contract does not have to “look” like a contract. At the end of the day, its less about the wording and format than communicating your concerns, expectations, and clarifications. In short, it doesn’t mean you have to be less flexible in what you need, but more flexible in how you communicate it.
Ultimately, I think you were the one who “dodged a bullet” on this.
________________________________________________________________
For additional information and resources on this and other legal, project management, and 
business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.com
All questions on any topic related to legal, management, and business issues will be welcome. However, please post only general questions or hypotheticals. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously and/or posthumously.
__________________________________________________________________
THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:
THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!
The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!
Petrenko Hosts Petrenko
April 22nd, 2016By ANDREW POWELL
Published: April 22, 2016
MUNICH — Vasily Petrenko’s debut at Bavarian State Opera this weekend prompts a glance at two Russian-born, modestly profiled conductors who have built distinct careers in Western Europe while sharing a last name. The guest from Liverpool will lead Boris Godunov, last revived two years ago by company Generalmusikdirektor Kirill Petrenko.
Inviting Vasily to work in Kirill’s house was sweet, ingenuous. After all, the two Petrenkos are what trademark attorneys call “confusingly similar” marks, a factor that doesn’t vanish just because real names are involved, or because it’s the arts. Are artists products? Their work is, notwithstanding the distance from commerce.
The Petrenkos are not of course the first conductor-brands to overlap, but unlike the Kleibers or Järvis, Abbados or Jurowskis, no disparity of talent or generation neatly separates them. Then, inescapably, there is the matter of dilution: a “Toscanini” needs no specifier.
As it happens, agents have promoted the Petrenkos as if with accidental care over geography. Although both men have enjoyed positive forays Stateside, awareness of them in Europe diverges. For a full decade, Vasily has been the “Petrenko” of reference in Britain. Kirill has been “Petrenko” in Germany.
Kirill has had such minimal renown in Britain, in fact, that retired Bavarian State Opera chief Peter Jonas last summer on Slipped Disc could report the following about the Bavarian State Orchestra’s upcoming European tour: “The [orchestra’s] committee and their management offered themselves to the [BBC] Proms for 2016 … and were sent away with the exclamation, ‘Oh no … . Kirill Petrenko? We do not really know about him over here.’ … The tour will happen all over Europe but without London.” Indeed it will.
In the meantime, Calisto Bieito’s staging of Boris Godunov gets a three-night revival April 23 to 29 with a strong cast: Sergei Skorokhodov’s pretender, Ain Anger’s chronicler and Alexander Tsymbalyuk’s riveting Boris. How will Vasily grapple with the (1869) score? Opera featured prominently in his career only at the start.
Echo Klassik Award
Placing the two Petrenkos side by side here, like baseball cards, meant compiling at least some personal facts along with the musical. So, three questions went to the conductors’ handlers. How tall is he? Where does he live (part of town)? What’s his favorite sports team?
This proved awkward, however, especially on one side, and hitherto-cordial staffers turned as cool as, well, trademark attorneys. Vasily’s people cooperated with partial answers. Kirill’s, deep inside Bavarian State Opera, stonewalled: “Mr. Petrenko generally does not wish to answer any personal questions.”
As it turned out, Vasily was on record with full answers over the years to all three questions for various media outlets. The man is an open book. This left Kirill’s side with unflattering holes. But the opera company’s hands were tied. Apparently under instructions from the artist, nobody could even confirm he lives in Munich (where he has drawn a paycheck for 30 months already). And he may not.
Bavarian State Opera: “What’s not to understand about ‘Mr. Petrenko does not wish to answer any personal questions’? Who puts out the rule that a conductor … does have to comprehend or be willing to be part of public relations? … So, in fact, we do not want to convey anything to anybody. This is the ‘line to be drawn’ from our side.”
Mention of Vasily went over badly. BStO: “What kind of idea is it anyways to compare two artists because they share the same last name?” Prepared descriptors accompanied the rhetoric: “ridiculous” and a “game.” How not to kill a story.
Shown the data for the above table, the opera company took to sarcasm: “Yes, sure, [inventing] height and weight [measurements] is of course totally acceptable.” But Kirill’s height had become public half a year ago* at ARD broadcaster Deutsche Welle. BStO did not either know this or wish to share the knowledge. Its hapless official scanning DW: “Oh, it’s on the Internet! It’s gotta be true!”
[*Earlier actually: Lucas Wiegelmann included it in an excellent 2014 discussion for Die Welt.]
Photos © Bayerische Staatsoper (Kirill Petrenko), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Vasily Petrenko)
Related posts:
Petrenko’s Sharper Boris
Portraits For a Theater
Bieito Hijacks Boris
Nazi Document Center Opens
Petrenko to Extend in Munich
Tags: Ain Anger, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Bavarian State Opera, Bavarian State Orchestra, Bayerische Staatsoper, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Boris Godunov, Commentary, Kirill Petrenko, München, Munich, Mussorgsky, News, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Sergei Skorokhodov, Vasily Petrenko
Posted in Munich Times | Comments Closed
90 Years and Counting: The Martha Graham Dance Company
April 17th, 2016By Rachel Straus
The Martha Graham Dance Company’s 90th anniversary season (April 14-18) at New York City Center opened with Graham’s Night Journey (1947) and closed with her Cave of the Heart (1946). In between these masterworks, about Greek tragedy heroines, was a world premiere by the experimentalist Marie Chouinard and the last proscenium work that the venerable Swedish choreographer Mats Ek said that he would ever make. Considering that Chouinard’s Inner Resources reads like an uninspired group of teenage competition dancers trying to look avant-garde and Ek’s Axe was both terrifying and beautiful, it is a tragedy that Ek will not be making more dances for the stage and that Chouinard will.
Axe (2015) was created on Ben Schultz and Peiju Chien-Pott, the most dramatically daring and physically chameleon-esque Graham dancer of her generation. Axe is about a couple in crisis. It was originally made by Eks as a film, featuring his wife and dancing muse Ana Lugana. At City Center, the dance begins with the sound of a heavy object falling, again and again. When the curtain goes up, Schultz wields an ax. He is splitting wood on a tree stump. In the course of the nine-minute ballet, set to a recording of the Albinoni-Giazotto Adagio in G minor, Schultz obsessively chops wood into smaller and smaller pieces—like a woodsman with a compulsive disorder. Because the music has been used in innumerable tragic films, including Gallipoli (1981), we know that this dance is not going to end well. Indeed, Schultz never looks up to notice a haggard Chien-Pott, teetering side to side, like an unsteady piece of brittle wood. She circles around Schultz, but he pays no mind. So Chien-Pott becomes increasingly manic, repeatedly falling to the floor, and extending her legs to all four corners as if trying to dislocate her limbs. Their tragic story, however, has a surprise ending: the petite female dancer fills Schultz’s enormous arms with wood and marches him to the wing. As the curtain falls, Chien-Pott raises the ax—it’s aimed at his head.
Graham (1894-1991) would likely have approved of Axe. It features all of the elements that made her 1940s masterworks radical and potent: a revenging female dancer, a movement vocabulary that sallies between the grotesque and the sublime, a compressed abstracted story, and a large muscular man who is easy on the eyes, and when given a chance, is shown to be a good dancer too.
Since the Graham company’s current mission is to commission choreographers to make works that bear a relationship to Graham’s oeuvre, it is nigh impossible to understand Chouinard’s Inner Resources as bearing any aesthetic relationship to Graham’s. It possesses the quality of an amateur music video, with its half-hearted Vogueing and some clumsy b-boy floor moves. The music by Louis Dufort, who has collaborated with Chouinard since 1996, produces the effect of listening to a DJ club mix that is inside of a food processor. The women upend the heteronormative by sporting big mustaches, but they also strut on the points of their feet like runway models. When they strip off their blue shirts and black pants, they stand inert as if their nudity makes them afraid to move. This last image isn’t exactly a feminist statement. The Graham company’s eight female dancers deserve better than this.
Fortunately, the performance of Cave of the Heart, with Chien-Pott playing the revenging Medea, salvaged the company’s image that night. The Mannes Orchestra, under the baton of David Hayes, supported the dancers in their ability to breathe life into the work’s dramatic personae. Chien-Pott, Abdiel Jackson, Anne O’Donnell and Leslie Andrea Williams’ artistic courage, and inventiveness, made this Graham ballet relevant and worth repeat viewings.
Tags: Abdiel Jackson, Albioni, Anne O’Donnell, Axe. Ben Schultz, Cave of the Heart, David Hayes, Inner Resources, Leslie Andrea Williams, Luis Dufort, Marie Chouinard, Martha Graham Dance Company, Mats Ek, New York City Center, Night Journey, Peiju Chien-Pott, Rachel Straus, The Mannes Orchestra
Posted in The Torn Tutu | Comments Closed
Nadia Sirota: Successful Kickstarter Campaigns
April 8th, 2016Violist Nadia Sirota has created several wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns. Here, Nadia shares ideas with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors about fundraising videos, ask amounts, and how to create a winning projects.
Read more about Nadia:
nadiasirota.com
For more Noted Endeavors videos, go to:
notedendeavors.com
Posted in Noted Endeavors | Comments Closed
Matt Haimovitz: Questions to Ask When Starting an Endeavor
April 1st, 2016Cellist extraordinaire Matt Haimovitz presents the questions that any new endeavor needs to ask itself in this short but profound video with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors.
In 2000, he made waves with his Bach “Listening-Room” Tour, for which, to great acclaim, Haimovitz took Bach’s beloved cello suites out of the concert hall and into clubs across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Haimovitz’s 50-state Anthem tour in 2003 celebrated living American composers, and featured his own arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” He was the first classical artist to play at New York’s infamous CBGB club, in a performance filmed by ABC News for “Nightline UpClose.” Soon thereafter, Haimovitz launched Oxingale Records with his wife, composer Luna Pearl Woolf. Oxingale records have since received wide acclaim for its stunning recordings.
To learn more about Matt, go to:
matthaimovitz.com
For more about Noted Endeavors, go to:
notedendeavors.com
Posted in Noted Endeavors | Comments Closed
Dodging A Bullet With A Contract
March 31st, 2016By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
Dear Law and Disorder:
I am a classical concert pianist and booking representative for my small ensemble. I just finished the negotiation of a performance contract with a presenter and, unfortunately, we could not reach an agreement. In my three years of working as a self-presenting artist, it was the first time when a contract became an issue. To summarize the situation, I didn’t agree to sign the presenter’s one-page contract because it didn’t have any terms dealing with such things as cancellation or the date we would be paid. So, I provided my own, more detailed, contract. I also provided a technical rider for such things as piano tuning and how much space our group needed to perform. The presenter claimed that their contract was “standard” and that they engage lots of artists and that no manager or artist had ever objected to their one-page standard contract. So, I offered to propose changes to their contract instead, but then withdrew their offer to engage us, saying that we were obviously too hard to work with and that they had dodged a bullet. Quite a number of series send us one-page agreements and some of them react with frustration when I present a more detailed contract. I start to have a feeling that maybe while I am building my network, I have to play by the rules of the presenter and just hope that everything should be OK. However, in some ways it contradicts what I have learned from reading your blog. It also doesn’t help if its true that most managers are happy to sign these simple contracts creating a way out for a presenter to say: “we never had a problem with our one-page contract” before.
I’d like to say that these are the perils of dealing with small, unsophisticated presenters. But, alas, you have stumbled into one of the dark corners of the entire performing arts industry: at all levels it’s a business run by people who prefer to pretend it’s not a business until someone doesn’t get what they want and then they will all pretend to be experts on business contracts.
In your case, the presenter’s claim that other artists or managers may or may not have had a problem with their one page contract should be disregarded for several reasons: (1) it may or may not be true; (2) many artists and their managers are so happy just to get an engagement that they are happy to sign anything; (3) many artists and their managers often know less about contracts than presenters; and, most importantly, (4) nothing is “standard”. As for your suggestion that you have “…to play by the rules of the presenter and just hope that everything should be OK”, I disagree.
A career in the arts and entertainment in inherently based on risk. So, yes, there may be instances where an engagement or an opportunity presents itself and you may just have to take a risk. However, you can’t make this your standard policy. You need to be judicious. The only way to evaluate the risks and advantages of any offer or opportunity—whether it is an engagement or a recording contract—is through the contract process. You may not always be in a bargaining position to get what you want, but the process itself can be vital. Even if someone refuses to agree to a specific request or a contractual you may propose, that information in and of itself can be essential in helping you evaluate whether or not proceed. However, any presenter or venue that won’t even take the time to discuss your concerns should be avoided.
Nevertheless, while its fantastic that you have taken the time to devise your own contract and technical rider, you also need to know your audience. Its very different to negotiate with Carnegie Hall that it is with a group that operates out of a church basement with a broken upright. If you don’t want to unnecessarily scare off unsophisticated presenters and venues, there are things you can do to make sure your concerns are being addressed without having to send a formal contract with a rider. One approach may be just to send an email or a list confirming your specific concerns. Or you can avoid email altogether and have an actual conversation. Remember, a contract does not have to “look” like a contract. At the end of the day, its less about the wording and format than communicating your concerns, expectations, and clarifications. In short, it doesn’t mean you have to be less flexible in what you need, but more flexible in how you communicate it.
Ultimately, I think you were the one who “dodged a bullet” on this.
________________________________________________________________
For additional information and resources on this and other legal, project management, and
business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.com
All questions on any topic related to legal, management, and business issues will be welcome. However, please post only general questions or hypotheticals. GG Arts Law reserves the right to alter, edit or, amend questions to focus on specific issues or to avoid names, circumstances, or any information that could be used to identify or embarrass a specific individual or organization. All questions will be posted anonymously and/or posthumously.
__________________________________________________________________
THE OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER:
THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!
The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty email, filing a lawsuit, or doing anything rash!
Tags: Agreements, artist, cancellation, contract, Contracts, formal contract, manager, negotiation, presenter, risk, venue, work
Posted in Agents, Artist Management, Arts Management, Contracts, Law and Disorder: Performing Arts Division, Presenters, Venues | Comments Closed
The Paris Philharmonie, 15 Months Later
March 30th, 2016By: Frank Cadenhead
The new Philharmonie de Paris, open now one year and three months, has had a remarkable success by any measure, particularly with winning new audiences and attracting old audiences to the new locale. It is now one of Europe’s principle venues and the whirl of talent on stage practically every night gives it a permanent festival atmosphere.
A vote of the French Council of Ministers last Thursday modifying the age limit for the Philharmonie director is a strong clue that general director, Laurent Bayle, who guided the transformation of the Cité de la Musique complex during the construction of the new hall, will continue. Bayle was approaching the civil service retirement age of 65 in June.
The polemics over the cost overruns and its location in a rough neighborhood now seem a distant memory. The hall is routinely full for the Orchestre de Paris concerts and other resident groups, the Paris Chamber Orchestra, William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants and the Ensemble Intercontemporian. Visiting orchestras and ensembles are a weekly occurrence and the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, for example, had a high profile weekend on the 19th and 20th of March. Tonight, it is Schubert’s Winterreise with baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Markus Hinterhauser featuring William Kentridge’s scenography.
After the opening in January of 2015, the acclaim was instantaneous. While the warmth and vibrancy of the acoustics were there from the start, some did note that sometimes the soloists in a concert seemed vaguely underpowered. The hall was closed in July and August of that year to polish details of the hall, including minor improvements in the acoustics and finishing interior details in the hall. The new panoramic restaurant is now open and the myriad of activities for children and others of all ages in the three halls at the Cité de la Musique complex make it a constant beehive of activity.
Added Note:
Today, March 30, the Council of Ministers of the French government did appoint Laurent Bayle to lead the Cité de la Musique for another five year term. He has been leader of the Cité de la Musique complex, with the new Philharmonie as a major part, situated across the plaza from Paris’ Conservatory, since 2001. He will work with a new president of the Administrative Council of the complex, Patricia Barbizet. She has lead companies like Artemis and Christie’s and will replace Mr. Bayle, who had also occupied that chair since 2006.
Tags: Gustavo Dudamel, Laurent Bayle, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Markuis Hinterhauser, Matthias Goerne, Philharmonie de Paris, William Kentridge
Posted in An American in Paris | Comments Closed
Nadia Sirota: Provide Entertainment or News in Social Media?
March 25th, 2016Do your social media posts read like this: “Hey, come to our concert tonight”? Is that a successful strategy for gaining an audience? Should you share more news or entertainment in your posts? In this video, violist Nadia Sirota shares ideas with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors about what constitutes a successful social media strategy.
Read more about Nadia:
nadiasirota.com
For more Noted Endeavors videos, go to:
notedendeavors.com
Posted in Noted Endeavors | Comments Closed
Mariotti Cheers Up Bologna
March 25th, 2016By ANDREW POWELL
Published: March 25, 2016
BOLOGNA — Two years ago all was bleak in music circles here. Orchestra Mozart had folded. Claudio Abbado died. Teatro Comunale lumbered toward a fiscal guillotine mandated by the government. Now, the sun is back, much of it radiating from the reorganized opera house where Nicola Sani holds sway as sovrintendente. Certain theater functions have been outsourced, yet Sani retains his unions’ visible cooperation. The nation, the region and the comune (900 years old this year) underwrite his artistic program, as do private firms, starting with Bologna-born Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., which parks a silver specimen in the foyer (called Foyer Respighi after the native composer, not Foyer Lamborghini). House income and expenses are perusable online. Tickets are affordable. An intermission glass of water (in a glass) costs 50 euro cents, the fresh torta di mele two euros. Not surprisingly Teatro Comunale is constantly full, its cheerful buzz spilling out onto Piazza Verdi and into the adjacent student-frequented cafés; any student can attend, and everyone knows it. Opera crowds, young and old, dress with a kind of sloppy elegance, as if perfect colors and fabrics chose themselves, but the listening is attentive — which is just as well because Sani offers two aces: direttore musicale Michele Mariotti, probably the most “complete” young Italian conductor around, and maestro del coro Andrea Faidutti, builder of an outstanding, musically alert team. For this season’s Attila (heard and seen Jan. 30 and 31) and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Feb. 7) both were busy.
Newly staged by Daniele Abbado and co-produced with Teatro Massimo di Palermo and Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, the Verdi unfolded amid gloomy gray panels depicting nothing much, its action scheme stand-and-sing. Two quartets of principal singers enabled seven performances here in nine days, the first one (Jan. 23) televised by RAI. On Jan. 30, Stefanna Kybalova sang an agile, powerful Odabella; Giuseppe Gipali phrased Foresto’s music handsomely, though his voice went to the sides, not forward; and Gezim Myshketa intoned incisively as Ezio. Riccardo Zanellato’s obsessive invader sounded remarkably smooth and warm, with plenty of capacity; acting is not his strong suit. The next night the cast of the prima returned, except that Ildebrando d’Arcangelo’s dramatically vivid, but in the long lines unsteady, Attila did not make it past the Prologue. Jumping in, Zanellato this time moved and sang a little more wildly in his portrayal, without loss of vocal opulence. Maria José Siri’s Odabella had expressive power and a degree of magnetism, while Fabio Sartori’s awkward, rotund Foresto dealt only in f, ff and fff. The Jan. 31 Ezio proved especially fine, singing with imagination and reserves of power; Simone Piazzola is the name. Mariotti presided over a somewhat undersized string section, so that the score’s cantabile qualities were impaired. (Attila is at least his fourth Verdi opera, after Simon Boccanegra, Rigoletto and Nabucco, and this month he adds I due Foscari in Milan.) But his reading had conviction and sweep, and on both evenings he and the orchestra — more than any cast member — drew the loudest, longest applause.
If anything, Mariotti had more to say about Beethoven’s symphony. Conducting with a concern for lyricism that never softened the rhetoric, he drew virtuosic work from the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale strings and, as in Schubert and Mendelssohn last year, picked out just the right details to create a beautiful and cogent interpretation. Upshot: rhythmic applause, foot-stomping, smiles all round. At 68 minutes with brief pauses, Mariotti’s Nona was neither fast nor slow but merely the sum of apparently artlessly judged tempos. The first movement’s turbulent exchanges emerged in plain relief despite intermittent problems in the winds. The conductor sprang the Scherzo’s rhythms emphatically, playing up contrasts and accentuating colors. He ennobled the third movement on pastoral, not grandiose, terms, drawing attention to collateral ideas. Through the last movement, he kept a steady momentum without slighting the episodic drama or exaggerating one dimension at the expense of another. Faidutti’s choristers projected forcefully into the comfortable 1,034-seat house, but their work also had precision and plenty of shading, in discernible German. Vocal soloists Carmela Remigio, Veronica Simeoni, Michael Schade and Michele Pertusi neatly complemented their colleagues.
Photos © Rocco Casaluci (Attila), Michele Lapini (Beethoven concert), Teatro Comunale di Bologna (Piazza Verdi)
Related posts:
Mariotti North of the Alps
Parsifal the Environmentalist
MKO Powers Up
Carydis Woos Bamberg
Time for Schwetzingen
Tags: Andrea Faidutti, Attila, Beethoven, Bologna, Carmela Remigio, Coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Daniele Abbado, Fabio Sartori, Gezim Myshketa, Giuseppe Gipali, Giuseppe Verdi, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, Maria José Siri, Michael Schade, Michele Mariotti, Michele Pertusi, Nicola Sani, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, RAI, Recensione, Review, Riccardo Zanellato, Simone Piazzola, Stefanna Kybalova, Teatro Comunale, Teatro La Fenice, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Veronica Simeoni
Posted in Munich Times | Comments Closed
BR’s Full-Bodied Vin Herbé
March 18th, 2016By ANDREW POWELL
Published: March 18, 2016
MUNICH — It would be a novelty to hear Le vin herbé the way composer Frank Martin conceived it. The 1940 secular chamber oratorio reportedly soars when realized in concert by twelve French-singing voices, double string trio, double bass and piano — its lean forces yet complex harmony producing intriguing shafts of color; its drama predicated on shuffling the voices, used one-to-a-part and as a chorus. But a listener could wait decades for the chance. When Martin’s 100-minute Tristan et Iseut saga shows up at all, it has either morphed into an opera (Katie Mitchell’s realist concept for Berlin as example) or, more often, been puffed up for standard choral forces. This was its fate in a Bayerischer Rundfunk outing Jan. 23 here at the Prinz-Regenten-Theater, a missed opportunity given the broadcaster’s resources and artistic umbrella.
BR Chor artistic leader Peter Dijkstra kept Martin’s instrumentation but fielded 38 singers, blocking entry to the planned sound world and permitting only sporadic drama. Martin’s varied commentaries took on a sameness, so that for instance no urgency accompanied the waking of Gorvenal and the “last night-flight through the beloved woods.” Still, tenor Marcel Reijans’ keen and heroic Tristan injected vitality, and with good French. In support: soprano Johanna Winkel’s sensitive Iseut, soprano Barbara Fleckenstein’s clearly worried Branghien, and the unruffled, oaky Marc of baritone Andreas Burkhart. Refined choral contributions only emphasized what was amiss texturally, despite peppy punctuation from members of the Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and Dijkstra’s conducting brought out the intriguing harmonies at reverential speeds.
This project should have benefitted from the intervention of Mariss Jansons in his supposed joint capacity as chief conductor of the BR Chor and the BRSO, to ensure forces were cast in line with Martin’s wishes and to properly serve the broadcaster’s listeners. The charismatic Dutchman, meanwhile, is closing out his 11-year BR Chor tenure. He has not been the most imaginative musician in Romantic and Modern works, but Bach he conducts naturally and lyrically. His St Matthew Passion three years ago deserved its plaudits, and his St John Passion, with the mellifluous Kuwaiti bass Tareq Nazmi as Jesus, has just appeared in a neatly documented BR Klassik CD set. Dijkstra’s farewell actually comes soon, with the B-Minor Mass here and in Baden-Baden, Nuremberg and Ingolstadt. Replacing him in September will be British conductor Howard Arman, while Jansons remains chief conductor, for what that is worth. As for Le vin herbé, Victor Desarzens’ 1961 recording with Eric Tappy as Tristan and Frank Martin at the piano (on the Westminster label) provides an authentic path through the score.
Photo (modified) © Martina Bogdahn for BR
Related posts:
BR Chor’s St Matthew Passion
BR Chor’s Humorless Rossini
Muti Crowns Charles X
With Viotti, MRO Looks Back
Volodos the German Romantic
Tags: Andreas Burkhart, Barbara Fleckenstein, Bayerischer Rundfunk, BR Chor, BR Klassik, CD, Frank Martin, Howard Arman, Johanna Winkel, Johannes-Passion, Le vin herbé, Marcel Reijans, München, Munich, Peter Dijkstra, Prinz-Regenten-Theater, Review, Tareq Nazmi
Posted in Munich Times | Comments Closed
Tips for Musician Networking
March 17th, 2016Should you bringing a score post-concert to a performer or conductor who you just met? Should you send emails to those you don’t know? Watch and find out as esteemed composer and conductor discuss proper networking with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson of Noted Endeavors.
For more about Victoria Bond, go to:
victoriabond.com
For more Noted Endeavors videos, go to:
notedendeavors.com
Posted in Noted Endeavors | Comments Closed
Blogs
Archives
Tags
Meta
Musical America Blogs is proudly powered by WordPress
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).