By: Edna Landau
On the occasion of the Thanksgiving holiday, I would like to offer my thanks to Musical America, all our devoted readers, our sponsors, and those who have sent in their interesting and thought-provoking questions. I look forward to continuing to receive your questions, and even suggested topics for this column. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
“Ask Edna” will return to a regular weekly schedule next Thursday, November 29.
To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.
by Sedgwick Clark
Atlanta Symphony/Spano
My broadest exit smiles so far this season occurred the same week at Carnegie Hall featuring programs with a chorus: the Philadelphia Orchestra and Westminster Symphonic Choir (Joe Miller, director) under Yannick Nézet-Seguin in Verdi’s Requiem on 10/23 and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Norman Mackenzie, director) under Robert Spano on 10/27.
The first, about which I enthused in this space on 10/25, is one of those pieces one simply cannot miss at Carnegie. The Atlanta program was equally enticing in its own way, a satisfying amalgam of works laced in jazz rhythms and irresistible melody: Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. Ensemble was occasionally wayward in the Copland, but the two choral works were knockouts. If the Psalms lacked the composer’s manic energy, Spano’s spacious warmth offered numerous beauties in this most affecting of Bernstein’s concert works; the use of a countertenor (John Holiday) in the second-movement solo provided more vocal assurance than the prescribed boy sopranos I’ve heard, although one might argue that a certain innocence was lost. Best of all was the Belshazzar, in which Walton’s episodic structure was given welcome continuity without ever shortchanging the work’s pagan exhilaration. It completely surpassed a hectic affair in 1976 at Carnegie by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Georg Solti, the only other live performance I recall hearing. That this fine orchestra is confronting a $20 million deficit and that musician ranks will be reduced along with a 20 percent cut in salaries is shameful.
Cleveland Orchestra/ Welser-Möst
My word, the Cleveland Orchestra makes a beautiful sound under Franz Welser-Möst these days (11/13)! The downside is that I don’t recall ever hearing so many dropped programs and undefined thumps at a concert. W-M’s overly refined Beethoven Fourth was ho-hum. The Grosse fuge later in the program was much more involved. But it’s not really a “nice” piece, Franz, and I’m afraid the sumptuous Cleveland strings will pale in memory next to the electrifyingly precise Minnesota/ Vänskä earthshaker in March 2010. The gentlemanly rendering of Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy at the close seemed positively perverse with such an interpretive engine available to him. I remember a Comissiona/Baltimore performance in the ’70s that blew the roof off of Carnegie; afterwards, as I raved about it to friends, my date interjected, “Gee, I wish you’d get that excited about me!”
Aimard’s Debussy and Schumann
I was surprised at how much this esteemed pianist went in for washes of color rather than clarity in Debussy’s Preludes, Book II (11/15). A pianist friend didn’t like it at all, and Zachary Woolfe in the Times leaned toward Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s Debussy program the week before. The latter not being one of my faves, I didn’t subject myself to his “freedom” of expression, but I did enjoy Aimard’s performances, even if a certain sameness crept in after awhile. (Admission: I think the Book I Preludes are more inspired and individual.) But Aimard’s reticent Schumann, while perhaps hewing to the letter of the score, doesn’t move me, and I think that inserting the five posthumous etudes in the middle of the piece makes it interminable. Play the five independently if you must (but they are still not top-drawer Schumann).
Adès’s Grey Tempest
With all the encomia over this Brit darling of the critics, Thomas Adès, I expected a new operatic masterpiece at its final performance this season (11/17). True to form, local reviewers raved en masse. But, great heavens, what a disappointment: colorless (Shakespeare?), dynamically squashed, melodically tepid. Would that Hurricane Sandy, which struck six days after this operatic tempest’s debut, had packed such a paltry punch! Give me an operatic treatment of MGM’s 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, based loosely on The Tempest, with Louis and Bebe Barron’s “electronic tonalities” for the music.
Perhaps my esteemed colleagues were taken with the Brittenisms scattered throughout (Midsummer Night’s Dream?). I spoke with one who, when challenged, said he might have gone overboard in his praise because he doesn’t want to discourage new opera at the Met. I’ll try again in the eventual revival and hope to be embarrassed by my comments herein. In the interim, Peter G. Davis’s informative and positive review on this Web site (10/25) may provide more than my visceral reaction.
By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
Dear Law and Disorder:
I have a small venue. All 3 licensing companies are claiming I need to pay them for my karaoke and music that occurs weekly, but the bands that I have sign contracts making sure they only play their original music, nothing copyrighted. These companies have been strong-arming me with threats that there’s no such thing as original music anymore and that I must pay or I will be heavily fined. Is this true and, if so, is there blanket licensing that I may acquire for all 3?
Well, if there’s “no such thing as original music anymore”, that’s news to me and, I suspect, the thousands of composers out there!
If you require your bands to perform only original music that they composed themselves, then you do not need to obtain performance licenses from ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. The bands can give you all the permissions you need. However, if the bands breach their contract by “sneaking in” a few covers and performing music written by other bands or artists, then you would be liable for not having the proper performance licenses in place. (The band would be liable, too—for both breach of contract AND copyright infringement—but the performing rights organizations are more likely to go after you than the band.)
The karaoke is another matter. Karaoke machines, like jukeboxes, require licenses to be used in public venues such as yours. If you are featuring weekly karaoke nights, then you definitely must obtain karaoke licenses. The good news, such as it is, is that you can, indeed, obtain blanket karaoke licenses from each of the three performing rights organizations. The licenses will be based on the size and income of your venue.
Thanks for writing…and thanks to all of you who have written in, supported our blog, and asked great questions! Keem ‘em coming! Happy Thanksgiving!
________________________________________________________________
For additional information and resources on this and other 
legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.
All questions on any topic related to legal 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.
__________________________________________________________________
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!
By ANDREW POWELL
Published: November 19, 2012
DRESDEN — Christian Thielemann made his opera debut here yesterday (Nov. 18), thirty-seven long months after agreeing to replace Fabio Luisi as Chefdirigent of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, effectively music director of the Semperoper company. The vehicle, Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s 12-year-old, quasi-faithful staging of Der Rosenkavalier — notable for its Act II, set in a Trump high-rise complete with high-wire paparazzo window cleaner — looked a little clunky for the grand occasion, but the Munich Philharmonic’s ex-boss unfurled his Strauss credentials effectively.
Early on, an out-of-balance woodwind musician sparred with Thielemann until a nifty ascending phrase triggered smiles. Eventually a refined steadiness was achieved across all sections of the orchestra and did not let up. In contrast to recent performances in Munich and Vienna — where handsome werktreuen Otto Schenk stagings dating to 1972 and 1968 hold sway, and where casts are gathered on longer purse strings — this traversal of Der Rosenkavalier cohered musically: rhythms chugged or raced where needed, elsewhere pulsing their way with nonchalance; vocal lines prevailed through instrumental storms; climaxes rose without advance detection; waltzing came naturally.
Daniela Sindram sang with warm impetuosity as the Knight, mooring the cast. Soile Isokoski shaped and shaded the Feldmarschallin’s music with poignant know-how. Veteran baritone Hans-Joachim Ketelsen, jumping in for a sick Martin Gantner, found the high-lying duties of Faninal a bit strenuous. Also straining at the top, at least in Act I, was Wolfgang Bankl as the pivotal Ochs. Sadly, his was the role most impaired by Laufenberg’s comedy-defeating tendency to enrich the action, already finely calibrated by librettist Hofmannsthal. Daniela Fally introduced a too-cute, small-voiced Sophie who blew easy chances to relate to her fellow protagonists.
The saintly-quiet Dresden audience, bewildered and agog at curtain at the effect of Strauss’s Act III dénouement properly executed, just stayed put and applauded one call after another until the conductor effectively ordered an end with a low sweep of his arm. The production returns next June with a different cast. Thielemann’s other 2012–13 Dresden stage engagements are Lohengrin in January and, against type, Manon Lescaut in March, for a grand total of twelve dates.
Photo © Matthias Creutziger
Related posts:
See-Through Lulu
Petrenko’s Rosenkavalier
Verdi’s Lady Macbeth
Safety First at Bayreuth
Time for Schwetzingen
By Rebecca Schmid
As Regietheater becomes the norm on opera stages in Germany, it is a pleasant, if not shocking, surprise to see a production of Die Zauberflöte that looks like a throwback to the time of its world premiere. The Staatsoper Berlin has revived a 1994 staging modelled after designs by the nineteenth-century Prussian architect and landscape painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel, primarily remembered for his Royal Theater (now rebuilt as the Konzerthaus) on Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt. Schinkel’s sets were commissioned to commemorate the crowning of Friedrich Wilhelm I on January 18, 1816, 115 years after the inauguration of Friedrich Wilhelm I. In contrast to the production’s huge success with the audience, the prince was reportedly not pleased with the results of this investment of royal funds. “In the future I won’t mix my opinion into administration affairs,” he wrote to the General Intendant of the Royal Theater.
While stage director August Everding and his team emphasize in program notes that it would be impossible to recreate Schinkel’s vision, as we cannot travel back in time to witness certain conventions in mimic and gesture, they hope to have shed new light on Mozart’s opera in the very city that is home to Schinkel’s neo-Classical creations. The Staatsoper’s current home in the Schiller does not benefit from the 18th-century splendour of the company’s headquarters on the Boulevard unter den Linden, which are currently under renovation, but painted sets by Fred Berndt and costumes by Dorothée Uhrmacher (seen November 9) immerse the audience in an aesthetic that faithfully evoke the mythic realms of the Queen of the Night and Sarastro.
The Queen descends for her first aria on a crescent moon against a starry sky while sets representing the rocky terrain on which Prince Tamino arrives part seamlessly to the side. Sarastro’s priestdom emerges with trompe l’oeil paintings of the Egyptian-inspired architecture indicated by Mozart’s librettist, Emmanuel Schikaneder, with expert lighting by Franz Peter David to give the sets depth. In what could easily offend modern viewers, Monostatos and his gang are represented with blackface as a group of violent thugs, while the three boys first emerge with a unicorn. Surreal animals ushered in by the magic flute bring a further touch of childish charm. The feathered Papageno and the family he joins at the end of the opera also made for humorous moments, even when the libretto was doctored with contemporary gags, such as the bird catcher’s response to Tamino that they are in the Schiller Theater.
In a strange twist to the usual constellation, the evening was not as even musically as it was theatrically. The conductor Julien Salemkour, an assistant to Music Director Daniel Barenboim, gave a somewhat perfunctory performance with the Staatskapelle, often hammering out notes without enough dynamic nuance and rushing the ends of phrases. On a few occasions he also did not coordinate smoothly with the singers. The performance gained intensity and authenticity starting with the more subdued, neo-Bachian passages that usher in Tamino and Pamina’s trials through fire and water toward the end of the second act, but could have used more elasticity in the final chorus “Heil sie euch Geweihten.” Having heard the orchestra in Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro under Barenboim last season, I know the musicians are capable of better.
The visceral, legato singing of René Pape in the role of Sarastro only emphasized how much more attention to line this deceptively simple score deserves, particularly in his aria “In diesen heiligen Hallen.” Pape is surely one of the best Sarastros of his generation, if not the past century, grounding the role with solemn spirituality. The Slovakian tenor Pavol Breslik also gave a beautifully sung performance in the role of Tamino. The streetwise mannerisms of Adriane Queiroz may not have always evoked the innocence of Princess Pamina, but her lush soprano colored ensemble numbers with reliable warmth. She was also affecting in the scene in which Sarastro forbids her from taking the vengeful orders of her mother. As the Queen, Anna Siminska reliably hit the stratospheric staccato notes of her arias but struggled with intonation as she prepared for the climax of “Der Hölle Rache” and did not capture the character’s menacing seduction.
Roman Trekel animated the show with well-sculpted tones as Papageno and a keen sense of comic timing. He found a fine match in his Papagena, Narine Yeghiyan. In the role of Monostatos, Michael Smallwood was equally convincing with a clear, high lying tenor and humorous presence. The Three Women (Carola Höhn, Rowan Hellier and Anna Lapkovskaja) formed a compelling ensemble, as did the Three Boys (of the Aurelius Sängerknaben) despite difficulty following the conductor in their last scene. The guards of the pyramid (Kyungho Kim and Alina Anca) stood out among the male comprimario roles of the priestdom, and the chorus provided well-balanced singing, particularly in the second act. As mythical animals waved at the audience during the final bars, one had the feeling that Mozart and Schikaneder might approve of a production so respectful of the artistic principles that have proved their popularity with audiences time and again.
By: Edna Landau
To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.
One of the questions I am asked most frequently when I meet with students at music schools and conservatories is: How important is it to have a website? I increasingly tell them that it is very important. The challenge for a musician who is still a student is to generate enough information to fill a website, especially if they have only a few, or even no reviews, and their performance calendar is very sparse. Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with performance psychologist Dr. Noa Kageyama’s Performance Enhancement class at the Juilliard School. The students are all Masters students. In preparation for the class, I asked Dr. Kageyama to give me their names so that I could get to know them a little online before meeting them in person. Only four out of eighteen had websites but one really stood out from the rest. It was created by double bassist Corey Schutzer, whose performance experience to date is largely as a collaborative bassist. He does not yet have a very busy performance schedule and there are no reviews on the website, yet he does have some impressive quotes on the home page, a very interesting and unusual performance sample on the Media page, and a sincerely written page entitled “Teaching Philosophy”, which should help him find new students. He generously lists links to resources that other bassists might find helpful. Most importantly, he succeeds in achieving a warm, personal style of communication and he impressed this reader with his expressions of gratitude to all those who have helped him reach this point in his career. I particularly liked how this was reflected in his bio on the About page, written in the first person. (He was wise, however, to add a more traditional short bio, suitable for downloading by presenters.) I also admired the overall design and the varied and high quality photos (by a violinist and Juilliard graduate, Arthur Moeller). Corey subsequently told me that he used a Wix.com template for the website, which he didn’t find too challenging, but that he spent considerable time composing the content and getting it all organized on the site. The most interesting thing for me was learning from Corey that going through the exercise of creating the website was a major step forward for him, as it reaffirmed the positive things about his career to date, and the process of expressing himself in writing also served to build his overall confidence in representing himself to others.
All of this got me thinking that anyone who interacts with artists, emerging as well as established, wants to hear that artist’s inner voice. We want to know what they are really like, what inspires them, and in the case of their concert performances, why they chose the program they offered. Since I was captivated by Corey’s first person bio, I spoke to a few presenters to see if they would ever print such a bio. The answer was negative, largely because they felt that their audience wants to read something more objective and it is hard for an artist to write objectively about themselves. I concur that it becomes increasingly difficult as an artist amasses more accolades and their writing may come across as bragging. However, what I did hear from presenters is that they are extremely interested in reflecting in their programs the thought behind the chosen program and that they welcome receiving this input in the artist’s own words. At Carnegie Hall, this may appear in the section of the program entitled At a Glance. It is even possible that a bit of biographical information might be included if it is relevant to the choice of program. Hanna Arie-Gaifman, Director of the 92nd Street Y’s Tisch Center for the Arts, told me that she has sometimes interviewed artists prior to their performance and printed a short introduction to them in the program, if she felt that the audience would benefit from knowing more about them. Clark Morris, Executive and Artistic Director of the Harriman-Jewell Series in Kansas City, told me that they encourage artists to contribute their thoughts about the chosen program and even write program notes, if they so desire. They regularly do a question and answer session on stage after the concert to further familiarize the audience with the performers and gain insight into the program they just performed. He also told me that he has been speaking with artist managers about producing short video clips for their artists in advance of a tour that would explain what the music means to them. He envisions something simple and authentic, not slick or overly produced. He would then post the video clips on his website, to complement the informative notes he already has there.
The message here seems very clear. In addition to practicing and honing their performance skills to the highest levels possible, artists (especially young ones) need to reflect about themselves and their artistic choices, and become comfortable sharing with others who they are and what drove them to make those choices. If they devote proper time to helping audiences get to know them, they will be successful in building a dedicated and ever larger following.
To ask a question, please write Ask Edna.
© Edna Landau 2012
By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq.
No sooner had Super Storm Sandy begun crashing into the East Coast when my phone started ringing with cancellations. The most common question went something like this: “The presenter needs to cancel, but they already paid a deposit. Do we have to give it back? What the protocol?” The second most common question went something like this: “We booked an artist and paid a deposit. We’re being evacuated and need to cancel. Can we get the deposit back? Naturally, I always ask to see the contract. As I suspected, in almost each case, while the contract contained an Act of God clause, it merely stated that either party could cancel “in the event of an Act of God.” In an effort to “keep things simple” the parties also kept their contracts fairly worthless!
In essence, an Act of God provision in a contract (also sometimes called “force majeure” is a contractual provision which permits one party to cancel or breach the contract without having to pay damages or incurring any liability to the other. So, if an Act of God forces an artist to cancel, he/she is not liable to the venue for the venue’s lost ticket sales, lost out of pocket costs, or the costs of hiring and advertising another artist or performance. Similarly, if the Act of God forces the venue or presenter to cancel, it is not liable to the artist for the artist’s lost fees or out of pocket costs. However, nothing in the arts is ever that simple! Many people, incorrectly, assume that there is a common understanding or standard of Acts of God and that, in the event of a fire, blizzard, flood, or other unforeseen event, there are automatic protocols which will govern the situation. In fact, you will find that presumptions and assumptions differ wildly when it comes to Acts of God and that people, in the midst of a crisis, tend not be at their most rational. I’ve had presenters argue that poor ticket sales were Acts of God or that the death of an artist’s mother didn’t mean that the artist herself could not perform. I’ve also had an artist claim that an unexpected opportunity to perform at a better venue was an Act of God entitling her to cancel. I even know of a manger who claimed that the failure of his artist to obtain a visa was an Act of God and the artist should still receive her full fee even though she could not legally enter the US!
While no contract can even contemplate every possible scenario, you want your Act of God clause to do more than simply state that “either party can cancel “in the event of an Act of God.” Rather, you want your clause at least to provide some basic definitions and parameters: Let’s assume the venue is open, but the artist cannot get there due to a storm. Does the artist have to reimburse the presenter for any of its lost marketing expenses or costs? If the artist had already received a deposit, does it have to be returned? What if it’s the presenter’s venue is flooded, but the artist is ready, willing, and able to travel and perform? Does the presenter have to make a good faith effort to re-book the artist at a future date? Can the artist keep any deposits or advanced payments to offset the cancellation? Can an artist use an Act of God Force clause to cancel an engagement due to the death or injury of a family member or relative? Can a venue claim an Act of God if it experiences an unexpected budget shortfall or a financial crisis? What if the engagement is for a series of performances and a fire, storm, or flood forces the cancellation of only some of the performances? Is the artist’s engagement fee reduced on a pro-rata basis? What if the artist is a group and a member becomes sick or injured? Does the group have the option to find a replacement or can the venue claim an Act of God and cancel? Does it make a difference if it’s a key member of the group?
As I frequently like to remind everyone, in the arts world nothing is standard and everything is negotiable! Anyone who tells you otherwise, just wants you to do things their way. However, while there is no legally enforceable list of standard protocols or procedures which governs how things are “supposed” to happen in any given crisis, I’d like to believe that relationships are more important than contracts and, ultimately, what you are entitled to may be less important than what you have to offer.
_________________________________________________________________
For additional information and resources on this and other legal and business issues for the performing arts, visit ggartslaw.com
To ask your own question, write to lawanddisorder@musicalamerica.org.
All questions on any topic related to legal 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.
__________________________________________________________________
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!
By Rebecca Schmid
Fans of Joyce DiDonato may find it hard to fathom that one of today’s leading bel canto singers and Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year is just spreading her stardom to Germany. The Kansas native has sung only once at a Berlin opera house, performing Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Deutsche Oper, and made her recital debut in the German capital last spring. Fortunately for us northerners, she is reversing the trend with a tour around her new album, Drama Queens (released on Virgin records). Together with the ensemble Il Complesso Barocco, she made the Konzerthaus Berlin her third stop on November 7 after traveling through the German cities of Baden-Baden and Bremen. The concert travels on to Hannover and Vienna before coming stateside.
DiDonato revisits a passion for baroque with this project, which compiles the arias of abandoned, forlorn and vengeful queens. The result plunges the listener into the tortured emotional world of a female archetype that provided the backbone of operas from Handel’s Giulio Cesare to Octavia by the little-known composer Reinhard Keiser, not to mention the many Italian composers who grounded the tradition. As DiDonato explained at the end of the recital, credit goes to Il Complesso Barocco founder Alan Curtis for spending “a lot of time in dusty libraries.” The conductor, apparently conserving his energy, was not present for the Berlin concert and ceded direction to the concert master Dmitry Sinkovksy.
The somewhat bare stage of the Konzerthaus’ main hall contrasted with DiDonato’s regal appearance in a red corset dress by Vivienne Westwood, which expanded into a full-scale bustle for the second half of the concert. The program, at least from a dramaturgical perspective, seamlessly alternated arias selected from Drama Queens with instrumental interludes. While the singer appeared somewhat nervous sitting onstage during a Scarlatti Sinfonia which proceeded her opening, a sensual account of the Cesti aria “Intorno all’idol mio,” she immediately abandoned herself to the role of the spurned queen Ottavia upon rising for the Monteverdi aria “Disprezzata regina.” The original instruments of Il Complesso Barocco underscored her mix of self-pity and rage with groaning textures.
One of DiDonato’s most powerful moments emerged in “Piangerò la sorte mia” from Handel’s Giulio Cesare. DiDonato’s powers of expression easily rise to the ranks of singers such as Beverly Sills and Cecilia Bartoli who have championed this role. The nearly choked timbre of her perfectly restrained pianissimo in the da capo section reached the tear jerking point with a break in accompaniment on the final line “finché vita…in petto avrò” (as long…as I have life in my breast). She brought the same dramatic depth and technical control, trilling precisely in time with Sinkovksy, to a more rare musical gem, the Giacomelli aria “Sposa, son disprezzata,” in which the Princess Irene of Trebisond laments her unfaithful husband (not an uncommon sentiment in this compilation).
The aria “Madre diletta, abbraciami” by the Venetian Giovanni Porta’s Ifgenia in Aulide emerged with lyricism perfectly sul filo from DiDonato and elegant phrasing from Sinkovksy, who savoured his melodies increasingly as the evening unfolded. His performance was at its best in Vivaldi’s “Pisendel” Concerto as his baroque violin seemed to weep in the slow inner movement. The Orlandini aria “Da torbida procella,” the opening track of Drama Queens, followed smoothly with its propulsive, storm-tossed textures evoking the Queen Berenice’s infatuation with the Emperor Titus.
DiDonato closed the concert with “Brilla nell’alma” from Handel’s Alessandro, an especially compelling number in the German composer’s artful assimilation of what the album’s program notes explain was the newly fashionably Neapolitan style with its static chordal accompaniment. As on recording, DiDonato soared through rapid coloratura runs that capture Rossane’s glee in having pinned down Alexander the Great and gave a purely instrumental cadenza, audibly shaped by the natural sounds of Il Complesso Barocco.
As a first encore, DiDonato offered the melancholic aria “Lasciami piangere” from Keiser’s Octavia, joking that Obama’s re-election allowed her to express the protagonist’s wish to cry and die in solitude without actually having to mean it. The following account of Berenice’s vengeful aria “Col versar, barbaro, il sangue,” in which the Queen threatens suicide upon the Emperor’s announcement that he won’t marry a woman of non-Roman heritage, brought the group together with even more electric energy than in the body of the concert. The audience was clearly smitten by her natural thespian presence. A reprisal of “Da torbida procella” ended the evening on a more uplifting note in matters of imperial love.
By Rachel Straus
The world premiere of Kyle Abraham’s Pavement, seen at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse on November 3, evokes a vision of urban youth careening through a dark world. Abraham begins Pavement by marking a spot with his downcast arm. Then he lassoes his body, drawing a circle with his outstretched limbs. He moves loose, full force and in searching manner, as if looking for a clear compass. When a white dancer enters, he stops Abraham, lies him face down on the floor, and brings his hands to the base of his spine. Abraham’s arrest is done without emotion. This lack of drama makes the event feel doubly devastating.
Pavement’s racially provocative introduction occurs to the accompaniment of Fred McDowell’s rasp-voiced blues song “What’s the Matter Now.” Its lyrics suggest impending violence, but the brutality in Pavement never occurs on stage. It transpires through sound bites from John Singleton’s 1991 crime drama Boyz n the Hood in which young men lose their lives to gang violence.
The recent violence of Hurricane Sandy robbed Pavement of its intended set design. Yet the square stage’s red outline and the presence of a basketball hoop, whose backboard occasionally projected visions of a housing project, gave the 70-minute work a clear sense of place. Abraham’s casting—four black male dancers (Abraham included), two white male dancers, and one black female performer (the powerful mover Rena Butler)—augured a dance about race. Yet Pavement is far from being a modern-day West Side Story. A tale of black against white never comes to the fore. Like T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Wasteland, Abraham creates scenes that don’t necessarily fit together or have clear beginnings and endings. They are snippets of everyday life (Abraham asking for a dollar) and dream evocations, in which his remarkable dancers’ limbs weave in and out of each other to the accompaniment of a red strobe light.
Pavement’s stream of conscious structure is also created through a collage of 12 pieces of music. The recorded selections include a J.C. Bach and Mozart aria (performed by the French tenor Philippe Jaroussky), two ballads by Sam Cooke, and an excerpt from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes (about homosexual oppression). Almost all of the musical selections, listed in the playbill by the composers’ names only, carry metaphorical weight. Unfortunately, it requires research to understand the connections Abraham is making between the music and his messages regarding the slipperiness of love, gender and race.
In the program notes, Abraham excerpts a quote from W.E.B Du Bois’ 1903 Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois developed the theory of a black person’s double consciousness. He called it the veil. When Abraham’s dancers do the high five, the gangsta walk, and behave too cool for school, they appear to be acting out today’s veil. When they launch into pure dancing sections, they move beyond coded acts of identity. They become unveiled.
Pavement ends with a pile up of bodies. The dancers, however, don’t look dead; they appear to be sleeping, lulled by the sound of Donny Hathaway singing “Some Day We’ll All Be Free.” Here again Abraham transforms a violent image into one that is doubled or fractured in meaning. This shirking of didacticism makes Pavement more porous than concrete. Here is a dance work that becomes a labyrinth, one that is as puzzling as it is fascinating.
Brahms Days in Tutzing
November 8th, 2012By ANDREW POWELL
Published: November 8, 2012
MUNICH — Johannes Brahms came here in 1870, catching the completed half of Wagner’s Ring and hobnobbing with colleagues, Liszt among them. He basked in new celebrity, his German Requiem having appeared in print a year earlier. The visit ended with a few days’ repose at Lake Würm, nearby.
He came again three years later. Der Ring remained incomplete, but in any case he sought other things: a meeting with poet Paul Heyse, guidance on writing for orchestra from conductor Hermann Levi (whose brother ran his asset portfolio), and more time at the deep tranquil lake (pictured), with its southward vistas to the Alps. Levi duly helped in the city, and the composer checked in in May for a four-month lakeside stay in the fishing village of Tutzing, lately reachable from downtown by train.
Brahms: “Tutzing is prettier than recently imagined … . The lake is usually blue, but a deeper blue than the sky … also the chain of snowy mountains — one cannot stop looking at them.”
Tutzingers take pride in this Brahms connection. It produced the Haydn Variations and gave life to the two long-stalled, minor-key string quartets. At a stretch, you could say the sojourn nudged Brahms over thresholds in both his orchestral and chamber music. It saw too the premiere of the Acht Lieder und Gesänge, Opus 59.
Settled in the 6th century by families called Tozzi and Tuzzo, Tutzing sports a lakeshore Brahms promenade, a Brahms memorial, a Brahms apothecary and, not so inevitably, a Brahms festival.
This last, dubbed Tutzinger Brahmstage, had an abortive start in the 1950s on the initiative of anti-Semite and “pronounced National Socialist” pianist Elly Ney. Later, much later, artist manager Christian Lange put the festival on an annual fall footing with modest strata of local government support. Sometime in between, Lake Würm officially became “Lake Starnberg.”
But music festival visitors to handsome Tutzing face a number of ponderables. A walk of homage along the spectacular promenade, for instance, finds the composer honored in flat stone between lake and Alpine view benches, a pleasing effect until you turn and see, lurking just feet away, a grand memorial to the Nazi pianist with high bronze bust and trellised garden.
Choosing when to visit confronts the problem of five events spread around three weekends, not the Ojai-like “days” timeframe suggested by the festival name. (A Carl Orff Festival in the next municipality, where that composer is buried, does better in this regard and supports its local hotels.)
Then there is the matter of programming. Tutzinger Brahmstage 2012, which has just ended amid blazes of fall color and a run of blue skies, favored rings around the composer in place of any survey. Mostly Brahms it was not. Brahms and jazz (a concert on Oct. 18) go together like Mahler and reggae. The lone string chamber work offered, the G-Major Sextet (Oct. 14), got lumped with an unneeded reduction for the same forces of Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony. Baritone Michael Volle diluted his Liederabend (Oct. 21) with warhorses of Mahler, lessening the time to explore Brahms’s vaster output for voice.
On Oct. 26, though, festive impulses and programming logic coalesced nicely. Someone had recalled that Brahms wrote organ music and had invited Vienna-based Renate Sperger to play the 3,000-pipe, 28-year-old Sandtner organ of Tutzing’s neo-Baroque St Joseph’s Church, an instrument with ripe sound and tight, unobtrusive action.
Her program contrasted Johann Nepomuk David’s quasi-cartoonish 1947 Partita on Es ist ein Schnitter, improbably a heartfelt tribute to a friend he lost in combat, with a row of Brahms chorale preludes. Six of these, concluding with O Welt, ich muß dich lassen, were from Opus 122, the chiseled and ashen collection penned a year before the composer died. At midpoint came Brahms’s early but resolute Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, WoO 9 (1856), while two Bach staples — the Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542, and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 — framed the evening.
Sperger traced the excesses of the David with calm efficiency and savored introspection in the chorale preludes, abetted by Sandtner’s suave apparatus. In the Bach pairings, she wrought requisite thunder and scaled the quilted fugal flights with unbroken legerdemain.
On the evidence of this year, Tutzinger Brahmstage holds potential in reserve, not least for local businesses. Brahms’s music, particularly the vocal and chamber scores, suits an intimate meeting place, and Tutzing has an authentic claim as a host town, with viable concert venues in St Joseph’s Church and the Evangelische Akademie, its idyllically sited former palace. A focused few days and a sculptural clean-up on the promenade could work wonders.
After leaving Tutzing and Munich in 1873, Brahms returned home to Vienna. There he led the Philharmonic in the November premiere of the Haydn Variations, an orchestral triumph from which he never looked back.
The next month he was once more in Bavaria, to pick up mad King Ludwig II’s Maximilian Medal for Art and Science. Wagner got his at the same time. Who knew? Perhaps Ludwig thought equally highly of both of them.
Photo © Tourismusverband Fünf-Seen-Land
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Tags: Brahms, Brahms Days, Brahmstage, Christian Lange, Commentary, Elly Ney, Evangelische Akademie, Haydn Variations, Hermann Levi, Johann Nepomuk David, King Ludwig II, Lake Starnberg, Michael Volle, München, Munich, Nazi Germany, Renate Sperger, Review, Schloß Tutzing, Tutzing
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