Helene

There was no press release or announcement that any of us has seen or that has been listed on the SFB press release page on its website. Apart from Nicolas Blanc, whose departure was noted in a newspaper article/interview, we found out about the changes from PeggyR's vigilant watch over the company roster on its website, which were noted in this thread.

What kfw said.

PeggyR, it's not the early time, it's that the thread has gone adrift.

I liked that production. It didn't work close to 100%, but it was "La Sonnabula", not "Parsifal". (I thought it would have worked better if instead of an inn, they had made it the baritone's dressing room.) The staging didn't hurt the music, and I had a perfectly fine time at the movies watching it. If I lived in NYC, I would have seen it live. I really liked that production, but I tend to like productions that put some steel into 19th century works.

[Admin note: we got an edit and a reply caught in the cross-wires. Just to keep it straight} Helene wrote: bart replied: It smacks of feuding over the body of an alleged loved-one right at a crucial stage of life-or-death surgery. According to the article, the Board rebels failed to get their funding. Are they surprised? Serious philanthropists and foundations must be running away from the NYCO Board -- both sides -- as from a plague. "With friends like this, who needs ... (etc.)?

Although Hertzberg contends, while some would beg to differ that this always applies to judged sports, like figure skating, which is a much closer analogy to being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I apologize -- it is Venus, not Venice. Old age. I loved seeing the opening of "Otello" at the Met, with the orchestra pit completely dark, except for the light at the end of the conductor's baton.

Great news, Nanarina!

Okay, I'll give it a shot. (Otello Act I Love Duet) Dramatically, it was Boito's stroke of genius to condense Act I of the play into a narrative between the protagonists. Although a love duet, It is an intelligent conversation between adults. It ends with one of more ravishing images in opera ("Venice is resplendant"), with music to match.

There's an editorial in yesterday's Seattle Times about Kershaw's retirement. It begins, Honestly, if I had just conducted my dream score and was looking at a season of "Nutcrackers", I'd retire, too. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/edit...t13kershaw.html

There are several dozen excerpts and full Balanchine ballets published commercially on DVD, and a number more can be gleaned on commercial VHS tapes. In addition, it's pretty much a no-brainer for someone in a ballet company to track down a copy of someone's tape/DVD of "Live from Lincoln Center" or "Dance in America" performances of works for which there is not a commercial version. (Mozartiana, Vienna Waltzes, Liebeslieder excerpts, the complete Who Cares? for example). How could the Trust not know when Balanchine is performed without official permission in the age of the Internet? They have the legal means to stomp with big financial boots, and that assumes there is no leak from rehearsals from which they could shut down the production before it is performed. If anything, having a YouTube performance by a company who had an official staging on the record would allow the audience to see whether an unofficial production had anything to do with the work.

Nina Stemme is one of the "go-to" Brunnhildes now. She will sing the "Die Walkure" Brunnhilde in June 2010 and the Full Ring in 2011. San Francisco audiences have already heard Mark Delavan's Wotan in "Das Rheingold" in June 2008, and he also sings in June's "Die Walkure". Eva-Marie Westbroek, the reason I have a ticket in June, won't sing Siegliende in the full cycle; Anja Kampe will sing two and Heidi Melton one, and all of the other major roles -- Siegmund, Fricka, Hunding -- will be sung by different singers. Presenting "Das Rheingold" on its own, SFO was able to snag Jennifer Larmore to sing Fricka. Larissa Diadkova will sing the role in the full Ring. For anyone who heard the Seattle Ring this past summer, Andrea Silvestrelli reprises his Fasolt and Daniel Sumegi his Faffner, but they switch Hunding (Sumegi in SF) and Hagen (Silvestrelli in SF). Jason Collins sang Froh beautifully, and he will sing it again in the full SFO Ring. Richard Paul Fink sang Alberich in the 2008 "Das Rheingold"; Gordon Hawkins, who sang Donner and Gunther this summer in Seattle, and who's been singing Alberich in the Los Angeles Ring performances leading up to the full Ring in 2010, will sing Alberich in SFO's full Ring as well. Did anyone hear Delevan's Wotan last year?

Verdi's "Otello", Act I love duet, Otello and Desdemona. It was a tough call between this and the orchestral end of The Ring.

I loved it. While the scene with the prostitutes at the beginning of Act II was a miss in my opinion -- they were more Duke of Mantua's hangers-on than Scarpia's -- the direction was so well-thought-out that the very few cons were, to my eyes, a few small blips. For example, one small detail: in every production I've seen to date, in Act III Cavaradossi frantically wrote his farewell to Tosca and handed it to the jailor, who was a Variation-on-a-Theme-of-Rocco. Here, Cavaradossi tried to write the letter -- he'd already given the jailor his ring in exchange for paper and pen -- and then, realizing he really couldn't put it into words, crumbled the paper up and tossed it to the ground. Just a small thing, but psychologically and dramatically true to the moment. I thought it was brilliant to have the Jailor have the firing squad do a practice run during the shepherd boy's sweet song, and he was no Rocco, cutting his little troop no slack and rousing Cavaradossi with the butt of his rifle. The fan really did become the equivalent of the handkerchief in "Othello" -- noted by Scarpia in the text -- as it made its way from Act I to Act II. I did not for a minute miss the ending in the libretto for the end of Act II, where Tosca puts a cross on Scarpia's chest and places a candle on either side of him. Instead, Director Luc Bondy had Tosca pick up the fan from the window sill, sit in a chair, and collapse backwards, fan open, as she tried to cope with the enormity of what she'd done and how she has to plan out Act III. The Scotiabank Theatre in Vancouver has started reserved seating this season. The good news is that you really don't have to get there an hour early to snag a good seat. The bad news is that only seats in the first five rows are available for the rest of the season. I'm not sure if the lighting looked better from farther back, but from where I was sitting, it was a pretty dark, which fit with the starkness of the physical production, which I loved to death, but which made it hard to register at times. The only miss there is when Angelotti remembered his sister's instructions for the hidden key to the Attavanti Chapel, and climbed a staircase to what looked like nowhere, but was supposed to be at the foot of the Madonna. (The only Madonna I saw was the one carried in during the Te Deum, which Scarpia kisses at the very end of Act I.) The set designer was Richard Peduzzi and the costumes were by one of my all-time favorite designers, Milena Canonero (Oscar-winner for "Chariots of Fire", "Marie Antoinette", and "Barry Lyndon"), who gave a short interview, or I should say, said a few words while host Susan Graham alternately gushed and put words in her mouth. Kudos to the design team. I loved, loved, loved, loved, loved, loved, loved -- did I mention "loved"? -- Karita Mattila's Tosca. I didn't expect to after the first few minutes, where she was all over the place pitch-wise, but after that, I found her performance gripping, the only Tosca I've ever seen that I found believable as a person, not as a self-conscious Hollywood Diva. During the second intermission interview, Graham and Mattila discussed how Zeffirelli said that the Diva moniker was an earned one. Mattila, praising Bondy and the directing staff by saying that she felt safe in this production, said that she approached the role from the bottom up: Tosca was a singer, which Mattila could relate to, and an actress. If her Tosca was a Diva, it was through the aspects that Mattila portrayed consciously. Mattila actually portrayed a Tosca with a spine, and I think by playing her as a middle-aged woman instead of a spoiled younger one made Tosca's jealousy understandable. I thought Marcelo Alvarez's vocal interpretation of Cavaradossi was beautiful, particularly in the last Act, where instead of pouring out verismo-by-the-yard, he sang subtly and with sensitivity to the text as poetry. His was the warmest sound overall. Gagnidze's acting, particularly with his eyes, sometimes bordered on Silent Movie acting, but that was on the big screen. In general, it was hard for me to tell how this would have looked or sounded like in the house and how much would have registered, especially from the Dress Circle on upwards. Paul Plishka's Sacristan was the poster child for the adage that there are no small parts, only small actors. Not once did he resort to the half buffoon-half cutesy portrayal I've seen way too many times. Mattila's interpretation was passionate and gripping, but neither her nor baritone George Gagnidze's performance was Italianate, and coupled with the stark sets and icy color palate for the men and subdued costumes for Tosca, apart from Act II, I could see how this could get under the skin of the audience, especially one that was used to rich golds and reds, satiny blacks, and opulent sets and more idiomatic voices, even more than the much-reported sexual aspects. When Scarpia kissed the Madonna statue at the end of Act I, it was short and sweet, if a shock. The Act II prostitutes were a bit silly, but dramatically, they did add diversity to the stage action for Scarpia's monologue, which is often portrayed with a lot of pacing around and gloating. To me, the most sexual aspect was the pervy, sado-voyeuristic Spoletta of, I believe, Joel Sorenson. (The titles went by too quickly for me to read; he was the Opening Night Spoletta.) The most competition he had was Mattila's assertion in the second intermission interview that "sound must come from the pelvic bone -- all singers know that". Seeing Graham's expression, she stopped herself and asked if this was a family show Speaking of intermissions, I know the argument for dive bombing a singer seconds after s/he's finished an act with a microphone in hand is that singers are pumped up and love to talk after they perform. I think that was true of Anna Netrebko in the "I Puritani" and Mattila here, although on the whole, I expect them to be forced to say, "I'm going to Disneyland!" But I wish they could distinguish between those for whom it's appropriate and those for whom it's a difficulty. Gagnidze looked shell-shocked as Graham bounced from one question to the next, and coach Carrie-Ann Matheson (she was in "The Audition") tried to save it by translating into Italian. I can understand wanting to introduce singers to audiences, but I suspect it would have been better if he were able to interview later in intermission, after he had a chance to get his bearings, much like they did for Alvarez. I do love when they ask singers to do a shout-out in their own language to their home fans, something they didn't do for Gagnidze. Peter Gelb gave a speech during one intermission. I think it was unnecessarily defensive about the production and sounded a bit whiny. Not a single person walked out of today's movie -- I was going to try to snag a seat farther back from someone who didn't return, but alas, not a seat to be had -- and it was as geriatric a crowd as I've seen at most of these screenings. The most frequent comments on the (endless) Ladies' Room lines, at least in downtown Vancouver, were "Wasn't Mattila great?" and "This is what caused such a commotion? I don't see what the big deal was." I can't wait until the DVD comes out. The DVD of last season's "Barber of Seville" is coming out soon, according to Graham and director Bartlett Sher, who was interviewed briefly about the upcoming "Tales of Hoffmann".

Which puts Wagner at two degrees of separation from Bournonville through Bakunin.

Here are some YouTube links on Shapilevsky: List of Shapilevsky videos: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer..._type=&aq=f Among them: Manon Links Page Don Q Bullfight with Cape Don Q Bullfighter Solo Sleeping Beauty Act II Hunting Party Solo Sleeping Beauty End of Act II Solo Sleeping Act III Solo Nothing for Turishvili under that spelling.

I just returned from the North American premiere of Philippe Beziat's film "Pelleas et Melisande: le chant des aveugles" at the Vancouver International Film Festival. I've always loved movies whose subject is a behind the scenes of a movie, play, opera, concert, Flamenco show, etc., and this was no exception. Made from a series piano, orchestral, stage, and dress rehearsals of the first production Debussy's opera in Russia at Moscow's Stanislavski & Némirovitch-Dantchenko Theater in 2007 as well as interviews, it wasn't a typical "talking head" kind of documentary. For one, there was more music than talk, including extended scenes from the opera. Where there was talk, it was usually either a musician or singer speaking about the work from a personal standpoint or the director, Olivier Py, talking about the drama. There were a couple of scenes with an elderly string player, probably in her '70's, who spoke about how little was known about Debussy's music before the Iron Curtain fell, and in one very moving scene she talked how she felt when she played the music. She was an inspiration in her openness to enchantment, no matter how late in life or career. The three main characters were French singers -- Jean-Sébastien Bou (Pelléas), Sophie-Marie Degor (Mélisande), François Leroux (Golaud) -- while the Arkel, Dmitri Stepanovitch, and Genevieve, Natalia Vladimirskaia, were Russian. Stepanovitch had one of the early interviews in the movie, and likened himself to his character, Arkel, which missed the point that while Arkel might have been kind and old, he wasn't particularly wise, and the bass mistook the character for a more positive archtype. Director Py spoke about how the French language is monotonous, and through the monotony, it creates depth. He gave an example that when theater conservatory graduates would do Moliere, they would try to add emphasis and drama to line where neither was appropriate. Stepanovitch decided over the rehearsal period that he needed to imbue his lines with more Russian-like drama, and there was a long conversation, with a translator in the middle, in which he was clearly not happy to be told to sing it the way he started, with a flatter, more authentic intonation. (He argued that there was never a successful production of Pelleas, and the lack of drama was why.) It was fascinating the way in which these two threads in the film came together. It was very much like watching the early Mariinsky Balanchine performances (and some of the more recent ones), as the company tried to learn the nuances of the style, but fell back on what they knew. The production, conducted by Marc Minkowski, had the kind of design for which I am a total sucker, all steel and stairs moved around by visible stagehands. (My favorite of these was in the Adelaide "Ring", where a circle of steel poles rose from the stage to create Hunding's hut/Sieglinde's prison.) I couldn't find a design credit, but one review suggests (I think) that Py did the set design ("Paradoxalement, cet opéra presque surnaturel, à l’ambiance ténébreuse sublimée par les structures métalliques (du château, de la forêt) imaginées par Olivier Py,"), unless this means he came up with the idea and someone else realized them. I found the set very powerful, and I wish I could have seen it live. Bou, a baritone, and Degor, were heartbreaking in the love scene in the forest.

I'm surprised it didn't go to Bill Clinton for his foundation work and for his occasional forays into various diplomatic missions, because that would be as much of a slap to Bush Administration and to the US media that amplified the Lewinsky affair, something that many, many European commentators thought was a a non-starter, a waste of energy, and which paved the way for a Bush victory.

Published today by the Company:

When I worked for "Art & Antiques" Magazine in the mid '80's, Irving Penn's studio was on the top floor of our building. There were always interesting people heading upstairs, with a Baryshnikov sighting being talked about for months. Rest in peace, Mr. Penn.

From yesterday's Links, another article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in which Kershaw speaks, http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archi...from=blog_last3 Also, Monica Guzman's advised: I have a candidate, who I think has conducted ballet: former Seattle Symphony Associate Conductor Christian Knapp, for whom I've long been wishing a conducting offer from the Seattle Opera, too.

It reminds me a little of how tenor Leo Slezak, who was scheduled to complete a series of "Otello"s at the Metropolitan Opera, decided after a particularly good performance that it was his last. I wish Mr. Kershaw all of the best, and for all of the wonderful performances he's given us and the fantastic work he's done to build and develop the PNB orchestra.

leonid, members must have 10 posts before Personal Messenger is enabled. But if you (or anyone else) would like to us to pass on information to Ms. Bishop through us, please send a PM to me or an email to the "Contact Us" link at the top of the page, and we will forward mail or copy the PM to email and forward.

I wish we had the animated "respect" smilie, but in the meantime, I'll reply with

I can't follow your context. What do you think is not a no-brainer, and how does the film figure into this? It sounds as if you're arguing that if you haven't seen his film/piece of art, you can't judge him for a crime to which he plead -- do I understand correctly? If opposing a crime against a child by a 43-year-old adult is fundamentalism, I am a fundamentalist.