Music News
UPDATE: Play On, Give Me Excess of Hampson
Humans, in general, mellow with age. Thomas Hampson doesn’t. Au contraire, he is more intense, dramatic, overwhelming, multitasking, and brilliant than ever. Beyond the simple excellence of his other master classes, such as the one at Wigmore Hall or at the old S.F. Conservatory of Music, his six-hour master class over Thursday and Friday last week went beyond all expectations.
Thomas Hampson
Here he was, in the new Conservatory building, at the first “Lieder Alive!” master workshop, singing duets of traditionally single-voice lieder, massaging skulls (his own and those of others), and discussing music, literature, psychology, anatomy, the transporter beaming process in Star Trek, and other subjects too numerous to list.
Hampson teaching
The two evenings were reminiscent of what was going on in the nearby War Memorial: the amazing excess, surfeit, and dazzle of Die tote Stadt. Another similarity: Above all, both events are about music, other factors — however numerous — be damned.
And yet, sometimes it was difficult to remember that main theme, watching Katherine Tier who was surrounded by Hampson phantoms — one pressing in on the mezzo’s cheekbones, the other singing Kindertotenlieder with her, the third in throes of the grief and resolution she should convey, and the fourth thundering an interpretation of the text that speaks of the eyes of dead children becoming stars of future nights:
“It happens. Your children will not stay with you. And guess what: You will die too. It’s OK.” And suddenly, instead of crumbling under that manifold “attack,” Tier sang “Nun seh’ich, wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen” (Now I see well, why [your eyes] flash upon me with such dark flames) beautifully, with an understanding of its subtle catharsis, rather than sentimentally.
Perhaps Hampson’s greatest triumph was the transformation of Heidi Melton’s interpretation of “Frühlingsfeier” (Spring celebration). This truly exceptional young singer (Hampson: “I have never heard a 27-year-old soprano like you!”) first belted out the frantic Richard Strauss song as if channeling Ethel Merman at her loudest.
Hampson at work
Hampson never told Melton the simple truth: It was loud and wrong. Instead, he spent almost an hour, urging the soprano to “help Strauss out,” explaining that “legato is a function of resonance,” asking her to “keep the sound buzzing,” showing Melton how to breathe through nose and mouth at the same time, exhorting her to sing without vibrato, pointing out — perhaps most importantly — that “voices do not project, they resonate … do not sing at the audience, sing for them” and so on and so forth. And then he had Melton sing the climaxing “Adonis!” again and again … until, miraculously, the song soared on that great big voice with understanding, technical skill, vision, and beauty.
There were lengthy and fascinating mini-lectures about the origin and nature of several song cycles Hampson has “studied and sang for 30 years.” Other participants were baritone Ferris Allen, soprano Marcelle Dronkers, and baritone Kittinant Chinsamran.
Who Will Bail Out Music?
We’ve been here before, more often than it seems from (forgiving or denying) hindsight. In 1980, from 1981 to 1982, 1987, from 1990 to 1991, and following 9/11, jobs went away, disposable income shrank, credit tightened up, stocks plunged, and deficits soared. All that has translated, from our narrow vantage point here, to dwindling concert and opera audiences, increasing costs, and deep-diving corporate and individual contributions.
And so disappeared orchestras in Oakland, San Jose, and the rest of the country, and so multiplied the number of (often non-musical) jobs musicians had to hold down to stay “in the business.”
As to that, it is not true that there is “no business like show business.” Maintaining the viability of performing organizations is like any other commercial enterprise, and when it comes to opera companies, even more so.
So, yes, we’ve been here before, but perhaps not to the extent of this new crisis, and probably not with such long-range impact. On Monday, the National Debt Clock in Manhattan’s Times Square had to be modified to allow one more digit, as the nation’s shortfall exceeded $10 trillion for the first time. Whatever is “fixed” in the short run, catching up with a $10,000,000,000,000 debt will take time.
$1.2 trillion less — just a few months back
Besides the shocking size of the new crisis, it is amazing how unsurprising it is. Neither an economist nor a seer, I stood up at the San Francisco Symphony’s season-announcement press conference in Davies Symphony Hall last February to ask if “the approaching economic meltdown was figured into the budget.” There was a disapproving murmur, but Symphony President John Goldman took up the question and answered in the affirmative.
How, exactly, was that done? There were not many details to be had in public, understandably, but Goldman did say that “in the face of difficult economic times to come … graduated, reasonable ticket prices, and the right positioning of the Symphony” are very much being considered.
John Goldman
When the sky is falling, and not only from Chicken Little’s perspective, maintaining a $58 million annual operation is a backbreaking enterprise. It involves the presentation of hundreds of performances at 2,743-seat Davies Symphony Hall, it means selling about a quarter million tickets per season — with ticket costs that are affordable, while still costing enough so they pay the bill — and it means paying salaries that range from the low of per-session musicians to the high of the music director’s $1.5 million.
Across Grove Street, in less than three years, David Gockley put the Opera’s $61 million house in order, creating a new era of cooperation within the company and throughout the community, an increase in attendance, a skyrocketing outreach through simulcasts and electronic distribution (costly moves that are certain to pay off several ways in the future), and obtaining unprecedented multi-million dollar contributions. San Francisco Opera is facing a difficult future, as do we all, but at least the point of departure now is from an incomparably stronger position than it was not long ago.
David Gockley
What is more difficult at a time of sharp economic downturn: to steer an SFS or SFO-sized carrier through troubled waters? Or to paddle a small chamber-music canoe to the shore? However tough it may be to ensure the survival of million-dollar organizations, the smaller groups — already on or beyond the verge of financial crisis — may face an even more grim future.
The good news, so to speak: We’ve been here before, and we mostly got through it. Falling by the wayside, unfortunately, were opera companies in Oakland and Marin, the Women’s Philharmonic, and many more. Let’s hope there won’t be too many casualties this time.
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Quasi-Farewell to a Symphonic/Operatic Maestro
Scheduling the Verdi Requiem in the San Francisco Opera next May as a kind of going-away event for Donald Runnicles sounds exactly right, as it’s as “symphonic-operatic” a program as there is. The good-byes, fortunately, will be limited to the position of music director (to be filled by Nicola Luisotti), not to the conductor. Runnicles will return for numerous future engagements, including Ring performances. And, “under new management,” no repetition of the problems resulting from the last Runnicles celebration are likely to occur.
Donald Runnicles, with David Gockley
Read This Before Getting Pregnant
It’s in The Daily Mail, so it must be true:
Women who listened to classical music felt more relaxed during pregnancy than those who did not. Mothers-to-be who listen to lullabies, classical music, and sounds of nature are less likely to feel stressed about their pregnancy, a study has shown. The music’s tempo was set at 60 to 80 beats per minute, the same as the human heart, and was found to ease anxiety and depression.
It’s quite possible that the application of music may be beneficial in general; no need to restrict it to expectant mothers, though.
Professor Chung-Hey Chen, who led the study at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan, said: “Pregnancy is a unique and stressful period for many expectant mothers, and they suffer anxiety and depression because of the long time period involved. Our study shows that listening to suitable music provides a simple, cost-effective, and non-invasive way of reducing stress, anxiety, and depression during pregnancy.”
A New Standard of Musical/Acoustic Excellence
In all my years of sampling music from the top of the balcony in the War Memorial, I have never (well, hardly ever) heard such a SurroundSound, multichannel, with incredible clarity as the San Francisco Opera Orchestra’s performance, under Donald Runnicles’ baton, in Saturday’s Die tote Stadt. And on top of it all: a balance allowing great, impossible performances by Torsten Kerl and Emily Magee that came straight through that orchestral maelstrom. Amazing stuff! Oct. 9 and 12 are the remaining performances.
Up There, Way Up There
Another stunning orgy of sound: The San Francisco Symphony (yes, in the Opera House, before Davies Symphony Hall went up), conducted by John Nelson, in the Berlioz Requiem, some three decades ago. Sometimes it’s hard to recall yesterday’s events, but great performances live forever.
Too soon, Die tote Stadt will be gone, unlikely to return for many years. Meanwhile, there is YouTube to ameliorate expected pangs of nostalgia:
See some Die tote clips, here, and here, and here. And from there you will probably be inspired to search for others.
New Adler Fellows Named
Eleven new Adler Fellows have been named for the San Francisco Opera Center’s 2009 program. They are:
— Soprano Heidi Melton (Spokane, Washington)
— Soprano Tamara Wapinsky (Pottsville, Pennsylvania)
— Soprano Leah Crocetto (Adrian, Michigan)
— Mezzo Daveda Karanas (Mandeville, Louisiana)
— Mezzo Daniela Mack (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
— Mezzo Renée Tatum (Carlsbad, California)
— Tenor Andrew Bidlack (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)
— Tenor Alek Shrader (Alva, Oklahoma)
— Tenor David Lomelí (Monterrey, Mexico)
— Baritone Austin Kness (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
— Bass Kenneth Kellogg (Washington, D.C.)
Adler Fellows Leah Crocetto and Heidi Melton
Melton, Wapinsky, Karanas, Mack, Bidlack, Shrader, and Kellogg are returning Adler Fellows. Outgoing 2008 Adler Fellows are soprano Ji Young Yang (Seoul, South Korea), mezzo-soprano Katharine Tier (Sydney, Australia), and apprentice coaches Matthew Piatt (Victoria, Kansas) and Lara Bolton (Bluffton, Ohio).
Two pianists selected for 2009 Apprentice Coach Fellowships are Dennis Doubin (Moscow, Russia) and Allen Perriello (Gibsonia, Pennsylvania).
Did A.M. Bach Help Out J.S. Bach?
In Australia, Darwin Symphony Music Director Martin Jarvis has reached the conclusion — after seven years of intensive research — that several of Bach’s 1,127 manuscripts were written by his second wife, Anna Magdalena. Jarvis has used forensic analysis to examine various Bach scores, bar by bar, focusing on the musical structure and language, handwriting, and the musical calligraphy. He concluded that Anna Magdalena — known as the copyist of her husband’s 18th-century manuscripts — was the real author of numerous J.S. Bach compositions. (Similar stories have been heard about Zoltán Kodály’s wife, Einstein’s wife, and so on. Who knows how much truth there is to it.)
Notebook for Anna Magdalena
Eschenbach to National Symphony, Kennedy Center
After a short and controversial run as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, German conductor Christoph Eschenbach, 68, has been named the next music director of the National Symphony, succeeding Leonard Slatkin. Eschenbach will also serve as music director of the Kennedy Center, a newly created position, overseeing the Center’s multidisciplinary projects and festivals. A simultaneously announced gift of $5 million from two orchestra patrons will help pay for Eschenbach’s two salaries. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that, as music director of the city’s orchestra alone, he received $2.3 million in 2007.
Christoph Eschenbach
SFCO: Finest Free Concerts Around
Under the baton of Benjamin Simon, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra is embarking on yet another of its brave and generous free seasons.
Performances at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, and Palo Alto’s St. Mark’s Episcopal Church begin on Dec. 29. Program 1, “Leading Ladies,” features singer Amanda King, violinist Robin Sharp, and pianist Gwen Mok, in performance of Valerie Coleman’s 2007 Concertino for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, in addition to music by Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and Gershwin.
The second series of programs, “Clarinet Crazy,” in February, pairs clarinetist Dimitri Ashkenazy and the Sonos Handbell Ensemble, in the premiere of Richard Festinger’s Clarinet Concerto, along with works by Copland, Mahler, and others. March brings “Mendelssohn Madness” and April features “Back to Bach.”
Benjamin Simon
Falletta Succeeds in a ‘Bankrupt City’
JoAnn Falletta, one of the most interesting conductors around, minces no words about the situation in Buffalo, New York, where she has been music director of MTT’s former orchestra for the past decade. The home of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta says, is “bankrupt.”
On the other hand, the same city, she says, which “has not yet found the way to a new future” is “extraordinary … in that it has clung to a vision of retaining greatness.” Falletta has helped to return the orchestra to financial viability, and raise $33 million for its endowment fund.
JoAnn Falletta
La traviata, Railroaded
Zürich Opera’s production of La traviata in the city’s busy main railroad station last week, and on live television, has been chronicled far and wide, but here we’ll bring you some behind-the-scenes nuggets:
It required an unbelievable amount of preparation. Every singer was wired for sound — microphone on one side, little loudspeaker in the other ear. This is no fun. Three assistant conductors were spread around the train station helping keep things together, and the sheerly insane logistics of presenting an opera in such an enormous open, busy space were incredible.
My favorite moment was in the first act, when Alfredo leaves the party taking along the flower he’s supposed to return the next day. Violetta walks him to his train (all that “addio, addio” stuff), he boards the perfectly normal train, and it actually leaves the station, right on time, with Violetta waving goodbye!
OK, Ms. Insider, why didn’t Alfredo buy a ticket and, perhaps more importantly, how did he get back into the opera?
When Alfredo left the Zürich station, he was using the return half of the two-way ticket he’d bought to come to Zürich in the first place. And, how did the singer (Vittorio Grigolo) managed to get back to the main station after leaving on the train. In fact, the train — otherwise a real train, on a normal schedule — made a special stop (for about 10 seconds) at the next sub-station for commuter trains, less than two minutes away, for him to hop off. He then crossed the platform, boarded a commuter train going in the other direction, and was back in the main station less than five minutes later.
Knowing the tolerance of the Swiss for the unusual, I may presume that the presence of the singer in full makeup on the train attracted nothing more than a few furtive glances. As to the scene itself, you can watch it here. Grigolo is a real find!
Swiss Television presenter Sandra Studer, left, with Vittorio Grigolo (Alfredo) and Eva Mei (Violetta) in the railway station
Photo by Markus Bertschi
Homegrown Bernstein Concert a Great Performance
The much-heralded MTT/SFS Carnegie Hall Bernstein concert has been filmed for PBS Great Performances telecasts.
Doctor Atomic Audience Subsidy
Agnes Varis, a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera board, and her husband Karl Leichtman, have donated $500,000 to make it possible for thousands of audience members to attend upcoming performances of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic at greatly reduced prices. Already production sponsors of the Adams opera, the two donors are enabling ticket buyers to pay $30 for seats priced between $175 and $220.
Varis and Leichtman also are the funders of the Met’s successful Rush Ticket program, which provides $100 orchestra seats for $20 on Monday through Thursday evenings during the course of the entire season. “Doctor Atomic has tremendous relevance today, and I feel that we should make it available to as many people as possible,” Dr. Varis said. “It’s important for the Met to put on significant contemporary works that are accessible to everyone. One of the ways to do this is to expand our Rush Ticket program so that more people can come and enjoy Doctor Atomic from the greatest seats at the Met.”
From Doctor Atomic
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.
That first clip of James King sent shivers down my spine. I sent these to a fellow Korngold enthusiast (who unfortunately missed the opera due to a medical emergency) and warned him to click on it *last* not first.
Interesting that Bo Skovhus, whom I saw in this production in Vienna, takes less than half the time to sing the Tanzlied as Thomas Hampson.
Posted by Ruth C. Jacobs on October 7, 2008 at 3:33 pm