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IN Music News THIS WEEK: November 20, 2001
The Nose Knows Nagano's Nose
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By Janos Gereben
The Nose Knows Nagano's Nose
No announcement yet, but we have picked up a strong scent of Berkeley Symphony music director Kent Nagano getting the first of a series of conducting assignments with Berlin's Deutsche Staatsoper next year. The work: Shostakovich's The Nose, the production to be under the direction of the Staatsoper's incoming general manager, Peter Mussbach.
Here are some notes to tell the players by: Mussbach and Nagano have worked together a great deal. The Staatsoper's artistic director is Daniel Barenboim, who is busy in Chicago and elsewhere, needs help with the Staatsoper's heavy, nine-month-long annual schedule. Nagano, Mussbach, Barenboim are all on excellent terms with each other and with Plácido Domingo.
Domingo (who sang his first Siegfried, in Götterdämmerung excerpts on Friday in a Staatsoper benefit for the orchestra — see a separate item below) has appointed Nagano the Los Angeles Opera's principal guest conductor and picked Mussbach to produce the company's upcoming Der Ring des Nibelungen. With all these (and many other) interlinking relationships, you may well expect Nagano to spend some time in the famed ancient house on Unter den Linden, not far from Fricsay Hall, headquarters to his orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. As before, Nagano's schedule raises the question how much longer he can remain with the tiny Berkeley organization; as before, Nagano says he will continue.
Youngest Conductor of Them All The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has named Ilan Volkov as its new chief conductor. Volkov is 25. That's twenty-five. And, to boot, leading this medium-major orchestra will be the exceedingly young Russian's first such experience, he has not served as an apprentice in any smaller organization.
Salzburg's New Regime The Salzburg Festival's new boss, Peter Ruzicka, is beginning his run there next year with a mix of old and (relatively) new. Of the old, a new paint of coat is being applied to Jedermann and Don Giovanni, in new productions by Christian Stückls and Martin Kusej, respectively. Moving into the 20th century, Ruzicka will produce a number of works by Zemlinsky, beginning with Der König Kandaules. He is also paying attention to Richard Strauss' less frequently-performed works, beginning with Liebe der Danae in 2001. There will be a few new works presented as well in Ruzicka's first season, with more to come later, possibly much more.
An Insider's Take on Domingo's Wagner Willie Anthony Waters, who worked extensively with the San Francisco Opera as a young conductor in the 1980s, has responded to my report on an exhausted and unwell Domingo's fabulous Siegmund and OK Siegfried at the Berlin gala on Friday, providing some sympathetic but unblinking insight into the Domingo-Wagner relationship, never fully realized mainly because of Domingo's constant overcommitment: "I was in a position to work closely with Mr. Domingo many years ago both at San Francisco Opera and Greater Miami Opera (now Florida Grand). His dream was to sing Tristan, and there were many discussions with Domingo, Montserrat Caballe and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle to do it in Strasbourg, where Ponnelle had carte blanche to do what he wanted. This fell through for various reasons, not the least of which was that Domingo was so busy with things other than singing, he could never find the time to learn it. "At that time, he was also hesitant about the language. He was scheduled to record Tristan und Isolde with Jessye Norman and Georg Solti, but the plans were cancelled because of scheduling difficulties and, I think, Norman felt she was not quite up to it. (A reminder: she did do Act 2 at Tanglewood with Jon Vickers and Seiji Ozawa for her to "test the waters." Domingo, as excellent a musician as he is, never blocked out the time to learn it.) "Placido could have done Tristan under the right circumstances — the main one of which is the one that he could never seem to allow — to give the proper amount of time for him to properly learn the role and to stay in one place long enough so that he's not exhausted, and could build up the stamina to last throughout. Granted, it is not the ideal Tristan voice, but who today sings what they are supposed to — or what their voices are truly meant to sing?) As we all know, he is as strong as a bull, and his longevity attests to the fact that he knows how to husband his resources. But, apparently, being the "tenore di tutti tenori" was more his goal than scaling the heights of Wagner's highest tenorial mountain. Jon Vickers showed us what can happen when Tristan is truly sung — as did Ben Heppner, except on a smaller scale. "Wagner, of all composers, wanted his music sung not barked. If you look at any of his scores, there is never an indication for the singer to "declaim" a line or phrase, as in Puccini's scores, for example. However, it has become traditional that there is be a certain amount of declamation in Tristan (as well as by Otello, Canio, etc., not only in German operas), since in Germany oftentimes the Wagnerian singers are past their prime, and resort to the only method they have of getting a sound out." (Janos Gereben is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group and technology editor for www.the451.com. You can contact him at janos451@earthlink.net.) ©2001 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved |