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IN Music News THIS WEEK:
Small Deficit for SF Symphony
'Ensemble of the Year'
Encountering the Immensity of Sounds from Beyond One's World
Listening to the Met on the Internet
Hans Hotter
Seattle Opera Plans
Will Les Troyens Fall Again?
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By Janos Gereben
O Canada! — Taxing MP3?!
Last week, Canada's government authorized a price increase on MP3 players, including Apple's iPod, in order to compensate
musicians and producers for income supposedly lost as the result of downloading music on the Internet. The Toronto-based
Canadian Private Copying Collective won its case for MP3 players, but its demand was denied for tariff on blank DVDs,
removable flash memory cards and removable micro hard drives. The government board ruling on the case found insufficient evidence
that "these recording media are ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music."
MP3 players, some easily fitting into a shirt pocket and with a capacity between 64 megabytes and 40 gigabytes, have become popular
in recent months. A $2 tariff will apply to recorders with up to one gigabyte of memory, $15 for those with up to 10G and $25 for
those above 10G. Canadian consumers won't notice the increased levies on MP3 players immediately. The tariff is applied by the
manufacturer, so any stock now in stores isn't affected. A spokesman for the Consumer Electronic Markets of Canada, which
represents companies such as Toshiba, Sony and JVC, said the price increases will "not be detrimental to the consumers' acceptance
of the product." He called the decision "fair."
The advocate organization claims that 1.1 billion tracks of music were copied in 2002 from prerecorded CDs and the Internet, the
equivalent of 70 million albums. The Collective started collecting a levy from blank CDs and cassettes in 1999, after the
government passed a private copying law. Since then, the group has collected $59.3 million, including $28 million in 2003, but no
payments have yet been made to artists, songwriters and music publishers. The government board froze levies on cassettes, minidisks
and blank CDs until the end of 2004, even though the Collective had wanted these levies increased, in some cases doubled.
Small Deficit for SF Symphony The San Francisco Symphony, which has operated in the black for many years, no matter what the economy did, finally slipped under the bar for Fiscal 2003, with a $136,000 shortfall on a $51.5 million budget. More than 600,000 tickets were sold for the Symphony's 233 concerts and presentations during the fiscal year, attendance increasing to 84%, something most performing-arts presenters would envy greatly, along with that relatively tiny deficit.
'Ensemble of the Year' Musical America, which is always a year ahead of everybody else, has named Philharmonia Baroque the magazine's "2004 Ensemble of the Year." Nicholas McGegan's San Francisco-based group is the first period-instrument orchestra so honored, and the first one from California to receive an award. PBO executive director Robert A. Birman responded to the news by saying that "Our musicians are deeply moved to be recognized for their artistry and singular dedication to their craft." McGegan interpreted the award as a recognition of the entire genre: "Musical America's conviction in honoring a period-instrument ensemble for the first time — not to mention one from the 'new world' — is an important validation of the art of early music in America." McGegan has served as the 22-year-old orchestra's only music director, beginning in 1985. Under his leadership, PBO has produced 24 recordings for major labels, sold over half a million CDs. Future activities include debut performances at Carnegie's Zankel Hall in New York, the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and a European tour including an appearance at the BBC Promenade concerts in London in 2005; a return to the recording studio for a series of recordings on the Avie label; a major collaboration with Bay Area vocal ensemble Chanticleer, featuring music of 18th Century Spain; and the Orchestra's first-ever commissioned work, to celebrate its 25th Anniversary in 2006, by Bay Area composer Jake Heggie.
Encountering the Immensity of Sounds from Beyond One's World The current San Francisco Symphony program carries a story entitled "Distant Signals," by David Brendan Hopes, originally published last year in The Sun magazine. For anyone who remembers the childhood discovery of records and music on the radio, it's a memorable holiday reading: Distant Signals.
Listening to the Met on the Internet Today's music-on-the-air experience may not be quite as romantic and personal as David Hopes' childhood memories (see item above), but it's important nevertheless. As often discussed in this space, the vast majority of the San Francisco Bay Area is deprived of such "basic" radio experiences as the Saturday broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera, so use of the Internet for listening is becoming increasingly important. Engineer-opera fan Curt Gowan has some simple, practical ideas for Classical Voice readers new to this technology, if they don't have speakers and soundboard all set up already: "Run a mini-plug-to-dual-RCA-plug cable (available from Radio Shack and other electronic stores) from the headphone output jack on your PC to an input on your stereo system. Do not use the probably-unused "phono" input of your system — that input has a special filter optimized for phonograph signals. "There is no need to stream from a nearby station. Try several stations in advance — there is tremendous variation in audio quality, convenience, and on-screen spam from site to site. The audio is terrible on some sites; some use unique software with intrusive moving ads; and one public station drops the intermission features in favor of pledge drives! See station Web addresses — and if they stream — www.operainfo.org. After trying many addresses last season, I came to prefer the New York Times' WQXR, which happens to be the Met's home station: www.wqxr.com. "The RealPlayer stream gives me better sound quality than the Windows Media Player stream. [Editor's Note: but Media Player doesn't hustle you around the clock the way the Real folks do to sell a paid, membership service.] Watch out for blackouts of modern works. One season, Lulu was not supposed to be streamed due to rights issues. I kept checking Websites until I found a tiny educational station that didn't get the word about the blackout," Gowan writes.
Hans Hotter San Francisco audiences had been lucky over the years to be able to attend performances here with the great bass-baritone Hans Hotter, who died last week at age 94. According to records kept by Kori Lockhart, 1954 and 1956 were the best years to witness his larger-than-life presence, in the title role of Der Fliegende Holländer both seasons, as the Count in Nozze di Figaro and Pizarro in Fidelio in 1954; as Rangoni in Boris Godunov in 1956, and in his greatest role, as Wotan in Die Walküre the same year. More than three decades later, Hotter appeared in the War Memorial as Schigolch in Lulu, in 1989, following that with teaching master classes for the Merola Program and Adler Fellows. Those who came into contact with Hotter were invariably impressed with his accessibility and warmth. He remembered names and stories, supported young singers, gladly shared his time and knowledge with all who asked.
Seattle Opera Plans Several weeks before San Francisco Opera plans are to be announced (see next item), Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins announced the company's 2004-05 season, its second in the new opera house, Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Beginning on July 31, Wagner's Lohengrin is on top, followed by Verdi's Rigoletto in October, Puccini's Manon Lescaut in January 2005, Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas in February and March, and Offenbach's Contes d'Hoffmann in May. An article by Jenkins about his choices of repertoire and artists is available at www.seattleopera.org.
Will Les Troyens Fall Again? As the San Francisco Opera is trying to keep its deficit as low as possible, formerly planned expensive productions are getting the axe. In addition to what this column already suggested — Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre and Verdi's Macbeth — there is also the possibility that the big attraction for the summer of 2005, Berlioz's Les Troyens, may be postponed or cancelled. The 2004-2005 season is expected to open with a Renee Fleming gala concert, to continue with Cosi fan tutte, La Traviata, Billy Budd, Carol Vaness and Mark Delavan in Tosca, The Flying Dutchman and Evgeny Onegin. Official word is due early in January.
(Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the
Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janos451@earthlink.net.)
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