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IN Music News THIS WEEK: December 18, 2001
Klinghoffer Debate Goes Global
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By Janos Gereben
Klinghoffer Debate Goes Global
Calling criticism of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer a "witch-hunt," England's Guardian weighed in over the weekend on behalf of the Berkeley composer, with the headline: "Why is Adams being accused of romanticising terrorism?"
The debate, prompted by the Boston Symphony's post-September 11 cancellation of performances of the 1991 opera about a Palestinian terrorist attack, has gone into the realm of the overblown. The already overheated dispute in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, London, Jerusalem and Berlin newspapers about "censorship," "political correctness," "gross insensitivity," "artistic freedom" and the like now raises questions of McCarthyism and political/artistic persecution. Martin Kettle's article in the Guardian is a response to Berkeley musicologist Richard Taruskin's New York Times article on Dec. 9, which ended with this paragraph: "Censorship is always deplorable, but the exercise of forbearance can be noble. Not to be able to distinguish the noble from the deplorable is morally obtuse. In the wake of September 11, we might want, finally, to get beyond sentimental complacency about art. Art is not blameless. Art can inflict harm. The Taliban know that. It's about time we learned."
Adams, who has been fighting criticism of his opera, told the Guardian: "You feel like you are being bombed from 30,000 ft by a B-52. It makes the row over Robert Mapplethorpe's pictures look like a little divertissement. Not long ago our attorney general, John Ashcroft, said that anyone who questioned his policies on civil rights after September 11 was aiding terrorists; what Taruskin said was the aesthetic version of that. If there is an aesthetic viewpoint that does not agree with his, it should not be heard. I find that very disturbing indeed."
As of this writing, the British premiere of Klinghoffer in a Barbican Centre festival of Adams' music, January 18-20, is still on schedule, with Leonard Slatkin conducting the BBC Symphony, Sanford Sylvan singing the title role.
Philadelphia Doings Philadelphia's $265 million Kimmel Center opened Friday... not with the resident Philadelphia Orchestra in Verizon Hall, but with an Elton John concert, and a one-night fee reported at $2 million. On Saturday, there followed Christoph Eschenbach being helicoptered in from his matinee performance at the Met, and then Yo-Yo Ma's chair slipping off the raised platform while the cellist was performing. Reviews of the the center's cello-shaped concert hall (Rafael Viñoly, architect, Russell Johnson, acoustician) ranged from cautious praise to complaints about lack of warmth. Three reviewers admitted that they are hedging their bet so early in the use of the hall. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Ma came through the accident well: "He never lost his composure — and barely missed a note — even with a near-accident when his chair slipped off the platform during the third movement of the Beethoven Triple Concerto. Once helped to his feet by violinist Nancy Bean, he kept playing in a partial standing position. When his chair was righted, he sat and played as though nothing had happened."
Chevalier Conlon James Conlon, in his sixth season as principal conductor of the Paris Opera (in addition to other jobs), has been awarded France's highest distinction, the Légion d'Honneur, with the rank of Chevalier. Although awards to non-French citizens are rare, three other US conductors have received it over the years. Who are they? The answer is at the end of the column. Another Chevalier from a few years back is a singer with a Local Angle. Baritone Francois LeRoux is the nephew of Jean-Louis LeRoux, currently conducting his 1,000th (give or take) San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker. The younger Le Roux is scheduled to perform with the Marin Symphony in 2003.
Why Don't Affluence and Classical-Music Radio Mix? After last year's rude surprise leaving the San Francisco Bay Area without an FM station to broadcast the Metropolitan-Texaco matinees, and this large, affluent community being left with KDFC-FM's plain-vanilla programming, it is now South Florida's turn. WTMI, the area's only full-time classical station, will change its program format at the end of the month, not specifying what will take its place, but talk-radio programming is a likely possibility. Cultural historians of the future will come up with interesting theories about this situation. PS: For Bay Area (and now South Florida) Met fans, information about Internet broadcasts (a fine substitute if you have broadband) is available at www.metopera.org/broadcast/radio.html — check the link on the bottom of the page for station addresses.
Domingo Burning the Candle at Many Ends When I reported from Berlin last month that Plácido Domingo appeared exhausted and ill singing his first Siegfried in a concert performance, others suggested that he was carried away by emotions. Now that Domingo left the stage during a La Scala Otello, saying that he cannot go on (but returning later when the conductor, Riccardo Muti, talked him into continuing), the tenor himself used the "emotion card." Emotions, he said, "accumulated during the last opening night and saying goodbye to the theater." A simpler and more practical reason may be that at 60 (or at any age), running two opera companies and singing all over the world may be just a bit too much.
Runnicles in Atlanta In a very complimentary New York Times profile of the new Atlanta Symphony music director, Robert Spano, the appointment of his principal guest conductor is portrayed as an act of "counterbalancing any potential angst about Mr. Spano's maverick programming practices." Thus representing the conservative side of music-making is San Francisco Opera music director Donald Runnicles, 7 years older than Spano and with about a decade longer experience. Runnicles' reaction: "Robert and I bounce ideas off each other all the time. He picks my brain. It's a lot of fun, a lot of brainstorming."
Covent Garden Parsifal Broadcast The Royal Opera's much talked-about new production of Parsifal, conducted by Simon Rattle, will be broadcast on BBC-3, available on the Internet at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 Wednesday, Dec. 19, at 10 a.m. PST. The cast: Parsifal - Stig Anderson (Parsifal), Thomas Hampson (Amfortas), Willard White (Klingsor), Violeta Urmana (Kundry), John Tomlinson (Gurnemanz).
Answers to the Légion d'Honneur `Quiz' Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein (he is the one you remembered, right?), and Lorin Maazel. (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 |