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MUSIC SHORTS
A New News Feature
August 1, 2000
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By Janos Gereben
The Long Way from Edinburgh to London
San Francisco Opera music director Donald Runnicles has made his name and fortune around the world, but he is still a virtual stranger on the London music scene. The Scottish-born conductor is making great strides in correcting that imbalance by bringing Richard Wagner -- his prime specialty and San Francisco debut vehicle -- to the English capital. Directing Act 3 of Die Walkuere at the Proms, Runnicles got rave reviews, along with Christine Brewer (Bruennhilde) and James Morris (Wotan).
American Opera Performances Double in a Decade Statistics from Opera America for the season just ended show 60 North American works performed by professional companies, against 34 a decade ago. The most frequently performed work in that category in 1999-2000 was Porgy & Bess, followed, in order, by Susannah, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Baby Doe, The Rake's Progress, Of Mice and Men. Opera America, an association of opera companies, reports that over 100 new North American operas were premiered in the past decade, 37 of them getting more than a single production. Almost half of the new works were introduced by companies with budgets under $1 million, only 25 percent by companies with top budgets, meaning over $7.5 million.
A Quasthoff Sampler Mike Richter, classical music's answer to Napster (minus the profits and court injunction), has been offering free illustrated mini-lectures on singers for the past six years, changing content every week. The current edition on http://mrichter.simplenet.com/ includes downloadable selections by bass-baritone (and occasional tenor) Thomas Quasthoff. Look for the link [A "Lieder singer" out of his Fach].
"OPERA-L": A List for Operachniks On August 21, Opera-L will turn 10 years old -- an eternity in cyber-years. For an eventful decade, the Internet list on opera (http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/opera-l.html) has served an international community of opera fans. Started in Brazil and now distributed from New York City to more than 2,000 participants, Opera-L is both a discussion forum (at times not for the faint-hearted) and a source of information through references and links. Hosted by the City University of New York and administered by Robert Kosovsky, Opera-L is often ahead of more conventional news sources about the world of opera -- although, on the average, even less accurate.
"Prima la musica"? No, First the Words, Then the Binary Files At first, the Internet offered only discussion about music -- sterile text in e-mail and newsgroups. The bloated, inefficient WAV format did little to help, but diversity is now in full -- and often confusing -- bloom. Sites on the World Wide Web offer not only classical recordings in the economical MP3 format but libretti (http://php.indiana.edu/~lneff/libretti.html), MIDI scores (http://www.novanet.it/bianchini/), and even full, printable scores (http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/scores.html). For those who wonder if there is anybody besides the Three Tenors singing today, audio demonstrations abound at http://www.crosswinds.net/~greatvoices/. Not long ago, there was only text, and now resource sites such as these are all over the place, almost all of them providing information, goods, and services for FREE.
Sansom to Leap from London to San Francisco Bruce Sansom ended his career with the Royal Ballet last week, dancing Des Grieux in Kenneth Macmillan's Manon, and receiving masses of flowers and standing ovations. At 36, Sansom is a bit young to retire, but he is off to a new career with the San Francisco Ballet administration. The London press, while paying tribute to Sansom, has also expressed the hope that the dancer will eventually return home to apply what he will have learned in San Francisco about leading a successful classical ballet company.
(Janos Gereben is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group and technology editor for www.the451.com) ©2000 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved |
