Les opéras dans la ville, première partie: le Palais Garnier (version français) par Alan Miller

Paon

Imaginez un paon à l’Opéra de Paris. Après avoir emprunté le Métro de son nid au parc Bagatelle, il passe l’entracte en mangeant un canapé de huit euros. Lorsque nous regardons cet oiseau cultivé, ses plumes commencent à mêler avec l’architecture de Charles Garnier. Le paon est-il la preuve que l’ornement vient de la nature? Certes, il n’est pas un oiseau “moderniste,” ses couleurs ne sont pas aussi nettes, aussi précises que, par exemple, le perroquet roi d’Australie. Son plumage est comme le Palais Garnier, subtile, dépendant de texture et lumière autant que couleur. Pour nous dans le monde contemporain, les bâtiments si ornés sont quelquefois difficile à lire. Cette architecture d’autrefois soustraient les sentiments flous, l’émerveillement plutôt que l’analyse.

Lizez le reste au Berksire Review!

Le Salon du Dessin 2012 – UPDATE: Jorinde Voigt has won the Contemporary Drawing Prize of the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Art Foundation, by Michael Miller


Salon-dessins-anonymes

Father and son in the gallery of anonymous drawings at the Salon du Dessins, 2010. Photo © 2010 Michael Miller.

Knowing the Salon du Dessin at first hand, and contemplating its 2012 iteration, I find myself thinking back on the world of master drawings as it was when I first entered it in 1980 and how it has changed over the years. Attended by over 13,000 people in 2010, the Salon is a large, public event which spans five days. It brings together the larger part of the world’s curators, scholars, collectors, and dealers in the field in a busy, but rarely overcrowded public space, the Palais de la Bourse. One can survey the available stock at the dealers’ stands, attend conferences, lectures, and guided tours, visit exhibitions at the Bourse and at Paris museums, as well as satellite enterprises around the Hôtel Drouot, where drawings can be had at auction, and further afield. There is a wealth of opportunities to learn about drawings, as well as to collect them. In 1980, no one thought that a fair of this size might ever exist in the field, and in its early years, during the 1990s, no one ever thought it would grow to these dimensions.

Of course the Salon du Dessin is relatively small, considering that Art Basel Miami attracted 40,000 people that same year (2010) and jumped to 50,000 the following year, and in 2010 the Armory Show in New York attracted over 60,000 visitors in over a five-day run. On the other hand, 13,000 seems enormous, if you consider that drawings comprise only one type of artwork, defined by media and methods that can somehow be related to a representation in line and shadowed areas on a flat surface, classically embodied in a pen, chalk, or graphite drawing on a sheet of paper, but including at one end of the chronological spectrum a potsherd and at the other the Retina display of the new iPad.

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Virtuosity and More in Behzod Abduraimov’s Piano Recital

Behzodabduraimov

Behzod Abduraimov. From behzodabduraimov.com.

City Recital Hall, Angel Place: 26 March 2012
Abduraimov plays in Adelaide 29-31 March

Domenico Scarlatti - Three Keyboard Sonatas: Allegro in B minor Kk27, Allegro in G minor Kk450, Allegrissimo in D major Kk96
Beethoven – Sonata no. 7 in D, opus 10 no. 3
Brahms – Variations on a Theme of Paganini, opus 35: Book 1
Liszt (and Horowitz) (arr)Danse Macabre, S555 after Danse Macabre, opus 40 by Saint-Saëns
LisztHarmonies poétiques et religieuses, S173: 3. Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude,
Mephisto Waltz no. 1, S154

Behzod Abduraimov – piano

Having already played the Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto three times with Vladimir Ashkenazy last week, Behzod Abduraimov played this one-off recital, and a grueling one it was. It is a very nice idea, though, for the Sydney Symphony to arrange these solo recitals of some of their visiting pianists (there will be three more recitals this year) as we get a chance to hear more of their personal character than is expressed in the big symphonic concert hall with the orchestra. As the Symphony’s artistic director and chief conductor, and moreover as a great pianist himself, Ashkenazy has invited or at least agreed to play with, some wonderful and characterful pianists, especially Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Stephen Hough last year. Behzod Abduraimov who only made his first tour a few years ago (with Ashkenazy and the SSO, as it happens), has a very definite style which he expresses always without reserve, his interpretations always having clarity. Even if it is different from your own thoughts or interpretation of a piece or from your favorite pianists (he is very different from Horowitz, though I believe the comparison has been made in the past) his style is strongly magnetic and his interpretations convincing enough to draw one into his musical world, and it is of course healthy and fun to hear new and varied interpretations of old favorites.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Elena Xanthoudakis Sings Rare Romantic Lieder with Jason Xanthoudakis, Clarinet and Clemens Leske, Piano by Andrew Miller

1940-12

The Mermaid, 1910 Howard Pyle (1853-1911) Oil on canvas, 57 7/8 x 40 1/8 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Gift of the children of Howard Pyle in memory of their mother, Anne Poole Pyle, 1940

Recital Hall West, Sydney Conservatorium of Music: 24 March, 2012
The Trio plays again in Melbourne at the Melbourne Recital Centre, Salon at 6 PM on 31 March.

Johann Baptist Wenzel KalliwodaHeimathlied
Conradin KreutzerDas Mühlrad
Franz LachnerSeit ich ihn gesehen and Er, der Herrlichste von allen from Frauenliebe und -leben
Johann Baptist Wenzel Kalliwoda – Der Sennin Heimweh
Franz SchubertRomanze (Helen’s air from Die Verschworenen) and Der Hirt auf dem Felsen
Robert SchumannDrei Fantasiestücke
Heinrich Proch – Schweitzers Heimweh and Die gefangene Nachtigall
Johann SobeckMeine Heimat
Peter von Lindtpainter - Der Hirt und das Meerweib

TrioKROMA -
Elena Xanthoudakis – soprano
Jason Xanthoudakis – clarinet
Clemens Leske – piano

With an impressive list of singing competition wins and opera roles, not least her brilliant Eurydice and Sibyl in the Pinchgut Opera’s production of Haydn’s opera of the Orpheus myth L’anima del Filosofo in 2010, Elena Xanthoudakis is now directing her energies toward researching and rediscovering Romantic Lieder written for trio, here soprano, clarinet, and piano, and she is doing done so in style with a definite passion for the genre, which is fitting to the original spirit of the music. The trio have recorded a CD called “The Shepherd and the Mermaid” of some of their finds (which I haven’t yet heard) and here perform the songs on it, including parts of Franz Lachner’s version of von Chamisso’s Frauenliebe und -leben cycle better known perhaps in the Schumann version and perhaps even the Loewe version. They are also publishing these pieces in print under the Kroma Editions name so all can have the opportunity to play them, obviously many of these are not on the usual free sheet music sites on the ‘net, having had to be dug out of libraries in London and Vienna, and some (according to Xanthoudakis) have never been recorded.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

The Drawing Site to Retire Soon. Look for Michael Miller Old Master Drawings.

by  • MAR 26, 2012 • PRINT-FRIENDLY

Addio-drawing-site-610

Launched in 1998, shortly after its sister site, Drawing Materials and TechniquesThe Drawing Site, originally the Web presence of Michael Miller Lucy Vivante Fine Arts, Inc., also received About.com’s “Best of the Net” Award for September 1999. The site has been altered little since then and looks its age. It will retire, perhaps to reemerge in some new form, but its original purpose as a center for knowledge on master drawings of all periods and as a source for collectors will pass on to Michael Miller Old Master Drawings[http://oldmasterdrawings.net], which is still under construction.

As at The Drawing Site I shall offer research, publications, curatorial services, exhibitions, consultation for collectors and institutions, and buy and sell master drawings of all periods, as well as other works of art.

Please come by to pay your last respects. There is something new on offer there, a curious and very fine American calligraphic drawing, made in 1854, to honor the marriage or Lavinia and Wesley Hill.

Read the full announcement on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Le Salon du Dessin 2012: a Preview, with an Invitation for Newcomers, by Michael Miller

by  • MAR 26, 2012 • PRINT-FRIENDLY

Salon-dessins-anonymes

Father and son in the gallery of anonymous drawings at the Salon du Dessins, 2010. Photo © 2010 Michael Miller.

Knowing the Salon du Dessin at first hand, and contemplating its 2012 iteration, I find myself thinking back on on the world of master drawings as it was when I first entered it in 1980 and how it has changed over the years. Attended by over 13,000 people in 2010, the Salon is a large, public event which spans five days. It brings together the larger part of the world’s curators, scholars, collectors, and dealers in the field in a busy, but rarely overcrowded public space, the Palais de la Bourse. One can survey the available stock at the dealers’ stands, attend conferences, lectures, and guided tours, visit exhibitions at the Bourse and at Paris museums, as well as satellite enterprises around the Hôtel Drouot, where drawings can be had at auction, and further afield. There is a wealth of opportunities to learn about drawings, as well as to collect them. In 1980, no one thought that a fair of this size might ever exist in the field, and in its early years, during the 1990s, no one ever thought it would grow to these dimensions.

Read the full preview on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony Play Prokofiev with Behzod Abduraimov, Berlioz and Elliott Gyger, by Andrew Miller

by  • MAR 25, 2012 • PRINT-FRIENDLY

Hector-berlioz-par-nadar

Hector Berlioz. Photo by Nadar.

Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall: 22 March, 2012 matinée

Elliott Gyger – on air, dialogue for orchestra
Prokofiev - Piano Concerto no. 3 in C, opus 26
Berlioz – Harold in Italy – Symphony, opus 16

Behzod Abduraimov – piano

Roger Benedict – viola

Vladimir Ashkenazy – conductor
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra

This fascinating and varied program, each piece using equally colorful but very different orchestras and very different forms and structures, shows us some of the breadth of the Sydney Symphony. Their style is nimble enough to express itself in multifarious ways and Ashkenazy’s style and approach to symphonic music is well suited to the three pieces.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony Play Prokofiev with Behzod Abduraimov, Berlioz and Elliott Gyger

Hector-berlioz-par-nadar


Hector Berlioz. Photo by Nadar.


Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall: 22 March, 2012 matinée

Elliott Gyger – on air, dialogue for orchestra
Prokofiev - Piano Concerto no. 3 in C, opus 26
BerliozHarold in Italy – Symphony, opus 16

Behzod Abduraimov – piano

Roger Benedict – viola

Vladimir Ashkenazy – conductor
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra

This fascinating and varied program, each piece using equally colorful but very different orchestras and very different forms and structures, shows us some of the breadth of the Sydney Symphony. Their style is nimble enough to express itself in multifarious ways and Ashkenazy’s style and approach to symphonic music is well suited to the three pieces. To mark the occasion of the orchestra’s 80thanniversary, they have done something special in commissioning themselves a new piece by way of an open competition. Elliott Gyger’s entry was chosen, and though only alloted a short amount of time to fit into this larger program of more familiar pieces, it does rather expand under the intensity of its short broken up motifs and its varied colors, sounds and textures, qualities Ashkenazy, at least as a conductor, seems to relish. The piece’s title refers to the SSO’s origin as a radio orchestra formed along with the Australian Broadcast Corporation in 1932. Gyger says he used an ensemble of 17 instruments, the same in the original 1932 radio orchestra, which for his “dialogue” are spread through the larger orchestra: three violins, viola, cello, bass, two each of  trombones, trumpets and clarinets, a horn, sousaphone, piccolo, piano and percussion.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the arts!

Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Ton Koopman, Conductor, in Bach’s Magnificat and Two Leipzig Cantatas, by Michael Miller


Ton-koopman
Ton Koopman

Lincoln Center presents Great Performers
Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater
Mar. 15 at 7:30

Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir
Ton Koopman, conductor

Teresa Wakim, soprano
Bogna Bartosz, alto
Tilman Lichdi, tenor
Klaus Mertens, bass-baritone

All-Bach program:

Du Hirte Israel, höre, Cantata BWV 104
Magnificat in D major, BWV 243
Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, Cantata BWV 147

Last September I attended a remarkable performance of Bach's B Minor Mass at Emmanuel Church in Boston under their admirable new Music Director, Ryan Turner, who is a singer and came to Emmanuel Music as a member of the chorus. By working his singers and instrumentalists into a deep literal and spiritual understanding of the score and giving them a great deal of expressive freedom, he revealed the spirit of the Mass in the most direct and moving way. In it, Bach plotted his course toward the happy state of the faithful Christian, who is blessed with some intimation or perhaps experience of the Kingdom of Heaven. On March 15 in Alice Tully Hall I shared in an equally life-affirming experience in a concert which explored other joyful aspects of Bach's church music. While the approach to Ton Koopman and his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra was more historically conscious and intellectually distanced, the spirit of the music and its liturgical message came across no less vividly. It was in fact a joy in itself to hear some of Bach's greatest music played and sung with such accuracy, sureness, and understanding.

Read the full review on New York Arts

Rafael Bonachela and the Sydney Dance Company in a New Work Called “2 One Another” by Andrew Miller

Sdc_2oneanother-1

Chen Wen of the Sydney Dance Company in Rafael Bonachela's "2 One Another". Photo by Ken Butti.

2 One Another
Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay: 13 March 2012
continues in Sydney until 31 March

The Sydney Dance Company
Choreographer – Rafael Bonachela
Production Design – Tony Assness
Lighting Design – Benjamin Cisterne
Music – Nick Wales, with existing music by Murcof, Monteverdi, Hidur Gudnadottir, Giovanni Bassano, Pēteris Vasks
Text – Samuel Webster

The Sydney Dance Company’s artistic director and chief choreographer Rafael Bonachela has assembled a large group of collaborators to create this new contemporary or interpretive (as you please to call it) dance piece called 2 One Another. Combining words, music of widely varying genres and styles, (contemporary visual) art and movement, it would seem to aim at a kind of reaching Gesamtkunstwerk, or perhaps a less grand loose collaboration.

Bonachela’s new creation begins with calm, silent (without even music) gesturing from the whole company gathered on stage. The gestures seem as organized and complex as a sign language but are not really comprehensible except for a gist, at least not until later, a bit like when a (wild) parrot lands on your balcony railing and starts chattering to you, very slightly reproachful when you don’t give the proper response in the same language. For the first half, the dancers wear plain gray body stockings of varying length with vivid lime green zippers up the back (see photo), almost as if they were wind up toys or soft animals with music boxes. The scene gives way to a more frenetic one with unsettled, fraught music, more electronic sounds, sometimes recalling a jackhammer, or thunder, or like some science fictional machine. Even where the music sounds a bit video gamish and repetitive, the choreography manages to retain its humanity, though the movements can be combative — the high sudden kicks give a little jolt of comic bookishness and though this movement is used too often so its effect is diluted, the dancing manages to veer away from falling into any such mundane tendency. In fact, the piece has much more to it generally than these stylized fights, as alarming and sensational as they are. The movements are rarely naturalistic, only in brief lingering gestures or flashes — a reach towards the other partner, a quarter roll prostrate on the floor, a weightier dropping movement of despair or just release or what have you, or letting the other partner, both man and woman at different times, provide all of the support. The photos here give a very good feel of the work, though it is not so posed as they might lead one to think; theses “poses” are fleeting. Where there is a clichéd gesture — an unsubtle one-shoulder shrug, a splayed crouch, one of those exaggerated martial arts-style high kicks — it is very brief and there is so much going on at once in the multiple groups of dancers so often on the stage, each has their own steps and movements in the detailed and intricate choreography.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!