Katharina Wagner's Die Meistersinger, now in its Fourth Year at Bayreuth, by Michael Miller

James Rutherford as Hans Sachs communes with the Authorities in Die Meistersinger, Act II, sc. 1. Photo Bayreuther Festspiele GmbH / Enrico Nawrath.


Richard Wagner, 

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Musical Direction - Sebastian Weigle
Stage Direction - Katharina Wagner
Set Design - Tilo Steffens
Costume Design - Michaela Barth, Tilo Steffens
Lighting - Andreas Grüter
Choirmaster - Eberhard Friedrich

Hans Sachs, Schuster - James Rutherford
Veit Pogner, Goldschmied - Artur Korn
Kunz Vogelgesang, Kürschner - Charles Reid
Konrad Nachtigal, Spengler - Rainer Zaun
Sixtus Beckmesser, Stadtschreiber - Adrian Eröd
Fritz Kothner, Bäcker - Markus Eiche
Balthasar Zorn, Zinngießer - Edward Randall
Ulrich Eisslinger, Würzkrämer - Florian Hoffmann
Augustin Moser, Schneider - Stefan Heibach
Hermann Ortel, Seifensieder - Martin Snell
Hans Schwarz, Strumpfwirker - Mario Klein
Hans Foltz, Kupferschmied - Diógenes Randes
Walther von Stolzing - Klaus Florian Vogt
David, Sachsens Lehrbube - Norbert Ernst
Eva, Pogners Tochter - Michaela Kaune
Magdalene, Evas Amme - Carola Guber
Ein Nachtwächter - Friedemann Röhlig

I won't even say that I wish that, in beginning with Katharina Wagner's production of Die Meistersinger,

 I was starting on a cheerful note. Nothing of the kind. Katharina has studiously avoided her great grandfather's romanticized Nürnberg, where great artistic, literary, and musical achievement lurked around every corner, where the citizens dressed colorfully, where the men engaged in witty exchanges, while the girls joyfully gave themselves over the dancing, if not to their young men, at every opportunity. She has, rather, chosen to focus on the repressive nature of this conservative society, as embodied in the guild system, the obsessive power of routine in daily life, its neuroses, and, yes, its nightmares. Having a certain penchant for black humor and oddity, I entered with pleasure into my five-hour visit to this frightening and pitiable world, and I laughed, quite a bit, which, I should hope, is the desired result of any Meistersinger production. If my laughter was a trifle sour at times, it's not entirely alien from the sarcastic wit of Wagner's libretto. Hence, I am pleased to say that Katharina Wagner won her war, buoyed up by a splendid vocal, orchestral, and comedic performance, which had its own vigorous life, no matter how strange the goings-on on stage. And, if one is open-minded enough not to resist these, one can expect to gain a fair bit of insight into human nature, history, and Richard Wagner's comic masterpiece.
Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller




Seeking Solitude in Venice, by Michael Miller

The Piazza San Marco with Softcore Billboard. Photo Michael Miller 2010.

It's been some years since I've been in Venice, and I found the state of the Piazza S. Marco disturbing. I was appalled by the huge ads for clothing and champagne which dominated both the Piazza and the Piazzetta — now the subject of a formal protest published in the Art Newspaper ("Ads of Sighs,") The Art Newspaper,

 Friday, October 8, 2010), to which the mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, has given a reply worthy of Glen Beck: "If people want to see the building they should go home and look at a picture of it in a book." Shame! The Accademia is also encased in one of these ads. The more I saw of them the more detestable I found them. And they only bring in "€40,000 a month for three years to cover part of Doge’s Palace overlooking the lagoon and connecting with the Bridge of Sighs—less than two pages of advertising in a daily paper."
Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller




Roland Petit with the Paris Opera Ballet, by Andrew Miller

Stéphane Bullion and Emilie Cozette in Roland Petit's Le Loup

 

Le Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris
Palais Garnier

Le Rendez-Vous
Joseph Kosma - Music
Roland Petit - Choreography
Jacques Prévert - Story
Pablo Picasso - Front curtain
Brassaï - Sets
Mayo - Costumes

Le Loup
Jean Anouilh and Georges Neveu - Story
Henri Dutilleux - Music
Roland Petit - Choreography
Carzou - Sets and costumes

Le Jeune Homme et la Mort
Jean Cocteau - Story
Johann Sebastian Bach - Music, Passacaglia en C minor
Roland Petit - Choreography
Georges Wakhévitch - Sets and costumes, Costumes after Karinska

The Étoiles, Principal Dancers and Corps de Ballet
Orchestre Colonne
Yannis Pouspourikas Conductor

In the decade after the second world war, Paris and London, in addition to the big national companies, supported a myriad of small and prolific ballet companies. One of these was Boris Kochno's Ballets des Champs-Elysées. Kochno had been Serge Diaghelev's secretary in the Ballets Russes days, so in a way it was he who inherited the Ballets Russes tradition in Europe while Colonel de Basil and Serge Denham's two respective Ballets Russes spin-offs were still touring the US and Australia. Kochno, as artistic director, founded the company with writer Jean Cocteau, and dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, who had trained in the Paris Opera Ballet School and danced in the corps de ballet until the Liberation. In 1948 Petit started his own small company, the Ballets de Paris, which only lasted a few years, but managed to cause great excitement in Paris and travelled well to London. Indeed, he worked with Margot Fontaine several times. We don't often get to see his ballets nowadays (though there are also a great many other modern ballets from those years, even some of Michel Fokine's, that don't get much air either), but the Paris Opera Ballet is currently showing three of Petit's short pieces, Le Rendez-vous (1945), Le Loup (1953) and Le Jeune Homme et La Mort (1946) which have been in the national company's repertoire since 1992, 1975 and 1990 respectively. 

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review for Arts


Arnulf Rainer: der Übermaler, Alte Pinakothek (Munich), closed September 5th, 2010, by Dan Gallagher

Rainer
Arnulf Rainer

I have long deemed Munich’s Alte Pinakothek one of the most underrated museums in Europe. Thanks to aristocratic connoisseurs like William IV, Maximilian I, and Ludwig I, the city now boasts an outstanding collection of Renaissance, Dutch, and Flemish masterpieces. The museum is well complimented by Alexander Freiherr von Branca’s Neue Pinakothek and Stephan Braunfels’s Pinakothek der Moderne since 2002. In fact, these robust institutions have allowed Munich’s Kunstareal to rise above the current economic crisis as promising young talent finds a slow but steady stream of patrons.

Read the full essay on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller



Wagner and Masks, by Katherine Syer, after a lecture given at LACMA for the LA Ring Festival and Achim Freyer's Ring

Mime and Loge converse in Nibelheim. From Das Rheingold, Los Angeles, 2010, directed designed (together with Amanda Freyer) by Achim Freyer


[Adapted from a presentation delivered as part of the LA Opera “Ring Festival” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2010]

The production aesthetics of the recent Los Angeles Ring

 set it far apart from any other North American production of Wagner’s tetralogy to date. One aspect that has divided audiences and performers alike is the director/designer Achim Freyer’s ubiquitous use of masks and puppet forms. Freyer is not the only director to resort in the past quarter century to such devices, which have gained in popularity in opera/theatre production more generally. In the Ring, Wagner himself never called for masks for his singers. His theoretical writings nevertheless alert us to ways he thought about masks and his keen interest in matters of disguise and deception — core elements of the Ring dramas. Many modern critics are appalled by the use of masks for opera singers, both for aesthetic and vocal reasons, and believe that it is antithetical to Wagner’s dramaturgy. Wagner’s theoretical interest in masks undermines this critical stance. Simultaneously, contemporary directors have discovered in masks a powerful expressive tool that reaches well beyond what Wagner recognized as the boundaries of dramatically suggestive costuming.
Read the full article on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller



The 12th Venice Biennale of Architecture by Alan Miller

Giardini

To travel in the desirable parts of the world involves waiting in line. Given this, the line to get into the 12th Venice Biennale of Architecture appeared to be mercifully short, short enough to identify those waiting in it as, if not individuals, at least stereotypes. Before the first five minutes of complete stasis had passed it was clear that the blockage at the ticket window was caused by a dapper Italian, almost certainly an architect, wearing a striped shirt and a dark tan, newspaper folded under his arm, with flowing grey hair and a beard he’d probably cultivated his entire adult life. He leaned on the counter as though it were his favorite neighborhood espresso bar. His purchase of a ticket seemed to be inhibited by endless complications. At intervals he turned to the rest of us with a shrug, as though the harried young ticket seller were evidence of how impossible it is to find good help these days. Then his mobile rang and of course he answered it, leaving the ticket seller and the rest of us waiting...

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Alan Miller

Russell Sherman to play Schumann's Kreisleriana, Fantasy, and Arabesque at NEC's Jordan Hall, October 5, 2010 - 8:00pm

Sherman
Russell Sherman, Pianist


Russell Sherman

, Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at New England Conservatory, celebrates Robert Schumann
's 200th anniversary with a recital devoted to the rich vein of the composer's opus numbers 16 through 18, Kreisleriana, Fantasy, and Arabesque. Free admission.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller




Hubbard Hall Opera Theatre presents Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel on Saturday, October 2 at 8pm at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center

The University at Albany Department of Music is pleased to present Hubbard Hall Opera Theatre in a concert version of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel on Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 8pm in the Recital Hall of the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown campus.  The opera will feature Alexina Jones, Kara Cornell, Irina Petrik, Julian Whitley, Victoria Tralongo, Hillary Esqueda and Jessica Fishenfeld accompanied by pianist Michael Clement.

Read the full previewon the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller




A Singer's Notes 24 by Keith Kibler: Words and Music

Nigel Gore and Tina Packer in Women of Will. Photo Kevin Sprague.

One Christmas my magic daughter gave me a picture of a baboon. Above it she wrote Prospero's valedictory line: "I'll drown my book." The animal had an expression of imponderable grief on its face. Words are exclusively human. But could it be said that animals sing? Music sets words free, back to their primal origin, leaping into the heart. Music is a language of knowing, of certainty. It has the raw truth of the baboon’s face. Maybe Prospero, whose name signifies hope, begins to sing when the book is drowned and the grief is past.

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller



MTT leads the San Francisco Symphony in Harrison, Copland and Tchaikovsky, by Steven Kruger

Harrison1
Lou Harrison

The San Francisco Symphony
Davies Hall, San Francisco
September 25, 2010
Michael Tilson Thomas, Conductor

Harrison - A Parade (1995)
Copland - Quiet City (1939), Russ de Luna, English Horn, Mark Inouye, Trumpet
Copland - Organ Symphony (1924), Paul Jacobs, Organ
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36 (1877)

Several solid hits and a bit of a bunt. That's how it seemed last Saturday at the San Francisco Symphony.  Returning from a recent European tour, Michael Tilson Thomas and the orchestra set before the Davies audience three American works that played brilliantly to his strengths and temperament, and a performance of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony which brought the house down, but seemed a touch undetailed.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller