Leila Josefowicz plays Shostakovich and Schubert at Wigmore Hall

Leila Josefowicz

Leila Josefowicz, violin
John Novacek, piano
Shostakovich: Violin Sonata Op. 134
Schubert: Rondo brilliant in B minor D. 895

The hollow man. Shostakovich was demoralized and spent after suffering a serious heart attack in 1964. The politically craven Symphony No. 12 and the politically courageous Symphony No. 13 had dangled him between the two poles of his nature. A visit from Benjamin Britten revived his spirits in 1967, and two years later Shostakovich produced one of his late masterpieces, the Violin Sonata, a severe work based, after Britten’s instigation, on the twelve-tone system. But as with Agon, which is twelve-tone but sounds every note like Stravinsky, the sonata’s gray, spare lament could have come from nobody but Shostakovich. It exhausts an audience, even the redoubtable Wiggies (that is, the faithful patrons of Wigmore Hall) but when a committed soloist plays it, a soul beats loudly inside the enervating despair.

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

Michael Miller


Tennessee Williams' Spring Storm at the National Theatre

Spring-storm-001
A scene from Spring Storm at the National Theatre

Spring Storm 
by Tennessee Williams
National Theatre of Great Britain
Directed by Laurie Sansom

Not out or proud.

In his mid-twenties Tennessee Williams went to a playwriting workshop in Iowa and produced a nearly three-hour-long drama that was caustically received by his tutor and fellow students. Chagrined, he consigned it to the bottom drawer while mining many of its motifs for his acknowledged masterpieces, The Glass Menagerie

 and A Streetcar Named Desire. Nothing more was heard of Spring Storm (1937) until twenty years after Williams’s piteous accidental death in 1983. Salvaged from his archived papers, the play was given a reading in New York and a couple of regional stagings, to no great acclaim. Critics called it intriguing juvenilia.

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

Michael Miller


Caravaggio throughout Italy, by Daniel Gallagher

David-and-goliath-2
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Self-Portrait as Goliath
Museums throughout Italy are hosting exhibits to commemorate the sixth-hundredth anniversary of the death of Michelangelo Merisi: the so-called “Caravaggio.” The year began in Rome with Caravaggio and Bacon
 at the Galleria Borghese and the slightly less contrived, but equally imaginative, “Caravaggio-Lotto-Ribera” at the Musei Civici agli Eremitani in Padova. Naples spread six thematically related exhibits throughout the city to highlight the connections between Caravaggio and late-Baroque Neapolitan masters like Luigi Vanvitelli and Ferdinando Fuga (Ritorno al Barocco, da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli). The Palatina Gallery in Florence is featuring Caravaggio e Caravaggeschi until October 10th, after which several of those works will move to Rimini for Caravaggio e altri pittori del XVII secolo. Perhaps most notable was an exhibit that recently closed at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome. Conceived by Claudio Strinati and organized by Rossella Vodret and Francesco Buranelli, it featured a unique collection of Caravaggio’s most famous works collected from museums worldwide. A record 4,000 visitors thronged to see these masterpieces on opening day, well exceeding the 2,500 printed tickets.

The truth is that Caravaggio did not die along the beach of Feniglia, but in the hospital of Santa Maria Ausiliatrice in Porto Ercole on July 18th, 1610, after having received the sacraments. The exact cause of his death remains a mystery. Textbooks say syphilis, meteorologists sunstroke. Simon Schama, in his BBC series The Power of Art, suggests that it may have been partly due to sheer exhaustion as Caravaggio desperately pursued the ship carrying paintings that were supposed to be the key to his papal pardon.

In typical Italian fashion, a team of scholars has recently capitalized on this special anniversary by announcing that the painter’s remains have been identified by DNA testing, and that, presuming the bones really are his, Caravaggio seems to have died of lead poisoning: a fact, they claim, which would also explain Caravaggio’s erratic and violent behavior: common symptoms of lead poisoning. That Caravaggio was an irascible character is fairly certain; whether his irascibility is evidence for death by lead poisoning is another matter. Yet perhaps the more pressing task this year is to understand who the man was rather than how he died.

Much of what we presume about Caravaggio comes to us by way of a biography written by Giovanni Baglione, a mediocre painter who once had Caravaggio summoned to court after taking offence at an ironic sonnet the latter had composed in Baglione’s honor. Indeed, Baglione’s account often reads like a tale of jealousy motivated by a slight inferiority complex, helping to perpetuate the image of Caravaggio as an impulsive, undisciplined, sexually distraughtmaledetto who was hostile towards the church, dismissive of tradition, and generally indignant towards authority. No surprise, therefore, that Caravaggio is also championed as a precursor of Nietzschean nihilism.

An attentive study of written records together with the paintings themselves has led several respected Italian scholars, including Maurizio Calvesi, Maurizio Marini, Alessandro Zuccari, and Marco Pupilio, to present Caravaggio in more subtle, though no less complex, terms. Born of a moderately noble stock, Michelangelo Merisi’s father Fermo was tutor to Francesco Sforza, the marquis of the area from which Caravaggio takes his name. As a lad, Michelangelo was privileged to receive a fine Milanese education that was then furthered by the patronage of the Colonna and Borromeo families. The latter in particular had a lasting influence on both the religious climate of Lombardy and Caravaggio’s own spiritual sensibilities. The painter’s abiding sympathy for the weakness and sinfulness of the human condition began in Milan as he witnessed first-hand the solicitous care that the Borromeo family gave to the victims of the severe plague that ravaged the city in 1575. Caravaggio learned from the Borromeos that acts of mercy accord with the Gospel counsel to care for the sick, and he was reportedly introduced to a northern-Italian, counter-Reformation spirituality that emphasized identifying Christ in the poor.

poeton the Berkshire Review for the Arts!

Michael Miller


Tennessee Williams' Spring Storm at the National Theatre

Spring-storm-001
A scene from Spring Storm at the National Theatre

Spring Storm 
by Tennessee Williams
National Theatre of Great Britain
Directed by Laurie Sansom

Not out or proud.

In his mid-twenties Tennessee Williams went to a playwriting workshop in Iowa and produced a nearly three-hour-long drama that was caustically received by his tutor and fellow students. Chagrined, he consigned it to the bottom drawer while mining many of its motifs for his acknowledged masterpieces, The Glass Menagerie

 and A Streetcar Named Desire. Nothing more was heard of Spring Storm (1937) until twenty years after Williams’s piteous accidental death in 1983. Salvaged from his archived papers, the play was given a reading in New York and a couple of regional stagings, to no great acclaim. Critics called it intriguing juvenilia.

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

Michael Miller


Daniel Harding, Renaud Capuçon, and the LSO play Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 and Bruckner's Seventh

Daniel-harding
Daniel Harding


London Symphony Orchestra
1 July 2010, Barbican Hall

Renaud Capuçon - violin
Daniel Harding - conductor

Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1
Bruckner, Symphony No. 7

Dandies and philosophers. I hate the use of the word “warhorse” to describe beloved music that is taxed by being overly familiar. But almost nobody refers to the Bruch violin concerto in any other way. It’s a frayed Victorian valentine, relying on luscious melody, the scent of heliotrope, and moonlight over the Tyrol as its claim to fame. The young French violinist Renaud Capuçon accepted this without a blush or smirk. He was determined to give a reading as gorgeously romantic as taste would allow. His success centered on a honeyed but never syrupy tone. More than that, he knew how to blend into the orchestral strings, which served not to drown him out but to amplify his sound. (Here I think Capuçon was taking advantage of the three years when he served as first among equals as concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.)

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

Michael Miller


Achim Freyer's Rocky Horror Ring takes over Los Angeles!

Wotan consults Erda in the LA Opera's Siegfried. Wotan's sacrificed eye never leaves the stage and sometimes multiplies itself. Photo Monika Rittershaus.


Richard Wagner,

 Der Ring des Nibelungen

LA Opera, May 29, 30, June 3, 6 2010
Dressing up in a monkey suit is a time-honored profession in Hollywood. Many is the young actor or layabout who has earned a few dollars by dressing up as a gorilla  —  or Batman or Chewbacca — and going out into the streets with pamphlets to spread the good news about some new deli or used car lot or strip show. For a while, gorilla suits were popular in the studios as well. (That’s a whole genre that’s almost entirely forgotten today.) I reflected on this, as, on the eve of 
Das Rheingold,
 I drove along Sunset Boulevard, observing the crowds of tourists in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, along with a group of people dressed up as comic book heroes who were available to pose with the visitors. I wondered if any of them thought about the impoverishment of the imagination that these comic book figures have brought to the movies. Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston, and Bette Davis all created characters in their own way, even if they remained recognizable as themselves in their parts. We know what to expect from Batman and Darth Vader simply by their costume, their design, or merely the outline of their shadow on a fictitious pavement. Characterization and acting are superfluous, even though some of these characters have human vehicles, who are dutifully provided with origins, relationships, and dilemmas, by screenwriters who know that they can only sink so low.

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

Michael Miller



Begin forwarded message:

From: Ring Festival LA <info@RingFestivalLA.com>

Date: April 8, 2010 6:40:14 PM EDT

To: editor@berkshirereview.net

Subject: An Evening with James Conlon at Hammer Museum

Reply-To: Ring Festival LA <cbabcock@RingFestivalLA.com>


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James Conlon is the Richard Seaver Music Director of LA Opera and a Grammy Award-winning conductor. Conlon has appeared as guest conductor with virtually every major North American and European orchestra and has been a frequent guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera for more than 30 years.

Ring Festival LA is a citywide series of special exhibitions, performances, symposia, and events centered on LA Opera's upcoming presentation of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle, the first time that the epic masterwork will be presented in its entirety in Los Angeles.

For more info, please visit: www.hammer.ucla.edu


UCLA Arts Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd. at Westwood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024 | 310-443-7000
Parking is available under the Museum for $3 for 3 hrs, or $3 after 6pm.


All Hammer Public Programs are Free
Tickets are free but required for programs that take place in the Billy Wilder Theater and are available at the Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Tickets are not required for programs that take place in Gallery 6, or other Museum venues. Seating is available on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.



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SF Symphony: Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Berlioz, with Sasha Cooke, mezzo, and Jonathan Vinocour, viola, by Steven Kruger

Sasha_cooke
Sasha Cooke, Mezzo Soprano. Photo Nick Granito.


The San Francisco Symphony
Davies Hall, San Francisco
Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Michael Tilson Thomas, Conducting
Sasha Cooke, Mezzo-Soprano
Jonathan Vinocour, Viola

Berlioz, Roman Carnival Overture, Opus 9 (1844)

Les Nuits d'Ete,
 Opus 7 (1843/1855/1856)
Harold In Italy, Opus 16 (1834)

With the conclusion of last week's Symphony performances, the official concert year in San Francisco has come to a vivid but unexpected close. Normally, at this time of year, one anticipates listening to a monumental end-of-season work, but logistical difficulties this time prevented the orchestra from putting on Berlioz's elaborate dramatic symphony, Romeo et

 Juliette. Not to worry!

The Symphony audience was ultimately none the worse for its finale, experiencing instead Les Nuits d’Été and the still insufficiently heraldedHarold in Italy, in fine performances served up by MTT, with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and violist Jonathan Vinocour. A snappy rendition of the Roman Carnival Overture began the proceedings, highlighted by Russ deLuna's unusually characterful English horn.

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

Michael Miller


Temirkanov and the Philharmonia in Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev

Temirkanov2
Yuri Temirkanov


Philharmonia Orchestra
Viktoria Postnikova, piano
Yuri Temirkanov, conductor

Prokofiev, Cinderella Suite (excerpts)
Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique"

Remains of the day.

The socialist romance still lingers around Royal Festival Hall, whose lower reaches are done up with cafes and bars open to the outside, welcoming jostling crowds in flip flops and t-shirts. Concertgoers gingerly thread their way through this perpetual beach party, trying not to look elitist in polished brogues and Stella McCartney tops. I was defying jet lag to hear the elegant Philharmonia play its last concert of the season under Yuri Temirkanov, and happily, the music delivered even more than it promised. Temirkaonov and his younger peer, Valery Gergiev, are the twin pillars of post-Soviet conducting. For any rival to poach on their private reserve – all of Russian orchestral music – runs the risk of serious embarrassment.

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

Michael Miller


Everything but the Vuvuzela: Brazilian Music comes to Tannery Pond – Paula Robison, Romero Lubambo, Cyro Baptista Trio at the Tannery Pond Concerts

Paula Robison, Romero Lubambo, Cyro Baptista Trio at the Tannery Pond Concerts
An evening of Brazilian Music for flute, guitar and percussion
Saturday, June 19, 2010, 8:00 pm
(reprinted from the Boston Musical Intelligencer)

Music that is somehow outside the accepted parameters of classical music appears at the Tannery Pond Concerts once or twice every season. For example, in 2008, soprano Amy Burton and pianist John Musto presented a program of show tunes from Broadway and the Grands Boulevards. Or mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, whose singing of Vivaldi, Handel, and Rossini is so highly regarded in Europe and America, combined German Lieder with zarzuela numbers, an enthusiasm she acquired from her Mexican-born mother. Now, for Tannery’s 20th anniversary season, Music Director Christian Steiner has asked Paula Robison and her colleagues, Romero Lubambo and Cyro Baptista (both Brazilians who have settled in the United States) to return after a ten-year absence, to play the Brazilian music which has attracted a warmly enthusiastic following since the early 90’s when they first began playing together.

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

Michael Miller


A Singer's Notes by Keith Kibler 16: Pélleas et Mélisande

Mary Garden as Mélisande
Mary Garden as Mélisande

Why has Debussy's Mélisande become a mezzo-soprano role? Maybe David Mamet has given me the answer to this. The playwright and bomb-thrower tells us in his new book Theatre that actors are in almost every case better off without a director, their own instincts leading the way. Mélisande has been sounding lower and lower over the decades (and Pélleas, too, for he always follow her wherever she goes). Here are the explanations we get: the part is low (surely Debussy realized this, yet did not change it, as he did for a baritone Pélleas), the orchestras are larger, the halls are larger, and maybe mezzos just want to do it. I have now in my imagination the idea that a century of cynicism has altered the instincts of the finest singers of the role, and also its finest hearers. Mary Garden certainly, I'm almost certain, did not chirp. She was a soprano, she was a Scottish-American from Chicago, she was the first Mélisande.


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

Michael Miller