Recordings Review: The Return of the Big Wagner Box

All Bayreuth, all the time.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Back in the '90s (I seem to be starting a lot of articles with that sentence these days) the then-record-company Philips released a gigantic 18" long 32-CD box set called the "Richard Wagner Edition", consisting of live recordings of all ten of the major Wagner operas. (Höllander, Tannhaüser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Meistersinger, the whole Ring and Parsifal.

Met Swings Economic Ax

Cuts four productions, revives Elektra

Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb announced today that the company will be forced to make cuts in order to survive the current economic crisis. The crisis is caused by the disappearance of $100 million of the Met's endowment fund, lost in the current financial mess on Wall Street.


Ticket prices at the big house will remain stable, although an 8% increase was considered. Additionally, Met senior staff will receive a 10% pay cut and singers will be asked to negotiate lower fees. Also, it is possible, according to an anonymous source cited by Daniel J. Wakin in today's New York Times, that the company may ask its three big unions for 10% "giveback" cuts.

However, according to Gelb, the company instead chose to cut four high-end productions for the 2009-2010 season and replace them with less expensive ones. The four operas being cancelled are:

• The company's elaborate, gorgeous Die Frau Ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss. It will be replaced by the equally gorgeous (but shorter) Ariadne auf Naxos in the Elijah Moshinksy staging. Yes, they are taking away one of my favorite Met productions but at least they are replacing it with another one that I really like!
  
  
• Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District--another elaborate modern opera, this is a powerful drama by Shostakovich and not exactly a box-office champ. Will be replaced by a much-needed revival of Elektra.
  
  
• A long-awaited reviva of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles is the last opera scrapped. It will be replaced by yet another revival of the Zefirelli staging of La Traviata.
  
  
• Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz. This opera is something of a James Levine favorite. No word yet on a replacement, but I would love to see a concert performance of Beatrice et Benedict!

The last time the Met cancelled a production it was for the singer Marcelo Alvarez. He was supposed to sing the title role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann but the production was yanked in favor of the company's not-so-classic Carmen.

In more positive news, the City Opera, still operating without a home theater and struggling to survive the chaos caused by the sudden departure of Belgian theater director Gerad Mortier, hired a new general manager today. His name is George Steel (not to be confused with retired professional wrestler George "The Animal" Steele) and he used to be the director of the Dallas Opera. Steel takes over a company in chaos and crisis, but he is smart and experienced with a good reputation.

He plans to present a somewhat truncated schedule and will guide the City Opera as it returns to its newly renovated Lincoln Center digs.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Had to repost this just because it's really interesting.



The YouTube Symphony Orchestra
Interested in joining the first-ever collaborative online orchestra? Professionals and amateur musicians of all ages, locations and instruments are welcome to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by submitting a video performance of a new piece written for the occasion by the renowned Chinese composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). We have tools to help you learn the music, rehearse with the conductor, and upload your part for the collaborative video.

And how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice and upload. Send us your talent video performance from a list of recommended pieces. Finalists will be chosen by a judging panel and YouTube users to travel to New York in April 2009, to participate in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra summit, and play at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.

The deadline for all video submissions is January 28, 2009.

CD Review: The Goodall Mastersingers

"Open The Shrine! "

Yes, we're back after a holiday absence. Welcome to the 2009 edition of the Superconductor blog-your source for the best classical music coverage that I can find time to write about.

I know things have been dead on this page for a little while--I think every serious writer goes through "down" periods of lesser creativity where you are grinding out words but, in the words of Roger Waters, "running over the same old ground." Rather than do that (and bore the audience), I sometimes take a break from blogging. Break's over. Back to work!



I'd like to open up this year's 'Conductor (yes, it's 2009, we are closing out our second year!) by writing about one of my favorite Wagner recordings. Yeah. There's a shock. I write a lot about Wagner because I happen to KNOW a lot about it--recordings, trivia, performances and those ten (yes, it's really thirteen but the canon is ten operas) magnificent mammoth musical edifices, which never cease to amaze, fascinate and sometimes stupify audiences into submission. There's lots of interesting stuff to write about, so let's get to it shall we?

This is the first-ever Chandos issue of The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, a live radio recording made in 1968 at the Sadler Wells company, and, like everything else put out by that company, sung in English. 

This is from the days long before supertitle systems. Writers would make a "singing translation", one that had the same meter and rhythm as the original words of the libretto. Wagner, with his distinctive pseudo-high-German stabreim was particularly susceptible to this practice.

Like most Goodall recordings (the British conductor also preserved his English-language Ring and a German-language Parsifal recorded in Wales, the tempos are incredibly slow, even glacial. It's ponderous, carefully thought out music making that lumbers along and demands the utmost from players forced to slow and stretch notes to fit the conductor's design. However, slow conducting can often reveal some interesting sub-textures of the musical fabric of a piece, underthemes and buried motifs that may only be apparent through perusal of a full score. 

The cast includes an excellent Alberto Remedios (who would go on to record both Siegmund and Siegfried in the Goodall Ring) and Norman Bailey, whose superb Hans Sachs is better here than on the somewhat lead-footed Solti recording from the 1970s. Yes, it's for the completist, and yes the translation of the libretto is often awkward, but this is a fascinating Meister...excuse me, Mastersingers, making a welcome arrival in the catalogue after languishing in a British vault for forty years.