Opera Review: Mozart, Occupied

New York Opera Exchange opens a Così on Wall St.
by Paul Pelkonen

Mozart: 18th century anarchist.
Photoshopped by the author.

The New York Opera Exchange is the latest example of a recent surge of small community opera companies that provide a venue for young conservatory singers on the way up. On Sunday evening at the Church of the Covenant, the NYOX offered the fourth and final performance of its first full opera production: Mozart's Così fan tutte.

Director Cameron Marcotte presented a reworked and updated version of this comedy, moving the action to Wall Street, specifically in the year 2011 as the canyons of lower Manhattan echoed with the clatter of percussion and the crunch of police batons. Here, the whole cast become employees of Don Alfonso, whose cynical nature fits his new role as a Wall Street CEO.

In Mr. Marcotte's update. Ferrando (Jeffery Taveras) and Gugliemo (Joseph Beckwith) are would-be masters of the universe, junior analysts at Don Alfonso's corporation. The Don (Jason Cox) sexually harasses Despina and thinks that all of his employees are idiots.

He might be right.

The Airing of the Grievances: the Worst of 2011

From the City Opera to the Battle of Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be a better way... a Festivus, for the rest of us!!!"
Festivus prophet Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller. with pole), acolyte Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards)
and his disciples Jerry and George. Image framegrabbed from Seinfeld "The Strike"  © 1997 NBC.

Today is December 23, the date some New Yorkers celebrate Festivus, the holiday invented at a toy store by one Frank Costanza while fighting over a Cabbage Patch™doll.* Originally observed every year in the Costanza household, Festivus is a simple holiday. It requires a large aluminum pole (instead of a tree.) At the Festivus table, there is a simple meal, followed by the Airing of the Grievances, and then something called the Feats of Strength.

In the spirit of the season, we here at Superconductor celebrate Festivus with our first ever Worst-of list for 2011. There are eleven items on the list, in deference to the year. So set up the aluminum pole, and let's get to the worst things that happened in the classical music industry--or at least the ones that we covered this year.

Ed. Note: The closing of Opera Boston happened the day after this piece went to press. We've added it to the bottom of the list.

Cancellation fever strikes.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2011-2012 season was marred by all manner of cancellations. Ben Heppner and Gary Lehman both pulled out of the title role in Siegfried, the latter one week before the prima. Angela Gheorghiu cancelled Faust for this year, citing "artistic differences" with director Dez McAnuff. (She was replaced by Marina Poplavskaya.) Just to be sure, the Romanian diva cancelled her 2012 contract as well. It's a matter of some conjecture if she sings at the Met anytime soon.

The decline and fall of the New York City Opera.
This one had been brewing for a while. With its labor contracts up, the decision of NYCO general manager George Steel to ditch his company's longtime digs and embark on a (sort of) odyssey across New York recalls the decision by fictional British rock group Spinal Tap to replace their songs with the blues-jazz (or is it jazz-blues?) noodling of bassist Derek Smalls. This ongoing story includes a protracted battle with the unions for both the orchestra and chorus, a bitter dispute that is currently before a federally appointed mediator.

(For more on the slow death-spiral of New York City Opera, read Fred Cohen's excellent (and educational piece in Opera News: The Ballad of NYCO.)

Salvatore Licitra dies in a motorcycle accident.

A number of singers passed away this year, but the most shocking death was the loss of the talented Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra. Following a motorcycle accident in his native Sicily, Mr. Licitra died of complications following a brain injury. He wasn't wearing a helmet.

Bankruptcy on Broad Street.

Labor troubles between symphony boards and musicians have been a common thread this year, with industrial action taken in Louisville and Detroit. But the venerable Philadelphia Orchestra became the first major American ensemble to file Chapter 11 this year. This was either a loud cry for help or an attempt to play hardball with the union. Eventually, the union blinked, and the season started on time. The effects of this action are still reverberating in Philadelphia.

The Metropolitan Opera's new start times.

As long as we're airing grievances, the Met's new 7:30pm start times make the relaxing activity of going to the opera house a mad dash through New York's subway system. Citing a survey of opera-goers taken in 2011, the Met pushed back all of their start times by half an hour. That's so people driving in from the suburbs can get home a little earlier, but a little hard on us New Yorkers. Maybe it's a plan to close area restaurants around Lincoln Center and sell more little sandwiches at the Revlon Bar?

Peter Gelb vs. Bradley Wilber
The most shameful act by the Metropolitan Opera this year. The company sent a "cease and desist" letter to Brad Wilber, an upstate librarian and author of the 'Metropolitan Opera Futures' page, a website that offered uncannily accurate predictions of forthcoming seasons at the Met.  (The Met claimed that the site was making it harder to negotiate advance contracts with artists.) We miss Mr. Wilber's cybernetic crystal ball, which had a knack for telling you what was coming up on the Met schedule and what direction the company was heading in. 

James Levine's Labor Day slip.

The ailing conductor was placed on the disabled list in May, stepping down from his Boston and Tanglewood obligations to rest and recover. On Labor Day weekend, Mr. Levine fell while walking in New England. Emergency surgery was required. As a result, Mr. Levine hasn't conducted anything since Wozzeck and Die Walküre in the spring. He is not scheduled to conduct at the Met until at least the 2013 season, but retains the post of Music Director.

The Music Director's (literal) fall from grace led Met general manager Peter Gelb to elevate Fabio Luisi to the post of Principal Conductor at the Met. Mr. Luisi agreed to salvage the new productions of Don Giovanni, Siegfried, and next year: Götterdämmerung. But the schedule-shuffling required Mr. Luisi to cancel a number of European and North American  commitments: concerts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony. He also bailed out of a Rome production of Richard Strauss' Elektra, three weeks before the premiere.

EMI Records sold.

The proud record label, which made the first major recordings of Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic and helped set the tone for the development of the modern classical recording industry is being folded into Vivendi, owners of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon. Will the EMI brand (which has been home to artists like Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Plácido Domingo and Jacqueline du Pré) survive into the next decade, or will it suffer the same fate as Philips Classics?

The "Machine" Malfunctions.

Miscues and malfunctions marred the 2011 premieres of Die Walküre and Siegfried, the second and third installments in the Met's new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Deborah Voigt fell off the set on opening night of Walküre. (She was OK.) The first two Siegfrieds had clunks, thunks, and one outright dead stop (in Act III) on the second night. The action was hastily moved to the apron of the stage. 

The Occupation of Lincoln Center--by the NYPD.

On Dec. 1, the night Metropolitan Opera's final performance of Satyagraha, Lincoln Center was closed off. Hearing that Occupy Wall Street was planning a demonstration, the NYPD and Lincoln Center security barricaded the entire plaza against the arrival of peaceful demonstrators. This shameful behavior led to the Occupiers having their say on the sidewalk. Speakers included songwriter Lou Reed, his wife Laurie Anderson, and Satyagraha composer Philip Glass, who read from the Bhagavad-Gita.

Opera Boston goes under.
A late addition to this list--because it happened after this post went to press. On Dec. 23, two days Christmas, Opera Boston announced that it was ceasing operations, effective immediately. The company reported that it could not continue due to a $500,000 operating deficit and insufficient fund-raising. According to a report in the Boston Globe, six members of the 17-member board were against folding. So they weren't invited to the meeting when the company was folded. So much for democracy.

Visit the rest of the 2011 Year in Reviews, our account of the year that went to "'11".

*According to Wikipedia, the "Festivus" holiday was actually invented in 1966 by Dan O'Keefe, whose son Daniel wrote the 1997 Seinfeld episode "The Strike."

Occupy Wall Street to "Mic Check" Lincoln Center

General Assembly planned for Josie Robertson Plaza

Occupy Wall Street poster by Lalo Alcarez.
© 2011 by the artist.

Concert, opera, theater, ballet and circus-goers attending a performance at Lincoln Center tonight might want to give themselves extra time on their commute to and from the venues. That, or use the underground tunnels.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is coming to Lincoln Center Plaza. 

The group, which protests economic inequality, has targeted the arts complex in a post on their website, as the site of a General Assembly, the peaceful (but loud) nightly meeting where members of the movement are given the opportunity to speak, amplified by the "people's mic": a repetition of their statement by the assembled crowd.

Tonight's G.A. is planned to take place in conjunction with the Metropolitan Opera's last 2011 performance of Satyagraha, the Philip Glass opera that explores the life of Mohandis K. Gandhi. The Mahatma's non-violent methods are an inspiration to the Occupy Movement.

Mr. Glass is planning to join the General Assembly and speak to the occupiers. Presumably, he will come out after Satyagraha ends, which should be about 11:15.

The choice of venue is also calculated to annoy New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg, one of the 12 richest men in America, is among the major donors to Lincoln Center.

In November, Mayor Bloomberg personally authorized the NYPD to "evict" the Occupiers' two month old encampment at Zuccotti Park. The action led to citizens, journalists and even a city council member being injured and jailed by the cops. But the clean-out has freed the movement to travel the city and spread ther message.

Another target is  billionaire David H. Koch, the right-wing backer of the Tea Party movement. Mr. Koch recently slapped his name across the former New York State Theater after making a hefty donation to the coffers of the arts center.

If they're blocked from the plaza (as they probably will be, most likely by a combination of Lincoln Center security and NYPD) the Occupiers are planning to stage a hunger strike. According to their website, the strike will continue until they are once more allowed to stage protests in the city's public and privately owned plazas and parks.

Bloomberg vs. Beethoven

An Open Letter to the Mayor of New York City.

New York's third-term mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

"He, too, then, is nothing better than an ordinary man! Now he will trample on all human rights only to humor his ambition; he will place himself above all others,--become a tyrant!"
--Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor of the City Of New York
City Hall (260 Broadway)
New York, NY 10007

Dear Mr. Mayor:
Today, you declared Nov. 20, 2011 to be "Beethoven Day" in the City of New York. But by your recent actions, Mayor Bloomberg, you have shown yourself to be totally ignorant of the composer in question.

Ludwig van Beethoven was a fiercely independent artist who fought against tyranny. He broke the European system of patronage and "court" composers, eking out a difficult life as a freelance musician. A fierce republican, he famously reacted to Napoleon assuming the title of Emperor by striking the name "Bonaparte" from his symphony No. 3. The work is now known as the Eroica.

Under normal circumstances, "Beethoven Day" would be a great idea. WQXR's clever "Obey Beethoven" campaign has the composer's scowling mug all over the city. Recent performances by the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique have brought the composer's genius to the city's concert halls. And today WQXR has achieved something historic, an all-day marathon of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, played live.

But right now, things in our city are a long way from normal.

Less than one week ago, Mr. Mayor, you ordered a small army of riot police to "clean out" Zuccotti Park, the two-month home base of Occupy Wall Street. Protestors in the park were warned that they had less than one hour to remove all of their property from the Park before the police went in. And we know you ordered it. You went on the air and claimed responsibility for the actions of the police.

The poster for WQXR's "Obey Beethoven" campaign.
© 2011 WQXR/National Public Radio.

When the NYPD went in, they swung nightsticks, slashed nylon tents with razor blades, and attacked protestors. The media was walled out, with fire trucks blocking cameras and reporters from all three papers either arrested, attacked, or kept from covering the actions of the police. City councilman Ydanis Rodriguez was injured and arrested, and incarcerated for almost 24 hours. He identified himself as a city official, and was not allowed to talk to a lawyer.

The worst crime perpetrated against the protest was the partial destruction of the People's Library, a 5000+ volume collection of novels, philosophy, textbooks and even a bound copy of the Torah. The cops dumped these neatly stored books into Department of Sanitation garbage trucks. The trash compactors were activated. Over 2000 volumes were crushed into garbage, destroyed beyond repair. Some have been recovered, but many are badly damaged.

Beethoven's lone opera, Fidelio is another triumph over tyranny. Written in 1804 and revised in 1815, Fidelio is a "rescue" opera: the story of a wrongfully imprisoned nobleman, locked in a deep dungeon by a corrupt prison governor. The prisoner's wife, Leonore, cross-dresses and goes undercover as "Fidelio", an assistant turnkey at the prison. Eventually, her husband is freed and evil is defeated.

Mayor Bloomberg, you have arrested and charged over 1,000 people in your city in connection to the Occupy movement. You have allowed police to use "kettling", pepper spray, night-sticks and L-Rad sound cannons on your citizens. You ordered the large-scale destruction of books and personal property. Despite owning a media company, your police have prohibited journalists from doing their jobs and exercising their Constitutional right to free speech. And you have even had your own politicians, like Mr. Rodriguez, injured and imprisoned, denying them their right to speak to an attorney as guaranteed by Miranda v. Arizona.

Beethoven once said: "What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven." As one of those princes, you are not worthy of him.

Sincerely,

Paul J. Pelkonen
Editor, Superconductor.
Brooklyn, NY

"Machine" Set to Occupy Zuccotti Park

Multi-million-dollar stage equipment comes to lower Manhattan.

The Metropolitan Opera and the Mayor's office have come up with a plan to cut the costs of the company's troubled production of Wagner's Ring. At the same time, the city will solve the problems posed by Occupy Wall Street, the two-month-old protest movement in Zuccotti Park.

The City has arranged to borrow the "Machine" set, which has been used (up until now) for the Ring. The 45-ton set, which has been in storage at the Metropolitan Opera House since the last run of Siegfried, will be transported to lower Manhattan and set up at Zuccotti Park for eight weeks.

Designed by director Robert Lepage, the "Machine" is a sophisticated device, consisting of two dozen mechanical planks that spin around a central axis by computer control.  During the operas, the planks are repeatedly reconfigured to create a projection surface for computer graphics, meant to represent the rivers, mountains, and castles of Wagner's mythological dramas. 

In its new role, the huge 45-ton contraption will be set up in Zuccotti Park, the private recreational space owned by Brookfield Properties. Its mechanical planks will be set to "spin" mode, and used to literally and permanently sweep the park clear of protestors, pedestrians, and other undesirable types.

Starting on November 31, the city will embark on its Phase II plans for the park. This includes the opening of Zukotay!, a holiday-themed entertainment set on the site of the former Occupy Wall Street encampment. With help from a 12k Lumen Projector mounted on the nearby Joie de Vivre sculpture, the Machine will be used to project falling snow, magnificent mountain vistas and even the festive visual of a burning Yule log. 

"We plan to make this a family-friendly entertainment vector where there used to be homelessness and drumming." said Cirque du Poivre representative Alvin Tamias. "Passers-by and hard-working Wall Street professionals will be able to enjoy the show before being suddenly whacked in the head with a large plank."

The contraption will remain in round-the-clock operation at Zuccotti Park through the Christmas shopping season until Jan. 18. Then it will be returned to the Met to begin rehearsals for Götterdämmerung, the final chapter of Wagner's Ring opening on Jan. 27. Addressing concerns from local residents about the noise made by continually spinning planks, Mr. Tamias said: "We've been assured that the Machine's operation is whisper-quiet."

Deputy police commissioner Michael J. Czech claimed that this is a breakthrough in law enforcement. "Forget the L-Rad Sound Cannon," Mr. Czech crowed to the press. "This is the future of law enforcement--huge permanent technological structures that can keep a plaza free of protestors or occupiers with minimal expenditure on manpower and per diem, the expense of sending flak jackets to the dry cleaners."

Opera Review: An Imitation of Life

Kommilitonen! has its U.S. premiere at Juilliard.

Party all the time: the Communist officials from Act II of Kommilitonen!

Photo provided by the Juilliard School. © 2010 Blind Summit Theatre.

Kommilitonen!, the eighth opera from British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is an uncompromising look at the effects of student protests and oppression in the 20th century. But no one could have predicted the political circumstance surrounding its premiere in New York City on Wednesday night.

The premiere happened one day after the New York Police Department, acting under orders from Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided to "evict" the Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zuccotti Park. The action resulted in 200 arrests, journalists being beaten, and the destruction of the protestors' property, including books, laptop computers and musical instruments. Sometimes, art imitates life.

David Pountney's libretto ties three historical incidents together:

• 1943: the White Rose resistance in Hitler's Germany and the executions of activists Joseph and Sophie Scholl. Their student newsletter gives the opera its title.


• 1962: the race riots that accompanied the enrollment of James Meredith, the first African-American to attend the University of Mississippi.


• 1966: the murder of teachers and ultra-violence of the Cultural Revolution in Mao Tse-Tung's China.

Over two acts, the stories are presented interleaved, coming together at the close to make their common point: "Believe, Survive, Endure."

The production, by Mr. Pountney, shifts rapidly between Germany, Mississippi and China. Swastika banners, Red Chinese flags and a chalkboard are primary visual components. Ordinary tables doubling as beds, desks, and even tables. The actors move the props on and off the stage rapidly, changing on the fly as the music shifts underfoot. The Chinese scenes also feature some impressive puppetry by the troupe Blind Summit Theater. They depicted the murdered school-teachers. In a later scene scene, they made a comic mockery of the local Communist Party.

To accompany this complex set of stories and time-slides, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has written an astonishingly fluid score. The music of Kommilitonen! flips like a TV remote. An onstage marching band competes with a lone erhu player in the Chinese scenes. Wallis Guinta was impressive in the trouser role of Wu, the son of the two murdered  teachers who ultimately joins the party. As Zhou, the Red Guard member who participated in the killing, Karen Vuong gave a convincing portrait of the banality of evil.

Mississippi has a gospel flavor, with the chorus singing a variant on "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" in contrast with Will Liverman's soliloquies as James Meredith. Mr. Liverman was something of a cipher as Meredith, but maybe that's because the ever-shifting libretto does not penetrate his story-line with the same amount of depth. That is reserved for the White Rose story, with the Scholl siblings movingly portrayed by Deanna Breiwick and Alexander Hajek. Their death ended the opera, but not before they painted graffiti denouncing Hitler across the stage and dropped Kommilitonen! leaflets from the balcony.

The German scenes take their musical idiom from composers banned by the Nazis: Weill, Krenek, and maybe a dash of Ullmann. They also incorporate an excerpt from "The Grand Inquisitor", the most famous chapter from Fyodor Dosteyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. This is a parable where the Inquisitor interrogates Jesus Christ. The interrogator was played by baritone AubreyAllicock. Jesus was an empty chair. Tenor Noah Baetge narrated as the Evangelist.

Conductor Anne Manson held this complex score together with tight, sprung rhythms in the orchestra and clear delineation of tone-rows in the woodwinds. Add in  the marching band, the offstage chorus and singers up in the balconies, and this opera becomes a tough set of challenges. It came off razor-sharp.

Following the performance, the audience was greeted with a small party of Occupy protestors. They had decided to take their "people's microphone" to Lincoln Center that night. Sir Peter, walking past the little group, stopped to talk to the Occupiers as thirty or so cops stood around. He clearly approved.

A Soundtrack for Zuccotti Park

Today was going to feature the review of Handel's opera Rodelinda, with Renée Fleming in the title role. But when we came home late last night, it was to a Twitter stream of violence and flagrant violations of Americans' First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble. In fact, it was war in the streets of Manhattan, with Kevlar-vested weapon-wielding thugs (the NYPD) enforcing the will of New York Mayor Michael "I can pay to stay in office as long as I want" Bloomberg.
I'll write the review tonight and it will probably be up tomorrow. In the meantime, I decided to write about heavy metal protest music. Hey, it's my blog, and WNYC already did classical protest music. So...

Top Ten Heavy Metal Protest Songs

People in this business are often surprised when they learn I'm a metal fan in addition to having an ear for classical music and opera. I got into Metallica because I thought "One" sounded like chamber music albeit played really loud. Still do. Anyway here are some songs for Zuccotti, Occupy Wall Street and for the righteous anger of the 99%.
10) "Clenching the Fists of Dissent" by Machine Head.
This ten-minute track kicks off the San Francisco group's The Blackening. Title pretty much says it all along with Robb Flynn's roared vocals and razor-sharp guitar.
"Didn't say I want to lead, I just might let you down."
9) "Broken, Beat and Scarred" by Metallica.
From 2008's comeback bid Death Magnetic, a song about persevering in the face of adversity. Metallica have written a lot of protest songs but this is the most recent.
"What don't kill ya, make ya more strong."
8) "Two Minutes to Midnight" by Iron Maiden.
One of the best anti-war protest songs from the '80s. The lyrics are really about nuclear war, but Maiden were playing this a lot onstage when the war in Iraq broke out.
"We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies."
7) "Resistance" by Queensrÿche.
"Protests in New York, listen to the call of the wild! Brothers, sisters carrying signs."
That's the first line of this classic track featuring Geoff Tate's giant tenor voice. The song is 20 years old, folks. It hasn't aged. Nor has our country grown up.
6) "Open Letter (To a Landlord)" by Living Coloür.
Especially poignant for New Yorkers, a tale of inner-city survival against greedy land developers and landlords who don't care about the human beings living in their buildings.
"This is my neighborhood. This is where I come from."
5) "Fucking Hostile" by Pantera.
From the group's aptly named Vulgar Display of Power. Philip Anselmo breaks down relations of the ordinary man to parents, police, the clergy and other authority figures. Late, great guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott plays the kamikaze solo over a gallop.
"If you crossed me, I'd shake your hand like a man, not a god."
4) "Peace Sells" by Megadeth.
There have been a lot of rage-fuelled Megadeth protest songs from the pen of Dave Mustaine. This was one of the first, and one of the best. Its opening bassline used to announce MTV News and it's still relevant today. From Peace Sells (But Who's Buying?)
"Can you put a price on peace?"
3) "United" by Judas Priest.
From what is arguably Priest's most successful album, the legendary British Steel. Rob Halford was really singing about gay rights here, but this cut (with its memorable chorus) is an underrated anthem.
"Look around, they're moving in.
Hold your ground, when they begin."
2) "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath
From Paranoid. It doesn't get more old-school than Ozzy's howl over Tony Iommi's heavy chords, Terence "Geezer" Butler's agile bass and Bill Ward's powerhouse drumming. And they're back together as of last Friday! "Oz-zy! Oz-zy!" (though Geezer wrote the lyrics.)
"Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war.
 Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor ."
1) "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine.
Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha pretty much said it all in this cut from their first pipe-bomb of an album.
"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."

Got a suggestion for this list? Leave it in the comments below.
Better yet, donate to Occupy Wall Street and support your local occupation today!

Opera Review: Protest and Survive

The Metropolitan Opera revives Satyagraha.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Peaceful journey: Richard Croft as Mohandis K. Gandhi in Satyagraha.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

Talk about good timing.

No one could predict that the Metropolitan Opera's scheduled revival of Satyagraha, Philip Glass' 1980 opera retelling incidents in the life of Mohandis K. Gandhi, would coincide with Occupy Wall Street. Based in lower Manhattan, the Occupy movement models itself on the Mahatma's principle of "truth-force", or non-violent protest, that gives the opera its title.

Concert Review: The Devil Went Down to Wall Street

Occupy Stravinsky performs at Zuccotti Park.

The Devil is a blonde: Elizabeth Stanley (center) tempts Nick Choksi (left) as Erik Liberman (right) looks on.
Photo taken at Occupy Wall Street, Nov. 3, 2011, © the author. 

"Mic check!"

"Mic check!" 

"We are...Occupy Stravinksy!"

"We are...OCCUPY STRAVINSKY!"