Metropolitan Opera Preview: Die Fledermaus

The Met revives the one about the guy in the bat costume. (Not Bruce Wayne.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Clock's already ticking: the dancers of Die Fledermaus.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera resuscitates its 2013 production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s most popular operetta Die Fledermaus. This is the frothy Viennese comedy: the story of a guy determined to cheat on his wife, a saucy maid out to have a good time, and the Italian tenor who winds up getting (accidentally) thrown in jail. The only hitch: a lurching, unfunny English libretto, which is a step down from the German original.

Concert Review: The Rightful Pumpkin King

Danny Elfman opens the Lincoln Center Festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Danny Elfman in full flight.
Photo by Beatrize Creative © 2015 Lincoln Center Festival

The gulf between "serious" composers and those who write music for Hollywood films is an unfortunate and artificial one, enforced by a music community that refuses to consider the film score as a legitimate means of creative expression. This summer, the Lincoln Center Festival seeks to breach that gap with Danny Elfman: Music from the Films of Tim Burton, a career-spanning retrospective concert program that chronicles a creative partnership that has lasted for fifteen films and thirty years.

Soundtrack Review: It's Wayne's World

Lincoln Center screens Tim Burton and Danny Elfman's Batman.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Batman (Michael Keaton, l) confronts the Joker (Jack Nicholson, right) atop
Gotham City Cathedral at the climax of Batman. 
Image for promotional purposes only © 1989 Warner Bros.

In 1989, the Hollywood superhero film was born with Tim Burton's Batman, a dark, Gothic and deadly serious adaptation of the classic DC hero. And with it came the score by Danny Elfman, the self-trained composer and former frontman of the Los Angeles art-collective-turned-new-wave band Oingo Boingo. Mr. Elfman is the subject of a six-concert retrospective at this summer's Lincoln Center Festival, focusing on his many collaborations on Mr. Burton's films.

Opera Review: Bat-man Returns

The Met waltzes in 2014 with its new Fledermaus.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Watch this: Eisenstein (Christopher Maltman) woos Rosalinde (Susanna Philips) in Act II of Die Fledermaus.)
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

The art of operetta came back to life last night at the Metropolitan Opera. On New Year's Eve, the company unveiled its eagerly anticipated new production of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. The premiere, a glitzy gala occasion with many of the opera house's public areas roped off to accommodate A-list partygoers, proved to be an ebullient occasion, marking the return of this beloved work to the grand stage. This was a new production by Jeremy Sams, with glittering sets by Robert Jones.

The Bat and the Bullets

A Superconductor Editorial Comment.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

What Batman thinks about guns.
Art and dialogue by Frank Miller © Detective Comics.

Hi folks,
I just needed to use this space today to talk about what happened in Aurora, Colorado last night, especially in light of a column (The Sons of the Batman) that ran in this space just two days ago. Other than that, this post doesn't have anything to do with opera.

The twelve murders perpetrated last night at a showing of The Dark Knight Rises were a real-life worst case scenario. This was something that everyone who sits in an audience on a regular basis should be worried about, especially in this American culture of concealed carry permits, lax gun control, and an enthusiastic Washington lobby of firearms enthusiasts who seem upset that nobody was packing heat and could shoot back.

That it took place at the screening of a film about a hero who refuses to use firearms because his parents were shot dead in front of him by a mugger is beyond ironic.

The Sons of the Batman

When criticism leads to...threats?
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sometimes, I think this guy had it right: Heath Ledger as The Joker.
Promotional art for The Dark Knight.
© 2008 Warner Brothers/Detective Comics. Batman® is a registered trademark.

This post isn't really about classical music, opera, or modern music. It's about criticism, what it is, and why I choose to do it. It's also about...Batman.

 It started as a reaction to a recent news story involving movie critic Marshall Fine, whose review of the new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises (on his site Hollywood and Fine sparked vigilante-like rage from fans of the Caped Crusader on the film site Rotten Tomatoes.

Mr. Fine's negative (if even-handed) review of the film triggered an ugly upswell of comment from fans of the movies. Some of those comments were vulgar. Others were actually threatening, as if the writers were going to don cowls, fire up Batmobiles, and exert "street justice" in the name of their favorite superhero. One thinks of director Christopher Nolan's dead-on depiction of the "Sons of Batman" in the blockbusting, earlier film The Dark Knight.