Concert Review: Two Tickets, No Paradise

Gianandrea Noseda conducts at Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gianandrea Noseda. Photo © 2017 Fondazione Teatro Regio di Torino.

The Carnegie Hall calendar is released every year in the final week of January, but not everything on that august and immense document comes to fruition. The concert originally planned for this Sunday would have featured Gianandrea Noseda conducting Verdi’s grand opera  I Vespri Siciliani in its five-act entirety with the Teatro Regio di Torino. Its substitute: a two part choral concert with Mr. Noseda leading the National Symphony Orchestra, who are based in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center.

Concert Review: Her Dark Materials

With the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mitsuko Uchida returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The ten magic fingers of Mitsuko Uchida. Photo by Jean Radel.

The art of conducting a piano concerto from the keyboard, and also playing the fiendishly difficult piano parts written into such a work, sometimes produces conflicting results. Soloists used to the traditional position in front of a conductor may find themselves relying on the bow of their concertmaster. Others may have trouble splitting the tasks of orchestral leadership and visiting virtuoso. None of those problems befell Mitsuko Uchida, who brought her current collaborators in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra to Carnegie Hall for a concert of Mozart and Berg on Friday night.

Concert Review: Knocking Out the Heavyweight

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Bruckner Seventh.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen does his best Karajan face. Photo © Signum Classics.

In the course of his conducting career, the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen has focused heavily on the music of contemporary composers and the 20th century. True, there's been Beethoven here and there, and excursions into Wagner. However, as Mr. Salonen prepares to take over a new job in San Francisco, a reconsideration of repertory is no bad thing. This might explain why the first of Mr. Salonen's two concerts this weekend with the Philharmonia Orchestra focused exclusively on one of Anton Bruckner's enormous late symphonies, specifically the Symphony No. 7.

The Verdi Project: Messa di Requiem

Verdi takes on the cosmos and the Church.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It could be argued that the Verdi Requiem is his most...monumental achievement.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Following the triumphant reception of Aida,, Giuseppe Verdi had no more worlds to conquer. Aida marked the culmination of a long ambition to create a successful fusion between his own style and the grand spectacles that dominated the stage at theaters like the Paris Opera. Aida, with its blend of private anguish and public spectacle, fulfilled all of those requirements.

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

The state of Superconductor, July 2018.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Art from The Simpsons episode "Marge on the Lam" © 1993 Gracie Films

Hi all. Paul here. Some of you may have noticed that posts on this usually stalwart blog have gotten spotty of late, with a couple of posts a week instead of the usual steady stream of words about the classical music and opera scene in and around New York in elsewhere. We’re not pleased about this either and I thought I should lay down here what’s going on.

Sending Don Carlos To Therapy

An in-depth look at Verdi's longest and most troubled opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Placido Domingo in Don Carlos.
Cover art © 1990 Deutsche Grammophon/UMG

Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos is an opera that is beloved by Verdi lovers, but one that took a very long time to find its audience. Based on a searing play by Friedrich Schiller. Don Carlos was originally composed for the 1869 season for the grand stage of the Paris Opera. The premiere of its initial French version was a late-career failure for the Italian composer, one of three largely unsuccessful attempts that Verdi made in his life to conquer the hearts of Parisian opera-goers. (The other two, Gerusalemme and Le Vepres Siciliennes are less well known.