Cataclysmic Concerts: The Best of 2012

The year in concerts, recitals and chamber music.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Some say the world will end with fire. But this didn't actually happen either.
Image from The Day After Tomorrow © 2004 Centropolis Entertainment/20th Century Fox. 

With the exception of a certain often-mentioned iPhone alarm (that disrupted a Jan. 11 concert by the New York Philharmonic) there weren't too many in-concert disasters in 2012.  Or maybe I spent the whole year going to the wrong performances?

Here is a "dozen sampler" of shows that stood out in 2012, from avant-garde chamber works to a unique walk in a freezing cold garden of song. This is  part of our ongoing Year in Reviews series here on Superconductor. 

Berlin Philharmonic: The "completed" Bruckner Ninth at Carnegie Hall.

"The questions asked by the descending opening theme of the first movement are answered by a dissonant, raging theme from the trumpets and horns. The whole is expressed in a gigantic double fugue over a thick texture of strings. Sir Simon Ratle and his orchestra poured themselves into this music."

San Francisco Symphony: American Mavericks

"Michael Tilson Thomas chopped fruits and vegetables, preparing a smoothie with the blender. He added a banana, and tasted it again. Eventually, he added some blocks and stones to the piano, playing tonal clusters on the strings. (Later, another musician tried the smoothie.)"

aron quartett at the Austrian Cultural Forum

"The aron quartett played the four movements with grit and earnest, with long melodic lines that unfolded from instrument to instrument. Plucked, scraped notes alternated with winding themes tossed from player to player in a performance that made a good case for more New York performances of Erich Zeisl's catalogue."

Opera-pocalypse! The Best of 2012

The Twelve Best Operas Performances of 2012.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

No this didn't actually happen this year. (The Mayans were wrong!)
 Framegrab from Armageddon © 1998 The Walt Disney Company/Touchstone Entertainment.

I saw a total of sixty-five operas in 2012 (sixty-six if I snag a ticket for Maria Stuarda on Monday night.) Here's the twelve best opera performances (overall) for the year that was supposed to end with us being hit by a flaming pyramid two weeks ago.

Anyway here's the best operas I saw this year. Rough chronological order.

Ernani at the Metropolitan Opera.
"Angela Meade brought her admirable instrument to the part, meeting the challenging high-and-low notes of the opening "Ernani, inviolame" and  the fiery duets and trios that form the backbone of this score."

The Ghosts of Versailles at Manhattan School of Music
"One of the joys of Mr. Corigliano's opera is seeing Beaumarchais bring his beloved characters back to life for one more romp. Figaro is older in this opera-within-an-opera, played here with energy and a rich low end by American baritone Nickoli Strommer. "

Notre Dame with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
"Stephen Powell walked a fine line between piety and desparation, using his potent baritone in the prison scene to convincingly portray the deacon's capricious, ambivalent attitude toward Esmerelda."

Salome with the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
"Nina Stemme didn't just sing--she embodied the title role, meeting the opera's exacting requirements with a huge instrument that proved capable of soaring heights and spine-tingling lows. This was the heroic soprano voice that New Yorkers have been starving for: real singing, thrillingly delivered with no compression or spreading above or below the stave."

¡Ay Marimba! The Worst of 2012

At least the Mayans were wrong.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The end of the world, Mayan-style....

Although there was no Mayan apocalypse, 2012 had its share of catastrophes on and off the stage in the world of classical music and opera. Here's our annual look at bad performances, worse managerial decisions, and the aftermath of one significant natural disaster.

2012 will forever be remembered around the Superconductor offices as the Year of the Ring Tone. It was on January 11th when a New York Philharmonic audience member had the alarm on his iPhone start playing the "Marimba" ring tone in the fourth movement of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony. That story went viral, and might be one reason you are here reading this list of the worst things about the last year in classical music. (We'll get to the happier stuff in the next few posts.)

Let's start with the Metropolitan Opera.

Opera Review: A Short Scissor Cut

The Met's trimmed-down Barber of Seville.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."--J. R. R. Tolkien

Opera is a drag! The cast (l.r.: Rodion Pogossov, Alek Shrader, Isabel Leonard, John del Carlo) in Act II of
Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Photo by Ken Howard © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

In 1969, the Italian musicologist Alberto Zedda stewarded a critical edition of Rossini's 1816 masterpiece, The Barber of Seville. This edition clarified and codified the composer's original intentions, putting lost arias back in their right and proper place and ensuring the future of this beloved comic opera for years to come.

Given the Metropolitan Opera's penchant for textual accuracy under the reign of music director James Levine, it was surprising that the company chose Barber as this year's "family-friendly" holiday presentation.  This new edition of the score (by J. D. McClatchy) translates the show into English and cuts it by an hour. The cuts are occasionally seamless, but more often brutal.

Mr. McClatchy axes two-thirds of the famous Overture and halves most of the arias, omitting repeats or having singers start numbers at the cabaletta. Gone: Don Basilio's bass aria "La calunnia", Berta's "Il vecchioto" and whole chunks of Figaro's "Largo al factotum." Musically speaking, the effect is like a skilled amputation--you're not supposed to look too closely. The translation of Cesare Sterbini's original text is generally well done and sing-able, although the patter songs are awkward.