New Opera to Tell the LeBron James Story

Der Klevelandkavalier planned for 2022.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Three faces of the King: a new opera will tell the story of LeBron James in chorus and song.
All images of LeBron James © The National Basketball Association, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Miami Heat.
No NBA players were approached or participated in this story, which is for parody purposes only. 

"It's about time that there was a German opera about a real American hero." That's the rationale, (if we need one) behind the new opera Der Klevelandkavalier, which premieres in a special concert version at Severance Hall in Cleveland Ohio on Feb. 30, 2022. The new opera is a co-production with the New World Symphony of Miami. It tells the story of NBA great LeBron James, his rise to fame, his harrowing journey into the depths of Miami, Florida, his friendship and personal struggles with Dwayne Wade, and his triumphant return to Cleveland, Ohio to win a championship for that lakeside city.

Comment: The Wound that Will Not Heal

Good Friday morning, Wagner's Parsifal and James Levine.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Placido Domingo and Jessye Norman as Parsifal and Kundry
in the old Met production of Wagner's Parsifal.
Photo detail from the album cover of the
1994 Deutsche Grammophon Parsifal © 1994 DG/UMG and the Metropolitan Opera.

I have a "ritual" I like to do on Good Friday morning. I like to be completely alone and have a long, meditative listen to Wagner's Parsifal. The composer's final opera concerns itself with matters of spirituality and redemption, of the idea of unimagineable, infinite suffering that is only alleviated with the arrival of a savior figure.

Opera Review: Their Reverence For This Lovely Flower

The Bayerische Staatsoper presents Der Rosenkavalier.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Table for one: Adrienne Pieczonka as the Marschallin in Der Eosenkavalier.

Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier is his most beloved opera. Strauss fused rigorous compositional technique, catchy waltzes and superb vocal writing  to a charming, sentimental libretto by his longtime collaborator Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. On Thursday night, the Bayerische Staatsoper brought this opera to the stage of Carnegie Hall under the baton of its boss Kirill Petrenko. This was the opera companys first concert performance at the New York venue in its long history.

Concert Review: Thunder From the Alps

Kirill Petrenko brings the Bayerische Staatsorchester to Carnegie Hall. 
by Paul J Pelkonen

Conductor Kirill Petrenko and the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Photo by Christoph Brech © 2018 for the Bayerische Staatsorchester.

The Bayerische Staatsorchester, based in Bavaria's capital city of Munich, lays claim to one of the oldest musical traditions in Western Europe. Their press kit states that the organization first started playing church music in the 16th century. However, the first of two concerts at Carnegie Hall this week were led by a conductor who is very much a man of the 21st century: music director Kirill Petrenko.