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Lebrecht Weekly – Arnold Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder (Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 October 2016 Art Song, Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

It is so rare to hear the Gurre Lieder live that most of us are acquainted with it only on record – in memorable interpretations by Rafael Kubelik, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado and others. The work employs a vast orchestra and chorus for an unbroken duration of ninety minutes, much of which occupies a zone of uncertainty as to whether what we are hearing is ancient or modern. Schoenberg began composing the cycle in Wagnerian modalities in 1900, abandoned it three years later, finished it in 1911 as a provocative atonalist, and achieved the greatest triumph of his…

Joshua Bell, Photo: Eric Kabik

Ottawa Previews: October 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 October 2016 Choral, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic, Violin

NACO Opening The NAC Orchestra opens its 2016–17 season in the newly renovated Southam Hall with a very busy October, including several soloists not to be missed. On October 6 and 7, virtuoso Joshua Bell performs the Brahms Violin Concerto in a program that includes Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. Music Director Alexander Shelley conducts after his 7PM pre-concert talk with music journalist Jean-Jacques Van Vlasselaer (Oct. 6 & 7, 8PM, NAC Southam Hall). www.nac-cna.ca Schumann and the Songwriters Angela Hewitt joins Shelley and the NACO for an evening of early Schumann and Beethoven for the first performance in the…

Jean-Philippe Tremblay, Photo: Alain Lefort

Industry News: October 2016

By Shira Gilbert on 1 October 2016 Arts Industry, La Scena Spotlight, Opera, Orchestral

by: Shira Gilbert and Kiersten van Vliet Orchestral Changeups Conductor Jean-Philippe Tremblay is the new Music Director of Montreal’s Orchestre de chambre Appassionata. Daniel Myssyk, also an associate professor and orchestra conductor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, has stepped down from the post after founding the orchestra 15 years ago. Tremblay also remains at the helm of Orchestre de la francophonie. Education News Tim Price is the new Chair of the Board of Directors at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Price is currently also active on two corporate boards, Canadian Tire Corporation and Fairfax Financial Holdings Inc.…

Suor Angelica, Photo: Tam Lan Truong

Quebec Previews: October 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 October 2016 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Contemporary, La Scena Spotlight, Opera, Strings

Les Caprices de la Nuit with Les Violons du Roy On October 13, join violinist and conductor Anthony Marwood and Les Violons du Roy for an evening of exceptional chamber music for strings. The concert includes the String Sextet from Richard Strauss’s final opera Capriccio, Mozart’s charming String Quintet in G minor, and Schoenberg’s late-Romantic Verklärte Nacht. October 13, 8PM, Salle Raoul-Jobin, Palais Montcalm. www.violonsduroy.com James Ehnes @ 40 Continue the celebration of James Ehnes’s 40th birthday as he stops in Quebec City on his way across Canada. With longtime collaborator Andrew Armstrong, Ehnes will play chamber music by Handel,…

Chelsea Rus

Rising Stars – Chelsea Rus: Wirth Vocal Prize

By An-Laurence Higgins on 1 October 2016 La Scena Spotlight, Vocal

British Columbian soprano Chelsea Rus’s story is straight from the movies. Already accomplished at the beginning of her international career, no one would think she had never even actually heard an opera before her first year of college. While she played piano and sang since her childhood, she did not give much attention to classical music – she was busy playing jazz and belting Ella Fitzgerald. After watching La Traviata brought her to tears, she began a whole re-education, working her voice in ways she never had before. Years of hard work have paid off: last year she won the…

Brian Current

Brian Current: The Keys to Creativity

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 October 2016 Canadian Music, Choral, Contemporary, Interviews, La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral

This month, Brian Current will experience something many composers would envy: the premiere and recording of one of his major works by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The $50,000 Azrieli Prize enabled him to compose The Seven Heavenly Halls for solo tenor, choir and orchestra. The composer talked to La Scena Musicale about this work and his career. Like many musicians, Brian Current first learned piano as a child. “I was lucky my parents were so persistent and constantly got me to practice, even when I didn’t want to,” he says. “My parents weren’t musicians by profession, but they sang in…

Princess Turandot (soprano Christine Goerke) proclaims a man will never possess her. Photo: Kelly & Massa for Opera Philadelphia.

Opera Philadelphia’s Bloody King, Bloody Princess

By Charles Geyer on 30 September 2016 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera, Romantic

OPERA REVIEWS: Puccini’s Turandot; Third World Bunfight’s Macbeth (after Verdi) at Opera Philadelphia Opera Philadelphia’s Fall 2016 season fully exemplifies the company’s hallmarks – a commitment to variety and innovation, plus an enduring grounding in the classics. Besides the world premiere of Breaking the Waves (reviewed here on October 29), the season boasts a provocative and brilliant new adaptation of Verdi’s Macbeth by controversial and virtuosic South African theater troupe Third World Bunfight, as well as a glorious, quintessentially grand-opera production of Puccini’s crowning masterwork, Turandot. Puccini’s Crown Princess With his typically magnificent melodies, piquant exoticism, big passions and (atypical)…

Lebrecht Weekly – Pretty Yende: A Journey (Sony Classical)

By Norman Lebrecht on 30 September 2016 Lebrecht Weekly, Opera

The classical music industry does not so much promote talent as postpone it. Faced with a gleaming young star, the male curators of fame (all men) then seek validation in endless meetings. Agents and record producers hedge and haver. They deliberate and dine out, they call another meeting, and another. Then they write a budget. No wonder the business is in such bother. It is now seven years since the South African soprano Pretty Yende burst on our ears as winner of the 2009 Hans Gabor competition in Vienna. It is five years since she won every single trophy in…

Bess (soprano Kiera Duffy) realizes she must “complete the task” in order to save Jan. Photo by Dominic M. Mercier for Opera Philadelphia.

With Breaking the Waves, Opera Philadelphia Breaks Toward the Future

By Charles Geyer on 29 September 2016 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Interviews, Opera

OPERA REVIEW: Breaking the Waves at Opera Philadelphia Brotherly Love, Independence, the Phillie Phanatic – this city has always been a hotbed of innovative and big ideas. How apt, then, that Opera Philadelphia has taken on a big idea of its own, having committed to the future of indigenous American opera with a 2011 pledge to present, every season for ten years, a major new American operatic work. More than halfway through that initial pledge period, the company’s “American Repertoire Program” can claim impressive achievements, including Dark Sisters in 2012; A Coffin in Egypt in 2014; and Charlie Parker’s Yardbird…

Austin Opera Scores Big Time with Puts/Campbell “Manchurian Candidate”

By Paul E. Robinson on 28 September 2016 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera

The Manchurian Candidate. Music by Kevin Puts. Libretto by Mark Campbell. David Adam Moore (Sergeant Raymond Shaw). John Lindsey (Captain Ben Marco). Donnie Ray Albert (Andrew Hanley). Brenda Harris (Eleanor Iselin). Daniel Sumegi (Senator Johnny Iselin). Mela Dailey (Jocelyn Jordan). David Small (Senator Thomas Jordan). Jamie Van Eyck (Rosie Chayney). Austin Opera Orchestra and Chorus/Richard Buckley. Stage Director: Alison Moritz. Projection Designer: Greg Emetaz. Lighting Designer: Kathryn Eader. Long Center, Austin, Texas. At the height of the Cold War (1947-1991), Richard Condon wrote a remarkable novel, The Manchurian Candidate. Both a political thriller and a frightening scenario for a major penetration of…

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