In Memory of John N. McBaine, 1941 - 2008

My father, John Neylan McBaine, passed away on August 27th, 2008, after an 18-month battle with melanoma. It's appropriate to remember him here because even though it was my mother who was the professional musician, my dad was the one who showed me what it meant to have a true passion for classical music.

His particular love was opera. He clearly remembered attending his first opera in 1958 in San Francisco. I believe it was Lucia di Lammermoor, and he remained a fan of the bel canto repertoire his whole life. While he extolled Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne, he also closely followed and adored the young, vibrant talent of Anna Netrebko, Angela Gheorghiu and Natalie Dessay. Although he bemoaned that much has changed about opera since his introduction to it in the 1960s, he never complained about the trend towards more beautiful, cinematic divas.

My dad took me to one of the first operas I can remember: a December 1983 performance of Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera, starting Eva Marton and conducted by Klaus Tennstedt. I was not even seven years old and now, as the mother of a five year old, I am astonished by my dad's willingness to risk offending old-school opera etiquette by bringing such a small child. I remember the event so clearly because it provided material for one of the first entries in my new Hello Kitty journal: I kept the program and noted how we sat in the first row, right behind Tennstedt himself. At the end of the opera during the applause, Tennstedt turned to bow, and he winked at the small child sitting in front of him.

My father remained opinionated and vocal about the state of opera and opera companies until his death. He took pride in helping David Gockley assume the helm of San Francisco Opera in 2007, replacing Pamela Rosenberg of whom he was not a fan. Mr. Gockley graciously attended my father's memorial reception a few weeks ago in San Francisco. Also present at the reception was Ruth Felt, director of San Francisco Performances which my dad supported. Most touching to me was the presence of Philip Eisenberg, confined to a wheelchair. Philip was a prompter and coach at San Francisco Opera and at the Metropolitan Opera for many of the years that my mother was singing at those houses. Philip's friendship dates back to the early 1970s when my mom was touring with Western Opera and my dad was serving as the overseer of Western Opera on the San Francisco Opera board. A courtship blossomed in the back of the touring bus between the bohemian mezzo and the society bachelor. Philip was there then, and he was there for me the night of my dad's memorial.

Although my parents separated when I was twelve and divorced when I was nineteen, opera was always an olive branch in our home. It is hard for me to separate objective critique of the art form from the emotional peace it triggers from childhood memories. I am indebted to the singers, composers and directors -- including my own mother -- who offered the beauty and skill that made my father happy.

Response from Bill Lueth, Program Director of KDFC

I was honored to hear from Bill Lueth, Program Director of KDFC, one of the radio stations I highlighted in my last post. Thank you, Bill, for taking the time to write to me and enrich this blog's discussion of the classical radio industry.

"I found your blog today interesting. Like other formats, all classical stations 'market' to specific audiences, WQXR included, as they are the marketing voice of the NY times. By design, they appeal to an older and more musically sophisticated audience to match their readership I suppose. KDFC is geared as the gateway to this great music to include a younger audience that is not necessarily trained. We have a large audience of musical moms, albeit not Juliard trained, (although we have musically-trained folks listening too.)
I heart NY, but WQXR attracts half again as many listeners as KDFC with almost 3 times the potential audience in a market of 15 million + vs. SF at under 6 million population (market #4).
That means KDFC in the Spring ratings was the #2 music station in the Bay Area. WQXR was 20th in greater NY.
Now, we know that doesn't mean either stations can appeal to all classical fans. it doesn't mean one is better than the other. Each chose a target. KDFC believes those who like this music, but don't know it, should be invited to listen too like this gentleman who emailed be today.
"I love listening to KDFC on my way to work and driving back home. Really eases the mind after a long day of work." He asked about a composer named "Gambrial Foray."
Since not all kids get to have a musically-trained mom to make them musically wiser, we are trying to do our part to grow a new audience for this great music. So far we're held up as an example of success in the arts world of how to gain traction in a format many considered was dying.
We know that we can't appeal to all nor can WQXR, but these are two great stations with the same overall mission in 2 great cultural cities: keep classical music on the radio!"

Bill Lueth
Program Director KDFC

A Tale of Two Cities' Radio Stations

I've recently been spending quite a bit of time in San Francisco, where I lived from 1999 to 2006. While returning to a car culture, I've had the opportunity to listen to that city's classical radio station, 102.1 KDFC. Now that I live in New York and don't spend time in the car anymore, I listen to 96.3 WQXR at home while cooking dinner or hanging out with my kids. The difference between the two stations epitomizes the cultural differences I observe between the two cities.

WQXR, the New York Times' sponsored station, is the gold standard of classical radio. Because it is sponsored, it has fewer commercial breaks and it has the luxury of being able to play longer, more challenging works. Its audience includes some of the most well- trained classical enthusists in the world, and it has a thrilling local scene to draw upon as well. It's not uncommon to hear an entire symphony in the middle of the day, or to hear a new work recently premiered by the New York Philharmonic. The station plays recordings by first-rate performers -- I recently heard Horowitz playing a Chopin nocturne and Pollini playing a Beethoven sonata in the same afternoon -- and rarely sits back to rest on gimmicky favorites.

In contrast, KDFC caters to a much smaller city that doesn't have nearly the classical cultural focus of New York. To its credit, KDFC survives in a brutal industry in a city that has many other interests. Cities larger than San Francisco don't have their own classical radio station. But it unfortunately has to resort to a heavily contrived experience to hold on to its listeners. Instead of offering listeners a selective "shuffle" of great, timeless music performed by great, relevant performers, KDFC has created entirely risk-free programming within a manufactured marketing context. There is no shortage of pithy segments at KDFC: "The Island of Sanity: Weekdays at 2pm and 7pm"; "Mozart in the Morning: The Mozart Block at 9 O'Clock," etc. Its personalities, like more popular radio stations, are part of the show: Hoyt Smith takes you through the morning, followed by Diane Nicolini, Rik Malone. But rather than wake me up in the morning as other DJs do, the melifluous, faux-elegance of these guys makes me quickly lose interest.

This manufactured environment only plays music that is "Casual. Comfortable. Classical" resulting in more flute concertos and Telemann than anyone should have to hear. This spiritless tag line dooms the station to forever playing Baroque when it should be introducing San Francisco to Schostakovich, endless Mozart when Mutter waits in the wings. Since when is classical music "casual" and "comfortable"? I believe it should be marketed entirely the opposite way if it is to remain interesting and alluring to contemporary audiences. It should have us on the edge of our seats - even in our cars - with its contrasting volumes, earth shattering beauty, and natural rawness. How about a little "Raw. Riveting. Real." to shake up the day?

The Olympian

Although it's not available online, check out the lengthy article by The New Yorker's own editor, David Remnick, in the August 4th issue of the magazine. After spending nine days with the pianist Lang Lang in Beijing, Remnick presents an enlightening portrait of the pianist's rock star reputation and the state of classical music in China.

Sounds of the City

Since my last post, we have moved from Boston to Brooklyn where we have gone back to being an urban/subway riding/tote your own groceries sort of family. Coming back to New York City has been exciting for me (since I was raised here), but there are some realities of raising children in the city that I was either not aware of growing up here or else had forgotten. The constant sound on the streets has been particularly startling to me in our few weeks here. Perhaps it's because we live in a first floor apartment, and I can literally hear the conversations of people passing my windows, the chatter of my doorman on his cellphone, and the forlorn sound of the banjo player who camps out underneath my bedroom window one or two evenings a week. At this moment, I can hear some teenager belting out "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" from an arts day camp nearby. My daughters' favorite sound is that of the Mister Softee truck coming down our street to the school at the end of the block. I can't believe those trucks still play those tinkling bells!

But the street sounds that stand out to me most as a mother are those coming from cars trolling down the avenues or open air restaurant sound systems spilling onto sidewalks. Overwhelmingly, these sounds are dance music: hip hop, rap, techno. Always fast, always upbeat. I've been startled a few times as my girls have spontaneously started wiggling when we've passed a car or store blaring some music with a beat. They dance in line at the frozen yogurt store. They dance to the rap at the dry cleaners. They even started dancing at the elegant Italian trattoria where we ate dinner next to two European-styled older women -- while hip hop played in the background. Last night at dinner, my older daughter started singing "I like to move it move it... I like to move it move it..." Where did she get that??

Apart from the observation that my children -- who never hear or dance to any of these genres at home -- seem to innately understand and enjoy these sounds, I am fascinated by the ubiquity of these genres in our public spaces. Fast, electronic music is clearly the background sound of our everyday lives, and as one who notices which establishments choose which kinds of music, I'm usually amazed by how little thought goes into making the selected music congruous with the desired experience. The Italian trattoria, for instance, was decorated in earthy Tuscan tones with Italian posters lining the walls. Wooden beams were exposed to create a wine cellar feeling and even the plates had an authentically Italian terra cotta look. Clearly much thought had been put into the overall atmosphere and design... except when it came to the music. The default to standard hip hop showed a strange lack of understanding that aural experiences contribute to the impact of design, food, and atmosphere.

The only store I've been in recently that has demonstrated an understanding of this principle is a high-end children's boutique in TriBeCa that specializes in 1930s and 40s designs. The store is decorated to transport the shopper back to this time period: vintage toys, even a vintage front door invite the shopper to be totally immersed in the brand attributes. Thank heavens the sound system was playing standards from the Great American Songbook!

But experiences like this make me wonder what it would be like if the standard electronic background music of our everyday lives were replaced with more "authentic" (that loaded word) sounds? Would my own daughters, exposed to and trained in the acoustic tradition, still start dancing outside of a store if it were playing Rigoletto instead of Rihanna?

I recently had two experiences in which the standard public soundtrack was replaced with music that resonates more with me. On the evening of the Fourth of July, my family was in our car driving home from Connecticut where we had spent the holiday with some friends. As we neared our exit on the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway, the traffic completely stopped. We had hoped to avoid all the traffic from the local fireworks shows, but soon after we stopped the mother of all fireworks shows began: the Macy's show in Lower Manhattan. I suspect our traffic was generated at least in part by people in other cars stopping to watch the show, because from the Brooklyn side of the East River we were perfectly positioned to see the whole thing. As the fireworks started outside our front window, Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto started simultaneously on the radio station we were listening to in our car. So our soundtrack to the biggest fireworks show in the nation was none other than Beethoven and a glorious performance by Maurizio Pollini.

As we flipped radio stations after the concerto was over, I realized that several other popular radio stations had provide their own official soundtracks during the show: a little Billy Joel, Springsteen, and several other good ol' American bands. I thought about what a different experience we had had watching the show to our own soundtrack-- a soundtrack that, for me, truly emphasized the majesty not only of what we were seeing but of what we were celebrating that day. My response to the moment was so much greater because it was accompanied by music that matched the hugeness and glory of what was going on outside.

More recently, I took the girls to a children's opera in a nearby playground -- a 30 minute version of Carmen in which my daughter was very disappointed that they had edited out Carmen's death at the end -- that was amplified to accommodate the outdoor setting. After the performance was over, the sound engineers turned on a soprano aria that I was not familiar with but which blared over the entire playground. As I pushed my daughters on the swings, I looked around at the scores of other children and parents/nannies milling around that park and wondered if they even noticed what was playing. To me, it was exquisite to have a simple act like swinging my kids on a crowded playground accompanied by the heavenly tones of this mellow-tempoed solo aria. The moment was made even more poignant since the middle school kids with us at the swings were laughing about which of them were "fags" and "whores". It reminded me of that moment in The Shawshank Redemption when the duet from Marriage of Figaro gives the prisoners a moment of emotional freedom. I teared up as we started walking home, devastated to leave this playground soundtrack behind and a little shocked that every single person at that park had not completely stopped what they were doing to marvel at the gorgeous music around us.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this topic. What are your responses to music in public spaces? Do you even notice it? Does it ever bother you, disrupt your dinner, drive you out of a store? What do you think would be the general response if public spaces featured a variety of genres? Would there be any response or are we too inured to the whole subject?

Beethoven's Ode to What?

In the hubbub of graduating and moving, I haven't been posting a lot the last several weeks, but a recent conversation with my dad prompted me to formulate some thoughts about larger philosophical issues in music. The cover of this month's Gramophone magazine features six of "Today's Great Composers", including Reich, Golijov and Adams. I'm familiar with music from all of these composers and I understand -- on the surface at least -- where they are coming from in terms of answering the musical traditions of the past. My dad, an admitted musical reactionary of extreme proportions, has trouble with all of their music, claiming that it lacks "melody", his defining factor for greatness (think Verdi). He also noticed with distain that all of the photographed composers are dressed in jeans or black khakis. Our opposing reactions to Gramophone's cover spurred an interesting conversation.

While some of these current composers are turning away from the esoteric philosophy-composition that has dominated so much art music of the last 50 years, there is no doubt that composition -- even with melody and with audience appeal in mind -- has been permanently transformed since the last of the canonical traditionalists in the 1940s or 50s. I argue that this is an inevitable evolution responding to the fragmentation of genres and the domination of commercialized music, and that members of the "Shuffle generation" like me -- younger people who routinely listen to music of a swath of genres -- understand the influences and the relevance of the music of Adams, Ades, Glass, et al. The best of their music is complex, thoughtful, beautifully structured and contains compelling lines, even if you might not get a "Di Quella Pira"- type melody with every aria. My dad sees this transformation as an inability to hear or understand real beauty, and therefore an irredeemable fault. In our conversation, he argued that the music of "today's great composers" simply isn't beautiful.

He's right in that the main purpose of most music today is not simply to represent beauty, as it has been in ages past. Often the purpose of today's art music is to represent more negative feelings, or at least a realistic sense of the world we live in. But this rejection of romantic ideals isn't just happening in art music. It's been in progress for decades in all art forms. Music may be where disillusionment, frustration, and anger are most commercialized -- those are, after all, the primary sentiments of much rap and hip hop -- but it's not an evolution confined to Western art music. In that vein, I suggested to my dad that the next generations might not even hear beauty the way he does; that, in fact, Beethoven's Ode to Joy might not even mean triumph, joy, and beauty to listeners in 50 years, the way it does to him. This idea absolutely floored him. There has always been to him, and to many of his generation, one absolute aesthetic. But if a child of today grows up hearing only commercial music, what guarantee is there that that child will think "Oh! Joy, brotherly love, beauty!" if suddenly confronted with the Ode to Joy?

I realized during my class this past semester how much our aesthetic sense has changed as humans over the course of the past few hundred years as we discussed modes and liturgical music. In early church music, modes were beautiful, although they mostly sound a little strange to us today. Similarly, as we studied Islamic music, I was made aware of the maliable construct of our 12-tone scale. In Islamic music, their scale has 47 tones! There apparently is no absolute even in those elements of music that are mathematically constructed.

These aesthetics change over much longer periods than just one person's lifetime, which is why my dad has such a hard time imagining a world without the Ode to Joy. After all, Western art music of the past three hundred years is, essentially, all he's ever known. As a reactionary myself -- although not to the degree of my father -- I want to work to make sure the Ode to Joy always means joy, brotherly love, and beauty to those who hear it. But I also understand that there is no absolute aesthetic, that Western art music must work to find its place among the myriad of contemporary genres, and that those other genres are speaking to people with as much force as the Ode to Joy speaks to my dad.

This Is Why I Love Opera

How many people can do this live without a serious sound engineer working overtime?

Karajan Reviled

I came across a rather startling article in the British publication The Independent. This weekend marks the centenary of Herbert von Karajan's birth, the Austrian conductor who dominated the symphonic and operatic scene in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. In my home growing up, Karajan was the standard of excellence that every performance was measured against. He was considered the great modernizer, the passionate madman who brought true fire to every work he tackled. His tempos were faster or slower than others', his dynamics louder or softer. I've never read a true rebuke of his work such as this one. Norman Lebrecht, a prominent British cultural commentator, spares no words for the man he feels destroyed the classical music industry in the twentieth century:

"Whether Herbert von Karajan was a bad man or a good man is immaterial. He was a brilliant organiser with the gift of tuning an orchestra to his personal sound, an ability that he exploited to extreme ends. He inflicted his ego on the world of classical music in a way that crushed independence and creativity and damaged its image for future generations. It is not the bad man he was that we should deplore but the reactionary and exclusivist legacy which is being "celebrated". For music lovers, there is not much to celebrate. Once the centenary is over, we will drop the curtain once and for all on a discreditable life that yielded no fresh thought and upheld no worthwhile human value. Karajan is dead. Music is much better off without him."

Miracle at the Met

On Monday, I ventured across the Charles River to hear Peter Gelb speak at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Gelb was tapped in 2003 as the new general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, and in the last season and a half he has proven to be the savior of that institution. The business of music is utterly fascinating to me and I took four pages of notes from his presentation, but here I'll just list the most interesting facts that help paint a picture of what he's been able to accomplish.

* In 2003, the average age of the Met patron was 65. Five years earlier, the average age had been 60. Hmm. Clearly, the audience was literally dying out.

* Box office sales were at 76% when Gelb took over in the 2005-2006 season. Today they are at 88%. Just as significant, patron donations have risen 40% from their 2005 levels.

*Gelb has doubled the number of new productions the Met offers each year. In choosing to open his first season with a new production of Madame Butterfly, directed by acclaimed film director Anthony Minghella (English Patient, Cold Mountain), Gelb offered the Met's first new production on an opening night in twenty years.

*New ticket programs have been initiated (100 tickets are available at $20 the night of the performance), rehearsals have been opened to the public, and performances have been broadcast into Times Square and Lincoln Center Plaza.

*An annual family production has been introduced. (Last year it was an abridged Magic Flute directed by Julie Taymor, this year it's been a production of Hansel & Gretel.)

*John Adams, the most respected contemporary opera composer in the U.S., has never had an opera produced at the Met. His Doctor Atomic is coming next season.

*In the spirit of Chagall and Hockney who had deep relationships with the Met in their eras, Gelb is reaching out to contemporary artists to create banners for publicity and to hang in front of the house. The gallery art space in the lobby of the house also features works inspired by the operas.

Gelb's most publicized change, of course, has been the introduction of live HD transmissions into movie theaters. This year, the transmissions are going out to 650 theaters in 14 countries, estimated to reach over 110,000 people. Fifty percent of box office revenues are currently coming from HD tickets! In a feat of arts management, each broadcast is easily covering the incremental $1 M it takes to distribute the film-- and generating profits!

The ingenuity of what Gelb is doing rests in the fact that he believes intensely in opera's role as "high art". He is trying to make opera connect with contemporary society, but he is not doing it at the expense of dumbing down -- or making "accessible"--the productions, the singers, or the overall quality. Instead, he is focusing on the distribution of the art form, and in this he is revolutionary.

At the end of the presentation, I had the opportunity to ask Gelb personally about the future of the HD broadcasts. After seeing Hansel & Gretel in January in the same week I saw Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, it occurred to me that it would be a nature next step for the Met to separate its production capabilities from the realm of the live performance and perhaps break off a separate film production arm. "The Metropolitan Opera Company presents... Electra, directed by Tim Burton." If Gelb is giving film directors the chance to direct live opera, why not meet them on their own playing field and have them direct opera for film? Few attempts have been made at this, most notably Ingmar Bergman's Magic Flute, but with the global brand and excellence of the Met, it could become standard practice. Alas, Gelb agreed it was a good idea, but claimed he had no idea where the money would come from to pour into a production arm. Well, maybe in 10 years he'll hire me to be heading up that initiative....

MoTab Isn't for Everyone...

Last Saturday, I had a very interesting experience which fed my ever-growing curiosity about the psychology of music: how people can have such different aesthetic preferences, how the same music effects people differently, what role music plays in our social psyche, etc. I was asked to speak at a New England young single adult conference for my church, hosted in New Hampshire, and I chose to conduct a workshop on the difference between "Sacred" music (i.e. the genre, marketing label) and "sacred" music (meaning any music that is meaningful or inspirational to the individual listener).

First of all, my workshop went head to head with Roger Porter's (a Harvard prof who was economic advisor to Ford, Reagan and Bush I). Hmmm. Yes, people did still come to my class (although I probably would have chosen Porter's over my own!). My attendees were college-aged, and in preparing for the presentation I wanted to work with the fact that most people of this age group these days are steeped in commercial musical genres that are not part of the church's emphasis on the traditional, classical arts.

I divided the workshop into two themes:
1. Encourage participants to find the "sacred" in the popular music that they listen to everyday, and not feel limited to finding spirituality in the "Sacred" music genre.
2. Conversely, encourage participants to value "Sacred" music more and gain a deeper appreciation for the church's classical art tradition.

The first part was fascinating: I played 30 second clips from 12 songs that you all recommended and asked each participant to jot down silently whether or not the clip represented "sacred" music to them. Then, after I'd revealed what the songs were, we had a terrific discussion about what people responded to and why.

Here's the playlist of the 12 songs:
1. Crucifixus -- Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge (medieval church music)
2. Sweet Little Jesus Boy -- Jesse Norman (traditional Negro spiritual solo)
3. Hey Mama - Kanye West (current hip hop song)
4. Piano Sonata no 7, 3rd mvt - Prokofiev (example of no words)
5. Come Thou Glorious Day of Promise -- Mormon Tabernacle Choir (traditional choral hymn)
6. Jesu Me Kanaka Waiwai -- Gladys Knight and Saints Unified Choir (Hawaiian hymn)
7. Every Time I Feel The Spirit - Little Richard (traditional spiritual with Baptist choir)
8. Umbrella- Rihanna (Pop)
9. Down to the River to Pray -- Allison Krauss (Bluegrass)
10. I Will Follow You Into the Dark -- Death Cab for Cutie (Alternative rock)
11. Cast Thy Burden On the Lord -- Mendelssohn's Elijah (traditional oratorio)
12. Blessed Assurance -- Gladys Knight (traditional spiritual with choir)


Some of the responses:
"No way #1 is sacred cause it's clearly just a movie soundtrack"
"MoTab is way too bland to be sacred" vs. "Only reverent music is sacred so none of the Gospel music is sacred"
"Kanye West's message about loving his mother makes his song the most sacred on the list"
"Death Cab for Cutie's song is the most authentic, real, therefore the most sacred"
"Anything that sounds like opera totally drives the spirit away"
"That Elijah song could be good if it had a little rhythm behind it." (I have to say that was one of my favorite comments)

We also talked about the idea of how Mormon culture contributes to our responses (i.e. sacred = quiet), and how our own family culture contributes. Then we switched gears and talked about the response each of the participants has to the hymns. The general consensus seemed to be that the kids don't enjoy singing them at church on Sundays ("boring, no energy") but that they are the first thing they turn to when they need personal comfort or inspiration ("I read through the poems or sing them to myself"). We talked a lot about the hymns as an important cultural record of our church's history, why it's important to preserve that musical aesthetic, and our role in making Sunday singing more enjoyable.

After such an experience, it's hard for me to deny that music I consider to be universally appealing... well, isn't. On the other hand, I'm grateful that the generation after me continues to find spiritual meaning in the music of their own time.

Musical Diplomacy in North Korea

I guess it takes a visit of the New York Philharmonic to North Korea for classical music to make the front page. There's been no shortage of discussion about this week's visit: Alex Ross calls out several of the national music commentators who have weighed in on whether or not the Phil's visit is a good idea, or just a pandering to the North Korean PR machine. The discussion ranges from critiques on the light-weight program (Dvorak, Gershwin, Wagner's overture to Lohengrin) to a condemnation of the West's effort to civilize the barbarian regime with the elevating effects of classical music. Perhaps I'm naive about the art of diplomacy and the need for political statements through programming, but I do believe in symphonic music's ability to communicate our democratic values. Not in a preachy, proselytizing way, but in an open-hearted representation of what we find uplifting. Who knows, maybe there'll be some common ground there. Isn't that diplomacy in itself?

See my posting from Dec. 13, 2007 for additional thoughts. For photos of the audience and the performers and a liveblog description of the concert, visit Pete Matthew's blog.

Also: Update to my post on La Vie en Rose, the movie about Edith Piaf. Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for Best Actress. So I wasn't the only one moved by her performance!

Church Music for Today?

I'm going to be a bit sparse with my blogging for the next couple of months because I am now fully entrenched in my music class, The Future of Music, at the Harvard Extension School. But I couldn't resist writing about this fascinating article from this week's New Yorker magazine. Nico Muhly is a twenty-six year old composer who is primarily inspired by the Renaissance religious music and and by contemporary minimalism. His own compositions are receiving wide acclaim, as well as ample performance. He's got such powerhouses as Philip Glass and John Adams behind him, so watch out, he's here to stay.

Heaven Sounds Like Elgar

Last weekend for my birthday, E took me to the Boston Symphony Orchestra's performance of The Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar. Elgar, best known to me by his cello concerto and , composed the oratorio in 1900 to the poetic text of a Catholic cardinal. I was so clueless about the piece before going I thought it was titled something about Geronimo... Why a Brit would write about Geronimo was not something I even paused to think about, so you can see how much thought and research I put into the evening before the lights went down.

The piece requires an enormous orchestra, organ, full chorus and three soloists -- a huge ensemble as you can see from the picture taken at a 1964 rehearsal. E and I were very quickly entranced: the orchestration is lush and Wagnerian, and Ben Heppner was a revelation as a true Helden tenor. I especially enjoyed Gerald Finley as the baritone. By the end of the piece, I was convinced it was perhaps one of the most purely beautiful works I have ever heard. Truly what I imagine choirs of angels sound like. And a highlight was the incredible moment when Gerontius sees God - "for one moment" -- and in that moment all the instruments must "exert their fullest force". Wow.

Opera on Film

Well after a VERY long Christmas hiatus, I'm back with my exciting musical adventures. The past month or so has actually provided a number of experiences ripe for discussion. First and foremost, I saw three very different operas on film and the results made me excited and curious about the future of opera performance in the digital age.

Although Jenny was one of my mother's starring roles at the Met Opera, Los Angeles Opera's production of MAHAGONNY was actually the first time I've seen the opera on stage. (I was 8 at the time my mother sang it and a little too young for Jenny's seductions.) I know some of the music quite well, but I was unfamiliar with the story or any production concepts. I was prepared to really like this film, since Alex Ross included the production on his Top 10 list of performances in 2007, but I was actually underwhelmed. I think the filming of the stage production was not intimate enough for my taste: too much time was spent in the broad panning of the full stage and not enough time on the individual singers. With very little set behind them, I felt that the camera could have done a better job grounding the viewer in the scenes with intimate camera work. Instead, the singers looked like they were drowning in the plain backdrops and expansive space of the stage.

I thought Audra McDonald was marvelous and Anthony Dean Giffrey was a highlight as Jimmy, but as much as I've loved Patti LuPone in the past, she spoke her way through this role and seemed out of place with the rest of the excellent vocals.

The second opera I watched recently was the Metropolitan Opera's production of HANSEL AND GRETEL. I was a gingerbread girl myself in the Met's production many years ago and Hansel too was one of my mom's starring roles, so I have many fond memories of the candy house and the witch with the green tongue. Well, this production couldn't be farther from that fairy tale ideal. Although certainly not what I would have chosen as a representation of the Grimm story, I didn't mind the dark interpretation as much as I thought I would. And I thought it worked exceptionally well on film. E and I attended the New Year's Day screening in HD while we were in Utah for Christmas; I was surprised and delighted by the enthusiastic and sold out crowd in the middle of Murray, UT, and the whole experience was mind-opening and completely fabulous to someone like me who grew up loving opera but in a technological age. I can't wait for more of the Met's HD broadcasts.

Lastly, I finally got around to watching the Met's EUGENE ONEGIN, the HD version broadcast on PBS that I had TiVoed. I had missed it in the theaters but had heard rave reviews of Hvorostovsky as Onegin. Ramon Vargas was a bit disappointing as Lensky, but Renee Fleming certainly delivered. As with Hansel, I again thought the filming of the stage production was effective, even though, like Mahagonny, the set was minimal and it would have been easy for the characters to have been lost among the plain backdrops. The final scene was riveting.

My overall conclusions from these three experiences is that the Met has an advanced aptitude for filming staged opera for the movies. Both on screen and on TV, the two Met productions were much more effective than the LA Opera production. It is thrilling to me to think about the possibilities for this art form as it continues to be transferred to advanced viewing techniques: first of all, the possibilities for directors and settings of the opera seem limitless, a theory the Met has already explored by hiring Hollywood and Broadway directors. Could Tim Burton direct a feature film of Electra, produced by the Met? (Seeing his Sweeney Todd over break made me remember the Covent Garden production I saw of the opera where blood ran down the corrugated metal walls.) How about Joe Wright over a production of Tristan and Isolde? As if Atonement wasn't sad enough...

And then questions arise about the singers. Will some singers embrace the film format while others will shy away from it? To what degree will appearances dictate casting in the future? Will the voice no longer reign supreme if the singer is required to appear in the next theater down from Reese Witherspoon or Meryl Streep?