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Archive for the ‘Music - Classical’ Category

Over the last decade, musical organizations have gone public with their concern at the absence of the under-30 generation in the audience for classical concerts. Orchestras and conductors around the country blamed the lack of music education in school while critics retorted that orchestras had priced young people out of their halls and were acting more like museums, endlessly curating the same canonical works from the 18^th and 19^th centuries while turning their backs on music of our time.

Well, the musical ice has cracked in Chicago and the new music scene has “really exploded”, according to Tim Munro, flutist with Eighth Blackbird, a leading contemporary ensemble.  The prime movers and shakers are the city’s chamber music ensembles, though the mighty Chicago Symphony joined the movement in 1998 with its MusicNow series and the appointment of two young, edgy composers-in-residence, Anna Clyne and occasional hip-hop DJ Masonic, Mason Bates.

A seminal event for this development was the creation in 2004 of New Music Chicago, an association of five founding members—Eighth Blackbird, ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), Cube, ACM (Access Contemporary Music) and Maverick—that has grown to 20 members. Tribute must be paid to the vanguard Contemporary Chamber Players (now Contempo), headed by composer Ralph Shapey who paved the way in 1964. The group is now headed by composer Shulamit Ran.

Chicago, in fact, is the most active city for new music activity in the country. Teddy Dean Boys, a local consultant to non-profit organizations, says that he heard Bates and Clyne, at a luncheon last week, claim that Chicago is an even more lively center for new music than London, San Francisco and New York.

Seth Boustead

Munro, ACM’s founder, Seth Boustead, and Boys revealed a number of reasons for this musical flourishing.  They noted that New Music Chicago has proven to be a unifying force supportive of each ensemble’s work rather than in competition; there is no comparable organization in New York or San Francisco. Boys seconds this idea, stating that Chicago is “a great nurturing place” with “risk-taking audiences”, factors that allow performers to develop at their own pace, with less fear of failure than exist elsewhere.

Young people like to flock to venues that have a “cool vibe.” So, new music ensembles have ventured out of their academic homes to play at The Hideout, Heaven Gallery, Hungry Brain, Chopin Theater and even the Green Mill Tavern. Both Boys and Boustead say that the new music scene is reminiscent of the excitement surrounding Chicago Theater in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Boustead noted that Dal Niente, Fulcrum Point and ICE are groups with a very clear mission who “talk like people in their 30s” that bonds with younger audiences. A number of new groups are crossing over to incorporate indie rock influences in their performances, says Munro.

Munro claims that engaged, young audiences flock to Eighth Blackbird concerts because the group “try to create a different performance aesthetic. We try to find ways of emotionally engaging an audience.” He says they employ elements other than an audiences’ ears—movies for example—to grab attention.

Finally, what makes Chicago so lively is the absence of a single major presenter, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla that monopolizes the audience’s attention, like the Chicago Symphony does for orchestral music.

If you remain in the dark about new music, I’d urge you to catch a performance by Eighth Blackbird, Pacifica Quartet, ICE or any of the ensembles in this report. This Saturday, Eighth Blackbird is at the Museum of Contemporary Art playing Steve Reich’s masterwork, “Music for 18 Musicians” in honor of his 75^th birthday. The first show is sold out but a second show has been added at 10 p.m.

Eighth is curating the “Tune-In Festival” in New York from February 16 – 20 in a really alternative venue, the cavernous Park Avenue Armory.  The festival consists of 4 concerts over 5 days. Eighth is performing in all the festival concerts apart from the February 16 opening; only one features them in their normal sextet configuration. A highlight will be the premiere of John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit” which features 72 percussionists performing as they move around the armory. For more information, go to www.armoryonpark.org.

Here at home, mark March 30 on your calendar to take in Access Contemporary Music’s annual “Sound of Silent Film Festival.”  It’s the only film festival that features modern silent films by directors like Martin Scorsese and Gus van Sant screened to live music composed specifically for each film. It is both fun and engaging. The festival runs from March 30 to April 2 at the Chopin Theater. For more information, go to www.acmusic.org.

That’s what conductor Steven Mercurio called Giacomo Puccini’s opera, “La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) in a recent issue of Opera News. Puccini composed the score to the play of the same name by American playwright, David Belasco.

The opera, which remains relatively unheralded compared to Puccini’s other scores—“Tosca,” “La Boheme” and “Madame Butterfly”—is being feted this season on the 100^th Anniversary of its debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Puccini attended the premiere and heard Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn in the leading roles with Arturo Toscanini conducting. Puccini considered it his best score.

Since its premiere, where it received a tumultuous 14 curtain calls, the opera has had a spotty history. Lyric has not performed “La Fanciulla” since 1990. Why? The opera has a winning story of personal redemption and beautiful melodies, good enough for Andrew Lloyd Weber to poach for the signature song to his “Phantom” musical, “Magic of the Night.” One reason may be that few sopranos can or want to tackle the fearsome vocal and dramatic demands of the score.

Deborah Voigt at The Met

In honor of the centennial, America’s two leading opera houses  mounted different productions. Rarer still, I was able to see the Met and Lyric Opera productions only weeks apart with the same two leads, soprano Deborah Voigt as Minnie and tenor Marcello Giordani as the bandit, Ramerrez, aka Dick Johnson.

The opera is set in a California mining town at the time of the Gold Rush (1849). Minnie is the good-hearted proprietor of The Polka Inn, a saloon frequented by the men who’ve left their homes and families to come West and find their fortune. Jack Rance, the town’s sheriff, lusts after Minnie but she gives her heart, unknowingly, to the Mexican bandit, Ramerrez, who comes to town masquerading as “Johnson from Sacramento.” The opera’s action revolves around Minnie and Johnson’s growing love affair, Rance’s suspicions and the discovery of Johnson’s true identity.

I’ll compare the two viewings by commenting on various aspects of the productions and deliver a sports page-like ranking.

VIEWING—I saw the Met production in a local movie theater on a live HD transmission. The vivid picture quality impressed me more than I expected and the close-ups of the singers added extra immediacy to my enjoyment. At Lyric, I sat in a sixth row seat, which conveyed the same close-up immediacy with the advantage of being in the house, hearing a live performance. Advantage—A Tie. (”Superb Viewing in Both Productions. However, live performance and seat location favor Lyric but the Met wins if one is seated in rear orchestra or upper balcony).

STAGING—Both Giancarlo del Monaco’s Met production and Lyric’s  by theater director, Harold Prince, told the tale by focusing on the miners and not a John Ford cowboy western with blazing guns and 10-gallon hats (Lyric’s Jack Rance hardly wore his hat, preferring to hold it in his hand by his side, an odd and distracting choice for a sheriff).

The major differences were in the set, costumes and lighting design. The Met used nearly the entire stage to depict the interior of The Polka Inn while Lyric’s smaller set was centered in the middle of the stage and showed the inn’s exterior as the opening curtain rose while the remaining half showing the rocky landscape.

Set Design—When Lyric’s set opened, the Polka Inn had a cramped feeling that proved too small for all the miners onstage. The saloon’s smaller set proved a greater disadvantage in the second act, when only half the set had to serve as the entirety of Minnie’s cabin. The Met’s cabin, meanwhile, was twice as large and more appropriate for all the props and action that take place during the act. Advantage—The Met

Costumes revealed another major difference. The Met production had the miners in more authentic western garb with checked shirts, bandanas and vests. At Lyric, while the miners sported appropriate garb, it was strange to see the bandit Ramerrez and sheriff Jack Rance clothed in knee-length overcoats, outfits more appropriate for landed gentry than cowboys. Advantage—The Met

Finally, the lighting design at Lyric was dark and much too somber compared to the Met’s brighter palette. It was nearly impossible to make out the miners at the opening curtain entering from Stage Right or to see Ramerrez flee outdoors in the second act to avoid capture.  Both the Met and Lyric productions featured the majestic Sierra Mountains in the background; the Met, however, effectively spotlit the snowy peaks in the second act onward while they remained in darkness at Lyric until the last act. For a story in which nature and the harsh landscape are a key backdrop and in which the Sierras cover the entire rear of Lyric’s stage, it seemed the lighting was not used to best effect. Advantage—The Met

Marcello Giordani & Deborah Voigt at Lyric

Singers—Though music lovers and critics care most about this category, I placed it last because Deborah Voight and Marcello Giordani were in fine voice and delivered winning dramatic portrayals in both productions. However, in supporting roles, I preferred Lyric’s casting of Jack Rance and Jake Wallace. Marco Vratogna’s dark, baritone delivery was slightly better than that of Lucio Gallo in New York. And Paul Corona at Lyric gave a more ardent rendition of Jake Wallace’s nostalgic song of home. Advantage—Lyric

And give Lyric another point for Minnie’s show-stopping rescue of Ramerrez from the gallows. While she simply came running in at The Met, she enters atop an old-fashioned hand-pump railcar at Lyric and, with a single shot, severs the hanging rope in two, a feat that drew a gasp from the audience.

While I have been more critical of Lyric’s production, it has been in the supporting categories. I’ve had no qualms about the glorious singing, staging or the score. So, I’d urge that you don’t miss discovering the joy of this neglected Puccini score. Six more performances remain through February 21. For tickets, go to www.lyricopera.org.

The next Met Live HD production, John Adams’ “Nixon in China”, will be telecast on Saturday, February 12. For details and ticket sales, go to www.metopera.org.

Watching the first scene in “RAGA: A Film Journey into the Soul of India” (Apple Films, 2010), one sees the Indian sitar master, Ravi Shankar, making his way through a crowd of adoring fans. It is sometime in the late ‘60s, when Eastern music was the rage in America. Shankar is smiling, clearly taken by the adulation of Hare Krishna devotees, flower children and curious, youthful bystanders. We next see him onstage, performing before a large crowd, joined by his long-time collaborator, the great Ustad Alla Rakha on tabla. These two need only a momentary glance and fleeting eye contact to produce an endless cascade of raga rhythms.

That was to be his 15 minutes of fame in America. Yet his musical influence has endured. While he emerged in the 1950s, his fame was propelled by the interest taken by the “quiet Beatle”, George Harrison, in Indian mysticism. Harrison traveled to India to study the sitar with Shankar. As a result of that spiritual journey and musical collaboration, Harrison released the album, “All Things Must Pass” in 1970 which contained the songs, “My Sweet Lord” and “What is Life?.” He also produced a charity benefit with Shankar in 1971, A Concert for Bangladesh.

By 1972, the music and the counterculture moment had died, done in by drugs, the Kent State killings, the Black Panthers and Weather Underground, Middle America’s turn to the right, symbolized by the election of Richard Nixon.

Last October, to mark Shankar’s 90^th birthday year and give a new generation the chance to experience his music anew, the Ravi Shankar Foundation re-released “Raga”, the 1971 documentary along with the first (1967-68) of nine CDs in a series entitled Nine Decades, featuring rare and remastered recordings  www.eastmeetswestmusic.com.

I recommend connecting with the documentary before diving into the music.  Not only will you witness him rehearsing with the remarkable violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, and the oh-so-young Harrison but it will give you a greater insight into this deeply religious man who gave up the life of a dancer, living the high life in Paris, to study for over seven years with his musical guru and dedicated his life thenceforth to music.  He toured America last year at 90 with his daughter, Anoushka.  I regret having missed his October concert at Orchestra Hall.

The film and music took me back in time. I was 25 when Shankar came on the scene. The music first struck me as foreign, like but yet quite unlike the twang of rock guitars. Through increased listening, I found the rapid string-plucking produced rich, singing tones that drew me in. As someone who practiced yoga at the time and puffed the occasional joint, this mysterious, other-worldly music fit the  alternative practices of the time. Shankar, however, didn’t approve of what he termed “the wrong approach to our music and religion, through drugs” and walked away from the fame and adulation.

Another jarring element is to see the deep poverty and squalor of India, circa 1970, at a time when today’s news is of the nation’s economic rise made possible by technology. How many will share in that good fortune? Will the great mass of the population be left behind the digital divide? Also, the film portrays a country rooted in century-old traditions and religious ceremony. Will India’s currently strong embrace of capitalism, consumption and distractions inevitably endanger its spiritual rootedness?

Ragas are the musical voice of the Indian people’s prayers. All of Shankar’s playing and raga compositions are his attempt to express the soul of Indian culture through the strings of his sitar. Ragas go much deeper than being simply sweet melodies, which is how they were treated in the West. Perhaps this time we can rediscover the true beauty of the music and the musician who remains its most renowned champion.

The Russians Are Here and More Are Coming

Every new year is a time for looking ahead. Rather than write about performances after the fact, I intend to start off the year by spotlighting some noteworthy programs on the “Soviet Arts Experience” schedule that belong on your calendar. My next post will be about worthwhile exhibitions at several of Chicago’s smaller museums and galleries.

“The Soviet Arts Experience” is an ambitious showcase of more than 100 presentations at 26 venues that began last October and runs throughout the city through January 2012 by artists who created under the time of Politburo rule in the former Soviet Union. This means symphonies and chamber music by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky but also ballet scores, wartime propaganda posters and book art. All the events and contact info are at www.SovietArtsExperience.org.

This past weekend, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played concerts on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon of Prokofiev’s engaging Fifth Symphony. Prokofiev is one of the four Russian composers cited above who created powerful works of the 20^th Century that are destined to be musical milestones.

Serge Prokofiev

Yet, unlike his counterparts, the CSO devotes much less concert time to Prokofiev’s music. For a long time, the label “popular composer” dogged Prokofiev for his score of “Peter and the Wolf”. Yet his pulsating Fifth Symphony, the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” and his virtuosic Piano Concertos #1 and #3 call for a serious reappraisal and more performances by the CSO.

The last weekend this month provides two important programs. On Saturday, January 29, the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra has programmed a fascinating concert: several of Dimitri Shostakovich’s film scores, including those for “Hamlet”, “The Gadfly” and “King Lear.” Then on Sunday, be sure to be in the audience at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall to hear the Pacifica Quartet give the third of five programs traversing Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets.  The first two programs played to full houses and rousing receptions.

When the series’ final two concerts are over in February, they will be judged as signal musical events of the new century. For those not familiar with these works, like myself, their beauty and the Pacifica’s fervent playing will come as a revelation. If you can’t snag a seat at Ganz Hall on the 30th or February 13 and 27, you can wait for the CD release on Cedille Records later this year, hop a jet to New York’s Metropolitan Museum or ride the rails to Champaign where the quartet is repeating the series.

Two other dance performances that should prove mesmerizing are the visit by the State Ballet Theatre of Russia at Auditorium Theatre on February 4 and 5 performing “Swan Lake” and the Eifman Ballet of  St. Petersburg doing Eifman’s version of “Don Quixote or Fantasies of a Madman” in April. Each company gives only three performances of these works. So, be alert so as not to miss them.

Golosa Choir

Just the thought of hearing the Golosa Russian Choir singing traditional Russian vocal music in the reverberant confines of Rockefeller Chapel gives me goose bumps. Clear your calendar to be in Hyde Park on Sunday April 3 at 11 a.m.

Not to be overlooked, three of Chicago’s art venues get into the act over the Summer and Fall with a series of exhibits highlighting Soviet posters, experimental propaganda images and book art.

The Art Institute kicks off the visual extravaganza on July 30 with a never-before-seen show of giant, strikingly designed World War II posters followed on August 30 with a show at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art that features the artistic process behind the creation of iconic Soviet propaganda imagery of the 1920s and 1930s.

Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art has two shows opening next Fall. One shows 160 post-Cold War political posters, cartoons, postcards and photomontages. The second is an examination of Soviet Book Art during the period 1910-17 by avant-garde artists entitled “Tango with Cows.”

There are many more riches impossible to include. Performances of Russian music by the CSO and Riccardo Muti, pianist EvgenyKissin and violist Yuri Bashmet in a joint recital, cellists Yo Yo Ma and Alisa Weilerstein. These artists’ appearances will be strongly marketed. I want to draw your attention to smaller, non-blockbuster events that may not be on your radar and may prove more satisfying.

The political Cold War is over. The Soviet Arts Experience seeks to smash a less conscious cultural “cold war” and expose us to a wider and deeper appreciation of works by Soviet artists in multiple mediums.  Bravo!

You probably have not heard of “The Soviet Arts Experience.”  You may think it was some Russian cultural propaganda during the Cold War? No. It is an adventurous series of music, art and theater programs running in Chicago over the next 15 months to showcase major 20^th Century contributions by Soviet artists. I guarantee that, when it ends in January, 2012, few will remain unaware of it and it will be judged an inspired triumph of cultural programming.

The Soviet Arts Experience (SAR) opened on October 1^st with a recital by the Tokyo String Quartet that featured a work by the talented Russian composer, Lera Auerbach, and continued through the month with an electrifying performance by the Chicago Symphony of Dimitri Shostokovich’s Eighth Symphony and impassioned performances of 5 of Shostokovich’s 15 string quartets by the Pacifica String Quartet at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall. The festival has already hit several high notes, so I’d urge you to book tickets soon for Pacifica’s final three concerts of the cycle. You will be treated to chamber music at its finest.  Go to Pacifica’s website and click on “News” for more information.

Shauna Quill

The impresario behind such an ambitious undertaking is not a New York music producer or one of our city’s major cultural institutions. Instead, Shauna Quill, who runs the University of Chicago’s extensive classical music program has shepherded this idea and assembled an impressive alliance of 25 local arts organizations from the Art Institute, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theater, the Goodman, Court and Auditorium theaters, Ravinia and the Grant Park Music Festival.

The germ of the idea that led to this festival occurred approximately 18 months ago, when the Pacifica Quartet informed Quill about their plans to schedule the rarely played Shostokovich string quartet cycle in a series of five recitals. Quill was impressed with the daring of the project and began thinking of how to capitalize on and draw attention to these compositions, pieces rarely-performed in their entirety.

She began calling other arts organizations in town and asked if they would like to  showcase works by artists who created during the time of the Soviet Union’s authoritarian rule by its supreme political body, the Politburo. The concept was enthusiastically received and, when the project was announced last March, 11 artistic collaborators were on board for the project.

The partnership has expanded in the seven subsequent months so that “The Soviet Arts Experience” now consists of more than 100 events in 25 venues, including over 50 concerts, 7 art exhibitions, 9 dance performances, 2 theater productions and numerous lectures and symposia. “I like to do interdisciplinary things, not just music,” says Quill. Well, this is doing interdisciplinary in spades!

Gidon Kremer

November events include a recital by Ani Aznavoorian, cello and Lera Auerbach, piano at the University of Chicago (November 5); Gidon Kremer’s Kremerata Baltica at Harris Theater (November 6) and another recital at Mandel Hall on November 19^th. In addition, Anton Chekov’s “The Seagull” is being performed at Goodman Theater through November 14 and the University of Chicago Library features an exhibit of Gulag Art through December.

If I’ve aroused your curiosity about SAR, then go to the “The Soviet Arts Experience” website.  It contains a list of program highlights, the roster of participating organizations and a calendar of events.

Quill’s background has equipped her for this logistical challenge. She studied music at Carnegie-Mellon University and interned at a Pittsburgh radio station. She then spent three years working for Herbert Breslin, who headed a well-known agency representing musical artists, followed by four years with the Aspen Music Festival in a consulting capacity.

She arrived at the University of Chicago in 2007 drawn, she says, by the potential offered by the position for artistic and scholarly collaboration. And she is already excited by a new challenge for collaboration. “I’m starting to think about the greater potential with the opening of the Logan Arts Center” on campus in 2012.

In the meantime, Quill says the marketing heads of the participating organizations are brainstorming on ways to showcase the festival in an attention-grabbing way so the public will be more aware of the cultural richness currently underway. While  35,000 posters have been mailed, it will take a special event, like a Soviet Arts week of stellar performances, similar to the Chicago Humanities Festival weekends.

After all, to paraphrase the philosopher Immanuel Kant, if a festival falls in the forest and no one hears it, has it really happened? It would be a shame to waste such an inspired idea for want of an equally imaginative marketing campaign.

Tristan und Isolde

I was a latecomer to opera, not falling under its spell until my late forties. Why?  Well, to my mind back then, opera was a foreign world, a musical universe in an orbit all its own. Countless opera fans worldwide treat this 400-year-old art form as a quasi-religion. They know the arcana of each opera’s composition, its performance history, major historical figures and hold passionate beliefs about how the music should be played and each aria should be sung. Such cult-like devotion, combined with opera’s centuries-old association with society’s aristocracy, made me think a guy from the West (not East) Side of Manhattan wouldn’t find opera to my liking.

Guys, don’t repeat my mistake and postpone discovering opera until late in life, or not at all. Let me offer several reasons that may convince young Chicago males to give opera a try.

Singers Are Athletes
When the weekend hits, most young men’s thoughts turn to sports. During the fall and winter opera season, that means the Bears and the Bulls.  Compared to Derrick Rose or Devin Hester, opera may seem like a long shot.  However, opera singers are athletes in their own right.

Like athletes, opera singers’ instruments are their voices. To be able to project their voice out to the rafters of the upper balcony’s last row without aid of a microphone is an athletic feat comparable to a running back or a marathon runner. All require great lung capacity, stamina and physicality. “These guys (and ladies) are strong,” says Roger Pines, the dramaturg at Lyric Opera for the past 15 years. “(To sing) Puccini or Verdi is a huge feat of singing force and power.”

Great Stories
I used to think the plots of most opera’s were outdated and overly melodramatic. They may seem so in reading the bare plot summaries but, on stage, the stories and emotions come alive in a larger-than-life way. You want stories about love, lust for power, sex, tales of the gods or the meaning of life? Opera has them all in spades. As Metropolitan Opera trustee and major donor, Agnes Varnis,

commented recently, “The opera’s like Broadway, only better. It’s got sex, it’s got incest, it’s got rape. You introduce young people to music, you’ve got them for life.”

Porgy & Bess

Better than Broadway
Ms. Varnis’ non-PC remark hit the nail for me. Over the past five years, on semi-annual trips to New York, my hometown, I’ve bypassed Broadway in favor of seeing an opera at the Met. Such a choice has become a no-brainer because most Broadway musicals are retreads or not very engaging. And now that opera managers are engaging many more directors with theater experience, like Chicagoans Barbara Gaines or Gary Griffin, to stage new productions, the results on stage are more imaginative and gripping.

Opera usually has more complex, imaginative sets, richer costumes and a full orchestra of at least 80 members rather than a pared-down ensemble of fewer than 15 musicians. And the ticket cost differential is almost non-existent with premium Broadway seats going for $250 and up.

Better Date Cred
Tell that lady you’re trying to impress and move your relationship to the next level that you’ve got tickets to the Goodman and she’ll be pleased. But tell her to dress up because you’re taking her to Lyric Opera or The Met and your stock jumps dramatically. She may now see you in a brighter light, as being more sophisticated and with definite mating potential.

More Eye Candy
Besides staging more theatrically-attuned productions, major opera companies are busy retiring the old stereotype of the “Fat Lady” from the legendary expression, “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings”.

The days of Montserrat Caballe and Jane Eaglen-type leading ladies are numbered. That was the message conveyed in 2004 when a director at London’s Royal Opera House dropped Deborah Voigt from a production of Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos”, because she was unable to fit into a tiny black dress. Ms. Voight, seeing which way the opera winds were blowing, subsequently underwent gastric bypass surgery and has resumed her top rank as a slimmer, but no less dramatic, diva.

Nadja Michael in Macbeth

So, men, if you crave slim, believable, beautiful leading ladies, you now have divas such as Joyce DiDonato, Ana Maria Martinez, Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca and many others to galvanize your attention and win your heart.  At the present time, through October 30, you can be mesmerized by the stunning Nadja Michael who is playing Lady Macbeth to a tee at Lyric Opera. I watched in fascination last week as Ms. Michael, sheathed in a super-sexy thigh-high slit dress, gave a tour de force vocal performance driving Macbeth to murderous mayhem. It was easy to see why Macbeth was a goner. What man could resist a woman of such wicked wiles?

Nadja Michael & Thomas Hampson - Macbeth

Opera now offers more ogling opportunities for young males than in decades past and less excuse for dozing off after Act One. And, during intermission, keep your eyes peeled for attractive, unaccompanied females who might be looking for their next opera arm candy as well.

For those five reasons, I urge 21-35 year-old men to give opera a chance. It’s not your parents’ opera anymore. Creative general managers like Peter Gelb in New York along Bill Mason and Brian Dickie here in Chicago are re-configuring it to appeal to a wider audience to insure its survival. The music and the voices must certainly remain the primary driving force. But there are many changes that are being made to modernize and replace practices grown stale and reinvigorate the mission.

Carmen

If you’re a neophyte, take in that timeless tale of passion and fickle love, Georges Bizet’s “Carmen”, Lyric’s next production. See why this tale of a sex-bomb, gypsy seductress is the world’s most popular opera. Katherine Goeldner (October-November performances) or Nadia Krasteva (March) should get your hormones racing. You can even fantasize that, while Don Jose didn’t have the cojones to tame Carmen’s love ‘em and leave ‘em ways, she might have met her match in you.

Note: If your knowledge of the operas at Lyric this season is rudimentary or nil, you can get up to speed by attending one or more of the six remaining talks in Lyric’s Discovery Series, led by Roger Pines. The next one is Nov. 8^th on “A Masked Ball.” Call Lyric at 312/332-2244 to register. For tickets: www.LyricOpera.org.

Conductor Carlos Kalmar claims that the Mahler Second Symphony (“Resurrection), which he played with the Grant Park Orchestra in 1999, helped him land the job of Principal Conductor. Given that history, it seems fitting that he should reprise the score this weekend to mark the successful completion of his 10th Anniversary season.

Kalmar has a good deal to be proud of: molding a good orchestra into an even greater ensemble; the transformational move from an acoustically-challenged Petrillo Music Shell to the sonically-superior Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park (attendance has skyrocketed from 120,000 in 2003 to 300,000 in 2009) conducting a wide variety of adventurous repertoire; showcasing the works of American composers; leading performances of the highest caliber in recent seasons, notably the incandescent Mahler 9^th and Beethoven 9^th to end the 2009 season.

Millennium Park regulars know this musical figure primarily by his leonine mane and what critics have termed his “propulsive” and “athletically vigorous” performance style. Yet, beyond that, who is he?

Kalmar was born in 1958 of Austrian parents in Montevideo, Uruguay and went to study in Vienna at the age of 15. His conducting career took off when he won the Hans Swarowsky Conducting Competition in Vienna in 1984. He made his debut the following year with the NDR Symphony in Hamburg.

He gained valuable experience heading several German orchestras over the next 15 years. Kalmar made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2000, the same year he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Orchestra. In 2003, he was named Music Director of the Oregon Symphony, the oldest orchestra west of the Mississippi. Most recently, he added the music directorship of Madrid’s Orquestra Sinfonica which he assumes in the 2011-2012 season.

Kalmar says he is a musician whose main mission is simply “making music at the highest level with my musical family”. He spoke highly in an interview of his summer colleagues, drawn from such top orchestras as the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Kansas City and Seattle Symphony.

“These ten years in Chicago have been a blessing for me. When I arrived, it was a very good group of musicians. Now, it’s an excellent orchestra.” He speaks proudly of their familiarity with one another which enables them to know and learn repertoire quickly. Kalmar has also recorded six CD releases with the orchestra for Cedille Records.

He appears a man content in both his personal and musical life; not someone caught up in music world games. Asked if he found it difficult to be properly recognized in Chicago, a city with an abundance of world-class conductors in Riccardo Muti, James Conlon, Pierre Boulez and Andrew Davis, Kalmar laughed.  “If I started thinking of that (comparisons with Muti et.al.), I would leave music. I don’t lose any sleep over that.”

There is good reason not to worry. When James Palermo, head of the Grant Park Music Festival from 1995-2009, was looking to hire a music director ten years ago, he remembers several musicians approached him after a rehearsal of the Mahler Second and telling him, “This guy is terrific.” The next nine years validated that assessment. “He knows the music and the scores better than anyone else,” says Palermo. “He’s an incredible rehearsal technician.”

Kalmar substituted this season, on short notice, with the Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestras. At 52, he has a long career, with  higher achievements, ahead of him. Palermo, his working colleague for nine seasons and currently president and CEO of the Colorado Symphony, holds him in high regard. “He’s built a career for himself from the ground up. He’s done it the old-fashioned way, through hard work. It’s his time to shine and he deserves whatever comes his way.”

I discovered the passionate, virtuosic playing of The Pacifica Quartet only early this year which means I am quite late to the game. This ensemble has been accumulating to-die-for critical reviews for years and capped 2009 by bagging a Grammy Award and being named “Ensemble of the Year” by Musical America magazine.

My long delay in taking notice could be that, other than at the University of Chicago, there is no regular chamber music series at a downtown venue. Also, for decades, the major planets in the chamber music’s tiny universe were the Emerson, Guarneri, Juilliard, Tokyo, and Vermeer Quartets. Besides knowing the ranking of America’s “Big Five” symphony orchestras (plus Berlin, London and Vienna), the average music lover may not recognize other fine, top-drawer ensembles.

However, a tectonic shift has rocked the chamber world of late. The Vermeer and Guarneri Quartets disbanded. Thus the time seems right for The Pacifica Quartet to expand its appeal and take its rightful place at the top. Pacifica plays 90 concerts a season, tours Europe three or four times and has bookings out to 2013.

They are already critical darlings. The Times (London) gushed over their “stupendous, breathtaking virtuosity.” The New York Times hailed their “astounding performances” while the local Tribune praised their “astonishing talent, energy and dedication.”

The Pacifica was formed in 1994 though its current four members—Simin Ganatra, violin, Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin, Masumi Per Rostad, viola and Brandon Vamos, cello–have played together for almost a decade. They appear poised to reap the rewards of their musical vision and dedicated commitment.

Such a record of longevity is rare in the chamber music world. Masumi Per Rostad,  who joined in 2001, says the failure rate for string quartets is 99.99%, a figure akin to that for restaurants.

Why?  In the critical early stages, Rostad notes, “a quartet must figure out how to manage its career.” A quartet is very much like a small business and, without good advice and some business sense, it will flounder and most do.

Rostad also listed other factors impeding success. The difficulty of finding time when all the members can rehearse is one cause. Members have to juggle rehearsal schedules with other playing-and paying-gigs (Pacifica members practice up to 5 hours each day). Members may also not be sure how to react or interact as an ensemble. Rostad estimates that it takes 2-3 years for a group to develop a “defined identity”.

How has Pacifica persevered? Rostad credits receiving sound early advice about repertoire and key business details from Paul Katz of the Cleveland Quartet and David Finckel of the Emerson Quartet. More importantly, their adoption of a “peripatetic model of touring plus teaching plus a variety of repertoire” has enabled the members to feed their musical passion as well as feeding themselves.

Pacifica is the resident quartet at both the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana is their home base) and at the University of Chicago. The residencies provide valuable time to develop new repertoire while they teach classes and collect a salary.

Earlier this year, the quartet received its newest honor: being named quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they will play the entire cycle of 15 Skostakovich Quartets in the upcoming season and the full cycle of Beethoven Quartets during 2011-12.

“Every award or appointment,” Rostad says, “helped us and took us to the next level. One (award) doesn’t stick out since all are integral to our success.”

If you are not familiar with this marvelous quartet, I urge you to catch Pacifica this Tuesday evening, August 3^rd, at Ravinia’s Martin Theater. Tickets are available by calling the Ravinia box office at 847/266-5100 or online at www. Ravinia.org.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra said goodbye last weekend to its Principal Conductor of the past four seasons, Bernard Haitink, in the best way possible: they played their hearts out for a beloved leader. Haitink bade farewell to Chicago after leading a successful and musically satisfying three-week Beethoven Festival. As a parting gesture, the musicians awarded him the Theodore Thomas Medal for Distinguished Service as a token of their esteem.

I caught three of the maestro’s performances: Beethoven’s Second and Third (Eroica) Symphony, a dress rehearsal of the Fourth and Sixth (Pastoral) and the final performance last Sunday of the magisterial Ninth.

It was the best live performance of that score that I’ve ever witnessed. I also had the best possible view: sitting in the Terrace on stage at Orchestra Hall, less than 10 feet from the Chicago Symphony Chorus and facing Haitink head-on. Such a unique vantage point enabled me to see not only his facial expressions, from somber to joyous, but also the movements of both hands.

I am not musically expert enough to pinpoint what makes Haitink a great conductor. The key to that riddle cannot be captured with words. It’s a matter of musical chemistry between players and conductor. And the 80-year-old Haitink found his perfect match in Chicago.

However, I suspect  part of the answer can be found in his left hand. Had I been sitting in a regular house seat, facing his back, my focus would have been more on  Hatitink’s baton. But facing him, I saw that his left hand was just as active as his right. He kept sending nonverbal telegrams to orchestra or choral members about how he wanted them to play and sing.

I counted at least a dozen different hand signals and then stopped counting. He raised his hand to draw out a louder sound, moved his hand agitatedly to express tension, make a raised clenched fist to demand full-out singing or pointed his index finger to cue the tympanist or cellos.  And the players reacted instantly, giving him whatever he desired.

When I wrote a story last year about the search for Haitink’s successor, Riccardo Muti, I asked orchestra oboist, Michael Henoch, how musicians knew Muti was “The One”.  He told me, “They (top conductors) don’t need a lot of verbiage. They don’t even have to speak English. The best convey it with their gestures.”

Over the past four seasons, whenever Haitink led the orchestra, you knew that a special evening was in store.  He never disappointed.  His readings were revelatory.  Loud applause and bravos resounded through the hall.  While his manner was serious and almost phlegmatic, once he ascended the podium, the results were consistently electric.  His seven recordings with the orchestra will insure his legacy.

I have lived in Chicago 30 years and seen the orchestra led, at various times, by five of the greatest conductors of the past 50 years—Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez and now Haitink.  Chicago will soon welcome the sixth in September with Muti.  Our orchestra and city has made  musical history that is close to unmatched in our time. Only Berlin can come close.

Thank you, maestro, and farewell.  I’ll await your return next May and your performances of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.  I can’t wait!

The opera season ended last weekend at both The Met in New York and locally with Chicago Opera Theater’s very-winning and beautifully sung production of Jake Heggie’s “Three Decembers” starring Frederica von Stade in her final opera appearance in Chicago. The season’s end seems a good moment to think about changes taking place in the opera world.

Even infrequent opera-goers can surmise that this four-century-old art form is in a period of transformation. The changes are vocal, economic and technological.  Most are changes of degree rather than radical in nature.  One or two, however, strike me as unprecedented. Taken together, they add up to a U-turn or two in opera programming and performance practice.

My thinking on this topic was provoked while examining the 2010-11 season brochure for Lyric Opera of Chicago. Sure, theater directors have, over the past 40 years, directed operas from John Dexter and Harold Prince to Sir Peter Hall and Peter Sellers. But Lyric’s eight productions next season feature six directors with strong past theater ties. Only former opera star, Renata Scotto, and John Copley of Covent Garden are primarily opera directors.

So, I started out exploring the following changes that seem to break from past operatic practice: 1) the greater use of theater directors, 2) opera moving beyond its own four walls, 3) the decline of the proverbial “Fat Lady” and 4) growing use of modern-dress productions.

I spoke with Chicago’s two operatic leaders—Bill Mason, general director of Lyric Opera and Brian Dickie at Chicago Opera Theater.

Both men shared memories gleaned from 50+ year associations with opera companies. Mason’s time has been spent entirely at Lyric, beginning with a walk-on role as a lad of 12 while Dickie spent over 30 years with the renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Wexford Festival in England.

Both general directors played down any surprise about the use of theater directors overseeing opera productions.  Names like Trevor Nunn and Nicholas Hytner of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Jonathan Miller, John Copley and Peter Hall were bandied about.  The trend

has been more common in England than here which Mason attributed to London’s centrality and lively arts scene. “It happens more in England. Most theatrical talent is focused in London” while the same concentration is less prevalent here.

I asked both men when using a director more versed in the spoken word of theater than the musical language of opera makes sense. “It’s all about the music and sensitivity to the text but also the musical text,” said Dickie. “(Good directors) must have that language in their bodies. Directors can’t make singers do something that clashes with the musical text.”

Mason’s view on how to employ a theater director and insure a successful production is “it helps if both the company and director know the challenges the work presents to insure the best collaboration.  At the first presentation of the director’s ideas for staging the work, it is necessary to establish artistic parameters. Sometimes a director comes with a conception at odds with our view and you need to make changes or economize.”

Both men threw out the names of favored directors who had handled that transition very successfully. Mason cited Jean Pierre Ponnelle, Copley and David McVicker while Dickie named Carl Ebert at Deutsche Oper and gave particular praise to Wieland Wagner and his role in reestablishing the Bayreuth Festival in the 1960s.

However, Lyric and The Met’s greater reliance on theater directors, such as Charles Newell, Gary Griffin, Peter Sellers and Mary Zimmerman has contributed to two other changes: a focus on appearance and greater stage movement.

Not every such engagement is a successful marriage.  Pierre Audi’s static direction of Verdi’s “Attila” at the Met this past season is a case in point as are the two productions Mary Zimmerman has staged there as well, a “Lucia di Lammermoor” and this season’s “Armida”, both  of which received very mixed critical receptions.  There’s a general feeling that her acclaimed use of improvisation and movement in her theater work is not as transferable to opera.

Another major change is tied to our society’s obsession with being thin, fed by our celebrity culture. Deborah Voigt was cut from a production of “Ariadne auf Naxos” in 2004 because her weight made it impossible to fit into an infamous “tiny black dress”. The director asserted her heft made her unbelievable as the svelte and sexy female lead.  The signal was thus sent that visual appearance had entered the opera world and rendered the saying, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings” moot.  Mason admits European houses “give more importance to the physical look.”

We want our Carmens to be smoldering femme fatales and Lyric intends to give us the goods next season, even while Mason says, that “at the end of the day, I’m moved by great singing and great dramatic  conviction. Without that dramatic tension, all the bells and whistles can’t help.”

Dickie admits that, while he greatly admires Jane Eaglen and Birgit Nillson in her prime, “in the last 10-15 years, increasing attention is being paid to the plausibility of singers. If you can avoid an overweight Isolde, you should do it.”

Peter Gelb at The Met in New York assumed his post in 2006 with a mandate to shake things up. He has done precisely that in his short tenure.  He has insisted on staging many new productions in an attempt to make the classics more appealing to contemporary audiences.

His two signal achievements are the unprecedented telecast of Met productions to more than a hundred movie theaters around the country and a simultaneous telecast of the opening night performance of “Madame Butterfly” in 2007 onto the Jumbotron screen in Times Square.  These moves have created an invaluable visual archive for future artists and audiences.

While the changes have generated hosannas and catcalls, Brian Dickie is a fan.  “Anything that increases interest in opera can be a good thing.”

A final trend that is increasing interest in opera is the increasing use of computer technology in productions and situating characters and the action in the more recent past, retiring tired costume dramas sporting silk hose and medieval armor and set in the 17^th or 18^th Century.

Perhaps that’s why I’m going to more opera these days. An element of surprise and anticipation has re-entered opera. When it’s good, it’s better than anything on any Broadway or West End stage. And believable characters, strong dramatic action, a winning artistic concept and glorious voices make it an art form that should survive another century.