A few weeks ago, the conductor Robert Ames announced he was stepping down as co-artistic director and co-principal conductor of the London Contemporary Orchestra. It was a bit of a shock. Conductors come and go with major orchestras, but Ames, who co-founded the LCO 18 years ago, was synonymous with the group. Deciding to move […]
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Posted inReport
Opera’s Siren Servers
In 2018, a little-known Danish tech startup called Truelinked bought the website Operabase, at the time the largest database of classical music and opera performances, theaters, festivals and artists. It served as a kind of IMDb for opera, with performance listings, casting tools, and a deep archive of past events, and was used widely by […]
Posted inInterview
Pre-Election Paralysis
On September 6, the citizens of Saxony-Anhalt, a state in the former East Germany, will vote in a closely watched election. Recent polls put the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party at an unprecedented 43 percent. Among the potentially profound consequences for the region if the party governs Saxony-Anhalt are changes to its artistic life, of […]
Posted inEssay
In Defense of the Program Note
On his first visit to London in 1851, Hector Berlioz attended several chamber music concerts at The Musical Union, a subscription series run by impresario John Ella. His dispatches from the city were effusive: “The London public is very attentive and serious in its tastes and I have been able to see for myself its […]
Posted inBreaking
Bach Festival Leipzig Stands By John Eliot Gardiner
Following allegations of inappropriate behavior against the conductor John Eliot Gardiner in June, the Bach Festival Leipzig informed employees today of its decision to continue its collaboration with the conductor. Gardiner will lead a performance of Bach’s B-Minor Mass at the festival in June 2027. The widely covered incident took place on June 16 at […]
Posted inBreaking
Life After Monsieur
On Tuesday, the newspaper Badische Neueste Nachrichten announced the death of Hans Florian Messner at the age of 84. Messner was best known in musical circles for his connection to Pierre Boulez, for whom he served as a personal valet for over 50 years. Messner hailed from South Tyrol, a German speaking region in the […]
Posted inReport
License to Earn
Judging by the number of lightsabers illuminating the packed arena, the Greenville Symphony Orchestra was doing great. Based in South Carolina, the regional orchestra settled below a screen set at the back of the Bon Secours Wellness Arena, which seats a bigger audience than their usual venue, and played the score to “Return of the […]
Posted inReview
Götterdämmerung Without Flames
In the late 19th century, talking about attention was all the rage. And of all that century’s artists and thinkers, Richard Wagner had perhaps the most wildly oscillating views on the fraught relationship between the production and consumption of works of art. At times, these views were a holdover from his revolutionary days: He held […]
Posted inReview
“Disney, of course, would do it better”
The morning before “Siegfried,” the “curator” of the Bayreuth “Ring,” Marcus Lobbes, gave an interesting question and answer session with Griffin Kaiser, a filmmaker and a member of the Wagner Society of New York. Before I report on what Lobbes said, I must make the point that if a work of art needs discursive intervention […]
Posted inReview
A Day of Genuine Dread
Unlike, apparently, the Wagner family and the minds behind the Bayreuth Festival, I actually like and respect the “Ring” cycle as both a work of art and a way of looking at the world. It feels insane to me that the cycle needs to be defended on its own merit, being one of the most […]