California born Kent Nagano is one of the most successful American conductors of this century. He has led the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Los Angeles Opera and most recently the Montreal Symphony and the Bavarian State Opera.

Nagano has quickly won many admirers in Montreal over the past season, only his second as music director of the Montreal Symphony. The orchestra was left in a state of disarray after the sudden departure of Charles Dutoit but Nagano seems to have restored a measure of artistic leadership. Next season he will conduct Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and Messiaen’s “Saint François d’Assise.”

A Major Music Festival in the Making?
While Nagano is now dividing his time between Montreal and Munich he is clearly intent on making an impression in Quebec. One of his new departures this summer is the creation of a summer festival in the historic village of Knowlton (Brome Lake/Lac Brome) east of Montreal. This is the Festival Bel Canto to be held between August 15 and 24. International opera stars Jennifer Larmore, June Anderson and Sumi Jo will be featured along with Nagano and the Montreal Symphony. The major event will be Bellini’s opera “Norma” in two performances with Micaela Carosi in the title role. Most performances will be given in a tent with seating for 600. Almost as soon as details of this new festival were announced the rush for tickets began. Many performances are already sold out.

Nagano and Montreal Symphony Release First Recording
The Canadian label Analekta has just released the first recording by Nagano and the Montreal Symphony under the title “Beethoven: Ideals of the French Revolution”. The two major works are the Fifth Symphony and the Egmont Incidental Music.

The Egmont music was originally written for the play by Goethe, but Paul Griffiths has written a new narrative for the score, inspired by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire’s heroic attempts to stop the Rwandan massacres, vividly recounted in his book “Shake Hands With the Devil.” Narrator for the English version (AN2 9942-3) is actor Maximilian Schell and for the French (AN2 9940-3), Albert Millaire. Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka is featured in both versions.

Seven Volume DVD Set Shows Nagano Style and Substance
A series of seven DVDs released in 2006 by Deutsche Welle TV and Unitel under the title “Kent Nagano Conducts Classical Masterpieces,” provides a good introduction to the style and substance of Nagano. Each volume includes a complete performance of a well-known symphonic piece accompanied by a documentary about the featured piece. These volumes can be purchased individually or as part of a boxed set.

The producers of this series are proud of their use of new technology to film these performances. “At the heart of each film”, they note, “is a technically and visually sophisticated concert recording. All footage was shot in the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin. A new view of the orchestra is achieved through extreme close-up shots of the musicians, remote-controlled cameras on the platform, crane and dolly shots and unconventional montage sequences.”

Unfortunately, these producers – Ellen Fellman is credited with the concerts and Oliver Becker the documentaries - fail to recognize one basic truth: while the technology available to film symphony orchestras has come a long way in the past 50 years, its employment is frivolous if it does not serve to convey the essence of the music and the music-making more effectively than before. Clearly, these performances by Nagano and the DSO Berlin are excellent and the sound is state of the art, but too often the fancy camera work draws attention to itself and gets in the way of the musicians.

Maestro Herbert von Karajan pioneered the business of filming orchestral performances and he was much criticized for making his films a celebration of Karajan rather than a documentation of the collaboration with his orchestra or a faithful rendering of what the composer intended.

It could be argued that Karajan realized that a film producer must find a way of reflecting the continuity of the music in the images. His solution was to use the conductor (himself) as continuity, the glue that holds the visual dimension together. By comparison, the conductor in the Nagano films is not seen often enough to register as what he really is - the one who sets all in motion, the leader to whom all the players refer to maintain precision of ensemble and to make music as a group.

The lack of a unifying visual element is not the only problem here – camera action is as well. Too often in the Nagano films the producer cuts faster from one shot to another than the speed of the music. The effect is unsettling, as if the images and the music don’t belong together; surely not what the producers intended!

The documentaries are even more problematic. In each one Nagano is seated at his desk with the score open in front of him and he speaks for several minutes about the meaning of the music. His style is reserved, serious and pompous to the point of absurdity. Nagano has the extraordinary ability to speak in complete sentences with excellent diction and at some length but without saying anything at all; he rivals the best theologians and politicians in making one statement after another of absolutely stupefying vagueness, and all with a straight face. Monty Python comes to mind.

Did Nagano himself actually write this stuff? Did someone else? If the latter how could he possibly have agreed to read it?

After more than we can stand of this nonsense we get a mélange of equally vacuous interviews with members of the orchestra, bits of rehearsal, and to top it off, animation sequences featuring Mozart, Brahms, Strauss et. al. These cartoons are said to be based on actual quotations, but the sequences are so silly even small children would have difficulty sitting through them. And did I mention that in every episode a white bust of the composer is placed on a pedestal in the orchestra?

I can’t imagine what audience the producers had in mind when they planned this series. If it was a general television audience, the monkish and incoherent Nagano certainly isn’t going to hold their attention.

Television has created compelling music and art appreciation series over the years – Leonard Bernstein, Kenneth Clark, Jacob Bronowski and Simon Schama come to mind – but this isn’t one of them. If you are interested in the conducting of Kent Nagano the performances are very good and perhaps representative of his approach to music, but I didn’t find any of them particularly insightful or inspired

Kent Nagano Conducts Classical Masterpieces
Arthaus Musik 101 425 (7 DVD Set)
Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Kent Nagano, conductor
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major K. 551
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major Op. 55 “Eroica”
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor Op. 98
Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in E flat major Op. 97 “Rhenish”
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 in C minor
Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony Op. 64
Bonus DVD: Seeking New Shores (Portrait of Nagano)

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Nearly eighteen years after his death, Leonard Bernstein continues to inspire new generations of musicians and music-lovers through his recordings and films; the latest release is one of the best. To see Bernstein at work with the young musicians of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra is to be reminded yet again of his extraordinary love of music and his exceptional ability to communicate it.

It is August, 1988 and Bernstein is on his way to Tanglewood to enjoy a spectacular celebration of his 70th birthday. It was at Tanglewood in 1940 that he got his start as a young conductor in the festival’s first ever conducting class with the legendary Serge Koussevitsky. Bernstein never forgot how important it was to teach and to inspire the next generation of musicians and he did it all his life through his Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic on television, through his conducting classes at Tanglewood and through his regular appearances at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. So here he is teaching them Shostakovich and drawing out of them a beautiful, exciting performance that each will remember for a lifetime.

Bernstein was an outstanding conductor and one of the most gifted musicians of his time. He loved music, he loved people, and he wanted to be loved himself – perhaps too much. He was warm and big-hearted, but he was also a taskmaster. Whether it was the London Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic or the young musicians at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival he cajoled, he complimented, he explained the music as only he could, but he also made demands. His musical conscience would not let him accept playing that was less than accurate and less than fully committed. He comes across as a kindly father figure but a persistent one too. When “Lenny” makes a comment he’s not just going through the motions. When a young clarinetist plays too timidly, he makes her play the same passage over and over until she can play it with authority and with a real forte.

The music of Shostakovich greatly influenced Bernstein the composer and he was a wonderful interpreter of it. Perhaps the most memorable Shostakovich performance he ever gave was of the Fifth Symphony in Moscow in 1959 with the New York Philharmonic, in the presence of the composer. But there were many more to come.

For me the recording Bernstein made of the Seventh Symphony with the Chicago Symphony in June, 1988 (DG4777587) is a revelation. Bernstein finds the soul in this often bombastic piece that few other conductors even suspected was there.

Interestingly, this Deutsche Grammophon recording was made at the same time as Bernstein’s recording of the First Symphony, the same piece he was to play a few months later at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival. The Chicago recording is excellent but the Schleswig-Holstein performance is a very special documentation of Bernstein’s unique gifts. These players may not be the equal of those in the Chicago Symphony but they are very, very good. Hundreds of young musicians audition for this orchestra every summer and only the best are chosen. I would guess that most of the members of this 1988 orchestra are today holding down positions in major orchestras all over the world.

The training component of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival continues today with Christoph Eschenbach as music director and conductor. The orchestra tours every year – last year they went to Brazil and this year they travel throughout the former Soviet Union – and standards are as high as ever.

The Schleswig-Holstein Festival was founded in 1986 and quickly established itself as one of the major European music festivals. The state of Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany is a beautiful, largely agricultural region with plenty of history. Concerts are held in castles, barns and churches in four or five different cities including Lübeck, Kiel and Flensburg.

The 2008 festival will feature 153 events in the period July 12-August 31. The theme this year is “Russian Sound.” There will be a good deal of music by Russian composers and many leading Russian performers will be taking part including Valery Gergiev, Mikael Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra. The New York Philharmonic will also be there and the famed Alban Berg Quartet has chosen to play its last European concert during the festival before disbanding.

BERNSTEIN IN REHEARSAL AND PERFORMANCE
SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO. 1
Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra/Leonard Bernstein, conductor
Euroarts 2072158 (DVD)

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Georgetown, Texas is an unlikely place to create a major music festival but one determined man has set his mind on doing just that. The Georgetown Festival of the Arts, now in its fourth year, is the brainchild of Ellsworth Peterson, an organist and scholar who held the Chair in Fine Arts at Georgetown’s Southwestern University for more than thirty-seven years.

An Eclectic Mix of Music and Fine Arts
The heart of each festival is a focus on the life and work of one major composer. Handel, Haydn and Schubert have been highlighted in past years; this year, the featured composer was Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. During four event-filled days this June, many of Mendelssohn’s greatest works were performed.

A growing component of the festival is Art in the Park in which dozens of artists show off what they have done in painting, sculpture, pottery, jewelry and multi-media. The concerts and lectures are mainly directed at connoisseurs but the Art in the Park events reach out to the larger community.

Shanghai and Miró Quartets Dazzle with Mendelssohn Octet
For me the most memorable event of the festival this year was a chamber music concert featuring the Shanghai and Miró Quartets. In the first half the Shanghai played Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A minor Op. 13 with Beethovenian seriousness and wonderful refinement. The Miró followed up with a fiery performance of the String Quartet in F minor Op. 80. After intermission came the pièce de resistance, the glorious Octet.

These two groups are at the top of their profession. The Miró is in residence at UT in Austin and we are lucky enough to be able to hear them regularly. Led by the charismatic Daniel Ching they play with incredible intensity and passion coupled with the ultimate in precision. The Shanghai Quartet was founded in Shanghai twenty-five years ago and is now in residence at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Their style of playing is more reserved than the Miró’s but just as carefully prepared and with a particular emphasis on beauty of tone.

I was very curious to hear how these very different ensembles would work together in the Octet, one of the most miraculous creations of the young Mendelssohn. But it must be understood that Mendelssohn did not conceive the piece as pitting one quartet against the other. This is not a work for two quartets but for eight players. And each of those eight players must be a virtuoso of the highest order. I have no idea how the decision was made as to who would play which part or which violinist would lead the ensemble. Perhaps coins were tossed. In any case, the chosen leader on this night was Weigang Li, first violinist of the Shanghai Quartet. One can speculate that we might have had a more exciting performance had Daniel Ching been in the leader’s chair, but that would be to unfairly characterize Mr. Li’s very fine work. Make no mistake, this was a great performance by any standard and the audience of about 200 was privileged to hear it. I have heard a number of excellent performances of the Octet – a Dallas performance by the Guarneri and Orion Quartets comes to mind – but this one ranks with the best of them.

And how well did these eight gifted musicians work together? Like a dream. Each man – and one woman, violinist Sandy Yamamoto of the Miró Quartet – listened intently to his or her colleagues, carefully matching tone, note lengths, phrasing and dynamics. And as is nearly always the case when the Octet is performed by fine musicians, the joy of playing was evident from the first note to the last. This is a piece that once it starts seems to have an unstoppable momentum that carries everyone with it, performers and listeners alike.

This concert was convincing evidence if any were needed that Mendelssohn was a giant among composers and further vindication of Ellsworth Peterson’s commitment to the celebration of the fine arts in Georgetown.

Festival Closes with Rarely Performed oratorio St. Paul
I returned to Georgetown a few days later for the final event of the festival: a rare full-scale performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul. This work dates from 1836 and clearly shows the influence of J.S. Bach in its use of chorales. This is not surprising since it was the young Mendelssohn who just four years before had arranged for the first performance in 100 years of Bach’s great St. Matthew Passion. This is not to say that the two works bear much resemblance to each other. In one hundred years musical styles had changed and religious works were no longer confined to church performance. While Bach lived his whole life as either a church musician or a court composer, Mendelssohn made his living as a traveling virtuoso and as a conductor of public concerts. St. Paul was given its first performance not in a church but in a concert hall at a choral festival in Düsseldorf.

In Georgetown, St. Paul was performed in the Klett Center for the Performing Arts attached to Georgetown High School. The conductor was Kenneth Sheppard, a professor at Southwestern University and a very experienced choral conductor. He led Chorus Austin, the San Gabriel Chorale and the Mendelssohn Festival Orchestra with consummate authority. He knew the piece backwards and forwards and invariably chose the right tempo. Among his soloists tenor Scot Cameron stood out for the purity of his sound. The other soloists were less impressive and the baritone who shall remain nameless had the misfortune to totally forget that he had a solo to sing towards the end.

It may seem odd to some listeners that the Jewish Mendelssohn should choose to celebrate one of the great figures of the early Christian church, but of course Mendelssohn and his family had long since converted to Christianity in the face of rampant anti-semitism, and changed their name to Bartholdy. Nor was Mendelssohn a Christian for convenience only; he was a true believer who passionately proclaimed his faith in works like St. Paul and in his later oratorio Elijah.

While St. Paul sets out to tell the story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus and other major events in his life, as drama it is disappointing. The role of Paul himself is not given to a particular singer and important events are reported on rather than depicted. For these reasons Mendelssohn’s oratorios can be both dramatically and musically uneventful, even boring. The melodic style can be too sweetly sentimental. A sympathetic listener, however, can still find much to admire in St. Paul. The flute filigree coupled with low clarinet in the chorus “O be gracious, yet immortals!” and the cello solo accompanying the tenor in “Be thou faithful unto death” are sublimely beautiful. St. Paul is uneven and somewhat dated but I welcomed the opportunity to hear it.

More Energy and Imagination Needed for Festival to Flourish
While some of the music-making was exciting and committed, other aspects of the festival could use some improvement. Before the performance of St. Paul, Dr. Peterson gave a “Pre-Concert Lecture” titled “Mendelssohn’s Paul: Sorting Out the Story.” Peterson droned on for about fifteen minutes and did little more than summarize what we could read for ourselves in the program book. When he had finished he took no questions and shuffled off. What this added to the performance of St. Paul or to the festival I can’t imagine. The talk was of no help to patrons hearing the work for the first time and too rudimentary to be of interest to scholars. And that was consistent with the general ambiance of the festival - it was not festive at all; with the small audiences I saw, it is not nearly as healthy as it needs to be to survive.

Someone needs to give this festival a transfusion of energy and imagination. For anyone setting out to create a music festival which will grow and flourish it is not enough to present good music, especially in a place as small and as culturally modest as Georgetown. The organizers must make an effort to spread the word that something wonderful is happening in town and that one simply must come and hear it. Then the event itself must be an event with festive trappings in the lobby and in the hall.

When my wife and I arrived at the Klett Center with Starbucks coffee in hand the first sound we heard was that of a custodian telling us in authoritarian tones that “No coffee is permitted on the premises.” In the lobby of a performing arts center? You’ve got to be kidding. But I don’t think any kidding is allowed in Georgetown either. No wonder there were only about 200 people in the hall for St. Paul.

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The great Italian conductor in the news these days is Riccardo Muti. It was recently announced that Muti had accepted the job of music director of one of the world’s finest orchestras, the Chicago Symphony. By general agreement in the musical world both the Chicago Symphony and Riccardo Muti had made wise choices. There is, however, another Italian conductor whom some regard even more highly than Muti; this is Claudio Abbado, eight years Muti’s senior – Abbado will be 75 this year – and like Muti, a former music director of La Scala (1968-86).

Leading and Leaving The Berlin Philharmonic
Abbado is not looking for work. When he succeeded Karajan as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1989, it was considered to be an appointment for life; unfortunately, fate took a hand and he was forced to relinquish the post in 2002.

Abbado’s trouble started in the summer of 2000, when he had to have major surgery for stomach cancer. He cancelled all appearances for the next three months. It then became clear that he was going to have to drastically cut back his activities. He gave up all his full-time appointments and limited himself to occasional guest conducting. His doctors advised him that northern Italy’s cold winters – Abbado makes his home in Bologna  - would be detrimental to his health and he began to spend January, February and March in Caracas, Venezuela. While in Caracas he conducts the now famous Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and makes short trips to nearby Cuba for guest conducting.

Abbado’s Lucerne Festival Orchestra A Magical Mix
Three years after his surgery, in the summer of 2003, Abbado created the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a unique all-star ensemble that soon became widely admired. Forming the core of the orchestra are the Mahler Chamber Orchestra – another Abbado creation – and the Hagen Quartet along with a long list of well-known soloists and members of orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic who welcome the opportunity to play regularly with Abbado. The principal clarinetist is Sabine Meyer, well established as a soloist and Karajan’s controversial choice to sit in the Berlin Philharmonic as its first female principal player. The principal oboist is Albrecht Mayer of the Berlin Philharmonic and the principal flutist is Jacques Zoon, formerly of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The principal trombonist is Mark Templeton from the London Philharmonic and the principal trumpet is the virtuoso soloist Reinhold Friedrich.

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra was created to play two concerts at the festival each year with Abbado. In time the orchestra began to receive invitations to travel and started to give a few more concerts in other places shortly after the Lucerne Festival. In the fall of 2007, Abbado and the orchestra were to appear in New York for several concerts. Abbado took ill but the orchestra went anyway and played the concerts under other conductors. Clearly, it is going to be difficult for the Lucerne Festival Orchestra to travel extensively with the conductor who created it.

Cornucopia of New CDs and DVDs Being Released for Abbado’s 75th!
Fortunately, all Lucerne Festival Orchestra concerts with Abbado are being filmed and released on DVD. Mahler’s Second “Resurrection”, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies have already been released. These are all wonderful performances, destined to become classics.

Abbado has become a Mahler conductor of great insight and his players are so good and so committed as to be beyond criticism. I have a special regard for the 2003 performance of the Symphony No. 2 because of the incredible singing of the Orfeon Donostiarra from Spain. The Symphony No. 6 from 2006 is remarkable for its depth of expression and almost unbearable anguish in the final pages. After the last note has sounded Abbado stands motionless, obviously completely drained, perhaps even on the verge of collapse. It is at least a full minute before he can compose himself and turn to the audience. All of these recordings have been issued by Euroarts on DVD. In addition, a new label has been created called LUCERNE FESTIVAL EDITION to issue CDs of other performances by Abbado and the orchestra. The first one to be issued is the Bruckner Symphony No. 4 recorded live in Tokyo in 2006.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
Orfeon Donostiarra/Lucerne Festival Orchestra/Abbado
Euroarts 2053268 (DVD)

Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Lucerne Festival Orchestra/Abbado
Euroarts 2055649

Abbado is conserving his strength these days but still taking on new projects. He recently conducted Beethoven’s opera “Fidelio” in a production that traveled from Italy to Spain and Germany, and next month he will be at home in Bologna conducting another orchestra he founded – Orchestra Mozart – in music of Pergolesi and Mozart. At the Lucerne Festival in August he will conduct the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in music of Debussy, Ravel, Berlioz (“Symphonie Fantastique”), Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky, with some repeats of these programs in Vienna.

In honor of Abbado’s 75th birthday Deutsche Grammophon is issuing nearly 20 new CDs including a Beethoven Symphony Cycle (DG4775864) with the Berlin Philharmonic based on performances given in Rome in 2001, a Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle with Pollini (DG4777244) and Mozart Symphonies (DG4777598) and Violin Concertos (DG4777371) with Giuliano Carmignola and Orchestra Mozart.

Also being released is a DVD set:

CLAUDIO ABBADO IN CONCERT
Music by Mozart, Schubert, Brahms and Rossini originally recorded by UNITEL
DG0734442 (2 DVDs)

Of special interest to Abbado admirers is another DVD released a few years ago and which features an interview with Abbado. The director is Paul Smaczny who also directs the Lucerne Festival Orchestra concerts for DVD.

HEARING THE SILENCE
Euroarts 2053278 (DVD)

For more information about Abbado and his activities visit Club Abbadiani Itineranti.

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Several months ago I finally caught up with some of the 2007 Oscar-contending films which had intrigued me: “Atonement”, a brilliant book and a faithful film treatment; “The Counterfeiters” which won Best Foreign Film, and fully deserved the award; and “There Will Be Blood”, in which Daniel Day-Lewis turned in another of his remarkable screen portrayals and rightly won Best Actor, and which, in spite of his contribution, is a disaster on several levels.

As a translation from book to screen “There Will Be Blood” is misguided and nearly incomprehensible. Its’ music is also incomprehensible, disrespectful and what is worse, very annoying.

The film credits state that the screenplay is by Paul Thomas Anderson, who also directed the film, and that it is based on the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair. Well, true enough, the book is about a California oil tycoon living around 1910, and the film also has something to do with oil - that’s about it!

Sinclair’s book is an attack on capitalism and big oil from a Marxist point of view. It was published in 1926 at a time when the world economy was hurtling toward self-destruction. Sinclair was both timely and accurate as he often was. He had written a book in 1906 called “The Jungle” about appalling conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry. “Oil!” is a similar indictment of the exploitation of oilfield workers and how the oil industry bought politicians and started wars. “Oil!” goes a step further to use the newly emergent Soviet Union as a model for other countries to follow in enabling workingmen to take control of their own destinies; unfortunately, the truth about the horrors of the dictatorship of the proletariat and Stalin had yet to be revealed in 1926. From this enlightened perspective it is easy to look back on Sinclair’s book as being dated and naïve, so it is no wonder, perhaps, that the producers decided “to go in another direction.”

There is, however, an even broader perspective and it is our own, circa 2008. Is it really a Marxist viewpoint to think that American politicians are in the pockets of big oil companies, or that great nations and multi-national corporations are willing to go to war in the Middle East over oil? Sound familiar? The contemporary relevance of these issues makes “Oil!” not only “up-to-date” but far ahead of its time. The makers of “There Will Be Blood” could have made a faithful and powerful rendering of the book but chose instead to dishonor the book by making a silly and incoherent action picture. The movie ends with the Daniel Day-Lewis oil tycoon character beating the evangelist character to death, in the oilman’s bowling alley. Why? Who knows. Needless to say there is no scene like it in the book. The book remains as thoughtful and compelling as it was in 1926. The film “based” on it is just ridiculous.

As for the music in “There Will Be Blood”, it is just as annoying and irresponsible. From the opening scene and for about twenty minutes thereafter we are asked to put up with music/noise - probably inspired by Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” - which suggests disaster in the offing. It is unbearable except perhaps if there is a payoff – that is, if it culminates in something truly awful. I was reminded of Richard Strauss’ score for his opera “Salome” in the buildup to Salome’s emergence with the head of John the Baptist, or Bernard Hermann’s music for the shower scene in Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. In these films, the music foreshadowed a horrific payoff; in “There Will Be Blood” the payoff is the explosion of an oil well - unpleasant, but hardly monumental enough for the music that presaged it.

Then, after betraying us with this absurd musical buildup, the director and composer present us with another anomaly. When the oil tycoon inaugurates his new well, the music used is the finale from Brahms’ Violin Concerto. This same music is used again later. I could make no sense of its use on the first occasion and the second occasion didn’t seem in any way related to the first. Brahms’ Violin Concerto is not a programmatic piece; it has only musical meaning. So why use it in the film, especially when the film’s opening music is in a totally different style? For the record, the score for the film is credited to Jonny Greenwood, perhaps best known for being a member of the rock band Radiohead.

I must confess a great love for movies and I admire enormously the work of the best film composers. Film is a special medium and composers must accept the truism that much of the best movie music is that which does not draw attention to itself. But there are times when the music can make a statement of its own in reinforcing the director’s visual creation. The often-maligned John Williams is a master of the medium. Perhaps he is overly fond of brass fanfares but those fanfares added greatly to the success of films like “Superman”, “E.T” and “Star Wars”.

It is easy to understand how Brahms’ Violin Concerto ended up in “There Will Be Blood”. The director probably said to the composer: ‘At this point in the film I want music that sounds like the last movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto.” If this had been a Hollywood film of the thirties or forties, the composer - Erich Korngold or Alfred Newman, for example, would have delivered the goods - that is, music that sounded like the last movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto. Composers and directors in our time seem to think that the best solution is to use the real thing. “Why fake it?” they say. Korngold and Newman, et al ‘faked it’, I submit, because they had some respect for i) other composers, and ii) the purpose for which the music in question was written.

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What do Paris Hilton, Karl Rove, and Joe Ely have in common? Well, they were all mentioned in the new production of “The Bat” aka “Die Fledermaus” presented at the Long Center recently by the Austin Lyric Opera. Joe Ely was not only mentioned; he actually appeared as a guest performer!

Yes indeed, this was a very new and unusual version of the familiar Johann Strauss operetta. This novel approach was the brainchild of ALO principal conductor Richard Buckley and he enlisted director Rod Caspers and Esther’s Follies writers Llova Rosanoff, Steve Saugey and Shaun Wainwright-Branigan to tailor the text to an Austin audience.

Instead of Vienna circa 1890, the setting for the show became Austin, Texas 2008, and the famous Act Two party scene was set in the Driskill Hotel no less.

The point of departure for this radical realization of “Die Fledermaus” was surely the recognition that while few operas have them, even fewer cities have bats, and only one city – with the motto “Keep Austin weird!” - actually celebrates them! Tourists come from far and wide to watch millions of the flying rodents swoosh out from under Austin’s Congress St. bridge at dusk. So putting these facts together, it must have made perfect sense for the Esther’s Follies writers to transform “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat) - into a show about Austin and its weirdness.

It wasn’t just the setting they changed. They completely rewrote the book and the lyrics. Against all odds – “Die Fledermaus” is a classic, after all – the result is a triumph and destined to become a classic in its own right, at least in Austin. The show is witty, irreverent and silly and just plain fun from beginning to end.

Alicia Berneche as Adela the maid just about stole the show; whoever plays this part usually does. I for one am very tired of Frosch the jailer’s drunk scene which opens Act Three. It usually goes on far too long and watching drunks make fools of themselves doesn’t seem to have the appeal it once did when William Powell was doing the word-slurring and pratfalls. Ev Lunning Jr. as Frosch had fresh material to work with and he made the most of it, especially the clever give and take with the offstage tenor voice of Tonio Di Paolo as Alfredo.

The party scene had imaginative costumes by Susan Branch, many of them Austin-related. Joseph Evans as Jefferson Kodosky made an ingratiating host of the party playing the real-life “host” of this production, local sponsor Jeff Kodosky. It is traditional at New Year’s Eve performances of “Die Fledermaus” in Vienna for special guests to appear at the party and they often perform. In the ALO performance I attended the tradition was honored with appearances by Shannon Sedwick dressed as Patsy Cline and pulling improbable stuff out of her dress, and local superstar Joe Ely singing sad songs to his own guitar accompaniment. Mr. Ely performed heroically after being repeatedly let down by a failing sound system that rendered his guitar virtually mute.

And what about Johann Strauss’ music? Conductor Richard Buckley not only has a sense of humor but high standards too. As far as I could tell there was not a note left out of the original operetta and every number was done with love and vivacity. His orchestra sounded great. We are still learning about the acoustics of the Long Center but from my seat in the center of the ground floor the winds and brass were sparkling, the basses and cellos rich and sonorous. Only the upper strings seemed to lack weight. It could be that there were too few of them. The voices carried easily over the orchestra.

The Austin Lyric Opera is not known for innovation, but give them full credit for going all the way with a fresh and daring idea. I expect their version of “The Bat” will become a repertoire staple in the Lone Star State.

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After conducting an all-Schubert program in Verizon Hall on May 17, Maestro Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra flew to Tokyo to begin a 17-day tour of Japan, South Korea and China. Next January, after several weeks of concerts with the orchestra in Philadelphia he will lead them on a European tour. There will also be more Ondine recordings. This flurry of events at the end of his tenure with the Philadelphia is not what one expected when Eschenbach handed in his resignation as music director in 2006. What happened?

Eschenbach in Houston a Golden Age for Symphony
In the spirit of full disclosure I must confess that I come to this subject with a full-blown bias. I was living in Houston for almost the entire period of Eschenbach’s music directorship of the Houston Symphony (1988-1999) and I was deeply impressed with what I heard there. I recall numerous performances of unusual insight, among them Brahms’ “A German Requiem”, Mahler’s Third and Ninth Symphonies, Bruckner’s Second and Fourth Symphonies, Berlioz’ “Damnation of Faust”, Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 2, and Strauss’ “Four Last Songs” with Renée Fleming. And there were regular chamber music performances with Eschenbach and members of the orchestra as well as a recital with Fleming. Not least of all were the glorious opera evenings: Strauss’ “Elektra” (with Hildegard Behrens), “Arabella” (with Fleming) and “Der Rosenkavalier” (with Fleming), Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”, and “Parsifal”. When the time came to leave, the tributes and special performances went on for weeks. NPR came to Houston to capture the excitement and local television broadcast several concerts. Houston knew it had something special in Eschenbach’s leadership of the Houston Symphony and was reluctant to let it go.

Disgruntled Musicians and Rabid Reviews in Philadelphia
Eschenbach came to Philadelphia as music director in 2003, riding a wave of adulation based on what he had done in Houston; unfortunately, the management of the Philadelphia Orchestra completely nullified their wisdom in choosing Eschenbach by moving too fast. They failed to properly engage the musicians in the selection process at a time when management had little credibility on any issue. To the musicians it was just another example of how little control they exercised in the workplace.

Many members of the orchestra had their backs up even before Eschenbach stepped onto the podium. Philadelphia Inquirer music critic Peter Dobrin dug deep into the backstage grumbling among musicians and every review of an Eschenbach concert became a diatribe against him both personally and professionally. The combination of Dobrin’s public pillorying and some of the musicians’ festering grievances led to a very ugly confrontation. Eschenbach was told by James Undercofler, the new President/CEO of the orchestra – in his job less than three months - that 80% of the orchestra didn’t like him. Eschenbach had no choice but to resign; he did so on October 20, 2006. It looked like the sort of failed marriage in which the former partners can hardly bear to be in the same room with each other let alone work together. But then came the unexpected.

West Coast Tour, Critical Acclaim and Second Thoughts!
What happened is that after tension between conductor and musicians came to a head Eschenbach took the orchestra on a tour to the mid-west and west coast in the Spring of 2007. After nearly every concert on the tour, the critics fell over themselves to shower praise on what they had heard:

Richard Scheinin, San Jose Mercury News
If you attended Sunday’s performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra in San Francisco, and if you know that its music director and conductor, Christoph Eschenbach, is basically being shown the door by his bosses, with the apparent blessing of his players, then you are probably mulling over this very question: Are they all insane? Because this performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 at Davies Symphony Hall was an event of near staggering power.

Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
Whatever brotherly love may or may not be in force on a daily basis back home, Sunday’s concert…seemed to suggest a vital artistic partnership. This dynamic performance was marked by both far-reaching technical pizzazz and the interpretive wherewithal to make those resources tell.

Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
It is not any outsider’s role to meddle in relationships. But when an audience is called to witness a performance on the level of the Brahms First on Wednesday, I think we are entitled to add our two cents’ worth. Mine to these musicians is: Get over it. This is as good as it gets.

Edward Ortiz, The Sacramento Bee
To experience stunningly delivered orchestral music is to become aware of the dizzying feeling that time has somehow stopped, and that all is being whittled down to one crystalline musical point…It is hard to believe that this orchestra and its intense conductor, Christoph Eschenbach, have shared a thorny relationship since 2003, because the two inhabited many intimate and selfless moments during the evening.

Bernard Jacobson,  MusicWeb
The Philadelphia Orchestra is still a great ensemble…It is, however, possible to be great and yet not to know what is good for you. There was a sad irony about hearing the superb performances Christoph Eschenbach drew in this touring appearance from a band of players of whom, we are told, a majority dislike his leadership.

Clearly, some re-thinking and soul-searching was required. It was too late to reverse the decision – neither conductor, musicians nor management could completely reverse their field after a matter of months – and Charles Dutoit had already been hired to act as caretaker music director for the next four years. Notwithstanding these facts, it was apparent to everyone involved that an important musical relationship was at stake and that sensible people ought to find a way to keep it going.

To date no title has been created, let alone conferred, to keep Eschenbach attached to the Philadelphia Orchestra but the volume of concerts, tours and recordings already contracted for the next several years suggests that none of the parties is in a hurry to let go. So much the better for all concerned.

One cannot say that in the five years that he led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eschenbach made momentous changes in the way the orchestra plays or in the way it does business. Nor can one say that every concert was one for the ages. One can say unequivocally, however, that Maestro Eschenbach often made music on the highest possible level with the Philadelphians and his frequent visits will be missed.

Eschenbach was working his way through a very distinguished Mahler Cycle – only the Seventh Symphony remained – and his Beethoven Cycle was vibrant and exciting (downloads of all the Beethoven performances are available on the Philadelphia Orchestra website). Other repertoire in which orchestra and conductor excelled together included Messiaen’s “Turangalîla” Symphony, the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony (recorded live for Ondine: ODE1109-5), new works by Higdon, Assad, Pintscher and Dalbavie and performances with Eschenbach favorites such as Fleming, Lang Lang, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Matthias Goerne and Tzimon Barto. Eschenbach’s frequent chamber music performances in Philadelphia were also memorable; he remains one of the most gifted pianists of his generation.

Eschenbach’s life apart from the Philadelphia Orchestra is full indeed. He continues until 2010 as music director of the Orchestre de Paris and with this fine orchestra he tours and records regularly. One of the highlights of this relationship was Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle in Paris with a controversial staging by Robert Wilson. Speaking of the “Ring”, Maestro Eschenbach is scheduled to be in the pit for performances of it in China in the near future. Mahler continues to be one of his passions and he is working on a complete cycle of the symphonies on DVD. Eschenbach has become a favorite conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and continues to lead that orchestra in Vienna and on tour nearly every season.

Eschenbach on Recordings – Some Recommendations

CDs

Beethoven: Piano Concertos No. 1 and 4
Lang Lang, piano
Orchestre de Paris
DGB0008725-02

Roussel: Symphonies (complete); “Bacchus et Ariane”; “Le Festin de l’araignée”
Orchestre de Paris
Ondine ODE1065-2/1092-2/1107-2

Mahler: Symphony No. 6/Piano Quartet
Philadelphia Orchestra
Ondine ODE1084-5D

Brahms: Piano Quintet/Clarinet Trio
Amadeus Quartet
DG4743582 (available as a Download from DG)

Richard Strauss: “Four Last Songs”; “Lieder”; “Der Rosenkavalier” Suite
Houston Symphony
RCA09026-68539-2

DVDs

Berlioz: Symphonie “Fantastique” Op. 14; “Harold en Italie” Op. 16
Tabea Zimmermann, viola
Orchestre de Paris
Bel Air Classiques BAC016

Schubert: “Die schöne Müllerin”
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
Christoph Eschenbach, piano
EMI Classics DVB3101959

A Wayfarer’s Journey: Listening to Mahler
Eschenbach discusses Mahler and conducts excerpts from various Mahler works with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.
PBS Home Video WAYJ601

Classical Music Blogs

The rumors have finally been confirmed: Riccardo Muti will be the next conductor of the Chicago Symphony.

There are many excellent conductors around but few Superstars – and Muti is one of them. He has that mysterious combination of talent and charisma to excite both audiences and orchestras. When he left La Scala after a huge row in 2005, every major orchestra send emissaries to try to grab him.

The New York Philharmonic was able to sign Muti up as a principal guest conductor but could never get him to commit to the full-time job. They settled for the young American Alan Gilbert instead, as successor to Lorin Maazel.

Chicago became the only other serious candidate. They hired Muti for two weeks of concerts followed by a two-week European tour. By all accounts it was the tour that sealed the deal. The players knew they had the conductor of their dreams and at age 66 Muti realized he could find no better way to cap his career than to be music director of the Chicago Symphony. The only other directorship that Muti might have found comparable – the Berlin Philharmonic – is not going to be available; the members of the orchestra decided just weeks ago that Simon Rattle will be there for years to come.

Muti’s Approach Scholarly in Tradition of Toscanini
So what is it that Muti brings to the job? For many music-lovers he is known primarily as an opera conductor. He has had a long association with La Scala and he has conducted opera almost every summer at the Salzburg Festival since 1971. He has recorded virtually all the Verdi operas as well as major works by Bellini and Donizetti. He is well-known for conducting the operas of Mozart and has had an abiding interest in operas by some of the lesser Italians such as Cimarosa, Paisiello, Salieri, Spontini and Cherubini.

Muti also has major symphonic credentials. He has been music director of the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra (1980-1992) and he is a favorite conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. He has conducted several of the VPO’s prestigious New Year’s concerts and often leads the orchestra on foreign tours.

My most recent experience with Muti was in Houston March 12th, 2006. He led the VPO in music by Schubert and Richard Strauss. The first half of the concert was devoted entirely to Schubert and it was disappointing; the “Rosamunde” Overture and the Fourth Symphony were beautifully played but lacked drama and personality. Then came Strauss’ “Death and Transfiguration”, a performance staggering in its beauty and power.

Muti is a scholarly conductor who believes in being faithful to the printed score. In opera he keeps his singers on a tight rein in matters of rhythm and phrasing and rarely if ever allows interpolated high notes. In the symphonic repertoire he takes the same approach - no exaggerated tempi or dynamics. But as his “Death and Transfiguration” in Houston demonstrated, his symphonic performances can be as thrilling as anyone’s.

Muti’s approach to conducting is clearly in the Toscanini tradition: be faithful to the score and the spirit of the composer but make sure the music lives and breathes too. Unlike Toscanini, Muti does not shout at musicians or break batons nor does he conduct from memory; he always has the score in front of him although he scarcely pays much attention to it.

And that ruckus at La Scala? Muti is a proud man and he is used to getting his way. Given the anomalies of musical politics – and every other kind of politics for that matter - in Italy the wonder is that Muti stayed at La Scala as long as he did.

Like his contemporary and fellow countryman Claudio Abbado, Muti has a deep-seated affection for Italy and he will always make time for engagements there, especially at his birthplace in Naples. He recently founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and returned to conduct it at the re-opening of the historic San Carlo Opera House.

Chicago Symphony Opts for Tradition over Innovation
Riccardo Muti is world-renowned as a Maestro of knowledge and maturity, a great conductor, but not an innovator. At a time when orchestras are looking for ways to create new audiences and make concerts exciting again, Muti would seem to be a traditionalist.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, for example, grabbed 26-year old Gustavo Dudamel. This dynamic young Venezuelan is thrilling audiences all over the world with his energy and love of novelty. The New York Philharmonic hired 41-year old Alan Gilbert because of his interest in new repertoire. Robert Spano in Atlanta and David Robertson in St. Louis have been exploring new ways of making concerts fresh and entertaining.

In choosing Muti, the Chicago Symphony has apparently concluded that quality counts for more than novelty. Their music directors over the past half-century – Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim – were all chosen for the same reason; they were the finest conductors that could be found.

The board and management of the Chicago Symphony have decided that a great orchestra deserves a great conductor. Presumably they will find other ways to be innovative. But just as in the Solti era, when the recordings start to flow from Chicago with the imprimatur “Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, Music Director” and when this great orchestra and their chosen conductor tour the capitals of the world, their expectation is that excellence above all will be recognized and appreciated.

Muti on CDs and DVDs
Muti has a substantial Discography but his DVD catalogue seems to be growing at an even faster rate. For many years he recorded exclusively for EMI and many of his EMI recordings remain in the catalogue. More recently he has made several recordings for DG. The largest selection of opera on DVD conducted by Muti is on the Opus Arte label with works by Rossini, Verdi and Mozart. Coming soon is a DVD in which Muti rehearses and performs Berlioz’ “Symphonie Fantastique.”

Recommended Recordings:

Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major
Vadim Repin, violin/Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Riccardo Muti
DG 477 6596 (CD)

Rossini: “Semiramide” Overture
Hindemith: “Sancta Susanna”
Scriabin: Symphony No. 3
New York Philharmonic/Riccardo Muti (live)
DG Download only from their website

New Year’s Concert 2004
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Riccardo Muti (live)
DG 474 9002 (2 CDs); DG 073 0979 (DVD)

Verdi: “Requiem”
Cherubini: “Requiem” in C minor
Philharmonia Orchestra/Riccardo Muti
EMI 072 4358623925 (2 CDs)

Donizetti: “Don Pasquale” (1994)
La Scala Opera/Riccardo Muti
TDK-DVWW-OPDPSC 824121002213 (DVD)

Poulenc: “Dialogue of the Carmelites” (2004)
La Scala Opera/Riccardo Muti
TDK DVWW-OPDDC 824121002312 (DVD)
Classical Music Blogs

Admirers of conductor Herbert von Karajan recently celebrated his 100th birthday, April 5, 2008. His record companies are noting the occasion too and flooding the market with dozens of reissues and some recordings which were either never before released or which had limited circulation and have long since disappeared.

The newly released Bruckner (DG004400734395) and Beethoven (DG004400734391) DVDs from Deutsche Gramophone are good examples. The Bruckner set bears a label sticker that says “First International Release on DVD.” There is no further explanation given. In fact, the Bruckner Eighth was released on Laser Disc years ago but Laser Disc technology was a short-lived phenomenon and few music-lovers ever acquired the equipped to play them. The Bruckner Ninth and “Te Deum” have been available before on DVD but only from Japan. The Beethoven “Missa Solemnis” has a similar history.

One must wonder why DG took so long to give these remarkable performances international circulation; they are among the finest examples of Karajan’s musicianship ever made. All the performances were recorded live in 1978 and 1979 when Karajan was at the height of his powers although already suffering from serious back problems, and feature repertoire in which he was incomparable.

I first encountered Karajan’s approach to Bruckner in his 1957 recording of the Eighth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic. It was very slow as compared with other recordings I knew but it had a dark and disturbing quality that made a profound impression on me. 

Then came a live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic November 17, 1959 at . Again, I was struck by the darkness of Karajan’s conception but also amazed by his ability to sustain mood and tension over such long movements. Finally, I was able to experience Karajan’s Bruckner Eighth live one more time – again at Carnegie Hall – November 10, 1974, this time with the Berlin Philharmonic. In fifteen years Karajan’s interpretation had hardly changed at all but the intensity, the concentration and the glory of the playing had continued to grow to even higher levels of achievement. The new DVD dates from June 4, 1979 in a performance with the Vienna Philharmonic in a very special place: the St. Florian church in Linz where Bruckner had been organist for many years and where he was buried.

We also have another Karajan Bruckner Eighth DVD (Sony SVD 46403) with the Vienna Philharmonic, filmed in November, 1988, just nine months before Karajan’s death. It too is a fine performance and it has the advantage that it was recorded in the Musikverein in Vienna, and with all the advantages of digital sound.

With two DVDs of the Karajan Bruckner Eighth now available, it is not easy to make a choice. The later version has a greater dynamic range and the fine VPO brass section sounds remarkably crisp and powerful; on the other hand, it seems to me that the strings of the VPO are captured better in Linz. Karajan requires infinite shades of piano and pianissimo in his Bruckner and they are all beautifully realized in Linz. Since it was being telecast live, the Linz performance also has the advantage of being an unedited document. The Sony DVD, while based on a live performance, clearly has taken advantage of retakes and uses inserts of carefully isolated individuals and sections of the orchestra. While these inserts are often beautiful and help to enhance the video experience, some viewers may find them contrived. My own view is that they are well done and the shots of the Wagner tuba players in particular, are both artistic and educational.

The Ninth Symphony and “Te Deum” DVDs are based on performances given in the Musikverein in May, 1978. Here again Karajan has total command of the style and sense of the music and of his musicians, and the “Te Deum” has a special fervor. Karajan never spoke much about his religious beliefs but he was a lifelong Catholic and it is obvious from his conducting of the major choral works how much the key moments in the liturgy meant to him. Karajan was well-known for conducting with eyes shut, but not in choral works. Both in the “Te Deum and” in the “Missa Solemnis” his eyes are open. In works with chorus he also dispensed with a baton, preferring the sweeping gestures characteristic of most choral conductors.

Karajan admirers will want to visit the website of the Vienna Philharmonic where longtime VPO violinist and president Dr. Clemens Hellsberg has posted an appreciation titled Herbert von Karajan, the Vienna Philharmonic and Anton Bruckner. He gives a history of the relationship between Karajan and the orchestra with special reference to their Bruckner performances together. He gives a particularly moving account of their Bruckner Eighth performance in New York, February 26, 1989: “This concert remains an unforgettable experience for all participants, where the aged and obviously ailing conductor received indescribable ovations from the audience in attendance. Those who witnessed a completely exhausted Karajan, collapsed in a chair backstage after the concert, yet still managing to utter words of appreciation for the orchestra, could not doubt the victory of the spirit over the body.”

Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” was recorded at the Salzburg Easter Festival in April 1979. Karajan made numerous recordings of the piece but this one is perhaps the finest. Toscanini’s classic recording remains a touchstone not least of all because of the incredible work of the chorus prepared by Robert Shaw. But the Wiener Singverein is up to Beethoven’s cruel technical demands and offers plenty of power and lovely soft singing as required. The soloists are as fine a group as I have ever heard. They give everything they’ve got but never shout and never lose the musical line. Tomowa-Sintow is magnificent, pouring out the most beautiful arching phrases one could ever hope to hear and Baldani matches her every step of the way.

The main point to be made about this performance is that it is essentially a traditional one, but raised to the nth degree. John Eliot Gardiner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt obviously prefer an approach that is said to be more historically informed. Karajan did what he did as best he could based on what he had learned from the great conductors who had come before him – that may be another very respectable way of being historically informed.

Karajan was essentially a purist when it came to the printed score. He rarely changed anything once he had decided on which printed edition to use. This made him different from many other superstar conductors who came before and after him, such as Bernstein, Stokowski, Furtwängler or Mengelberg. Instead of personalizing the scores he conducted, he focussed on accuracy, beauty of phrasing and energy.

Thanks to DG for finally making this “Missa Solemnis” available on DVD, with one small kaveat: in any performance of the “Missa Solemnis” the name of the violinist who plays the extended solo in the ‘Benedictus’ must be mentioned. In this performance he even stands to play his solo as befits the importance of his contribution. Nowhere on the DG jacket or in the booklet is his name to be found. For the record the excellent violinist on this DVD is Thomas Brandis, one of the concertmasters of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Classical Music Blogs

The Met finished its HD season with an unmitigated triumph: Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment” starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez. It was fantastic - silliness raised to the level of high art! Think the Marx Brothers, Lucille Ball or Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Better yet, think Laurent Pelly, the gifted man who directed this romp, and his rubber-boned coloratura star Natalie Dessay. And in the middle of this nuttiness was the man who stopped the show with his nine perfectly-placed high Cs: Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez.

I have always believed that the Italian comic operas of Rossini and Donizetti were as much about gifted vaudevillians and commedia dell’ arte stock characters doing their patented bits of business as about the music; this was popular entertainment. I also believe that until recently that tradition had been lost and replaced by a stand and deliver kind of performing style that absolutely drained the life out of these pieces. It was wonderful to hear Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti in “La Fille du Régiment”, but they were neither actors nor comedians.

Now comes a director like Pelly who knows what it takes to get laughs and artists like Dessay who could probably have careers doing sitcoms. In this production it is worth the price of admission watching Dessay ironing and folding clothes in the first scene of the opera. I was reminded of Lucille Ball trying to keep up with the chocolates on the conveyor belt in a classic routine. The impossibly talented Dessay does her ironing and folding while singing superbly some of the most difficult music ever written!

Dessay is a phenomenon – one of a kind – but she so brilliantly brings to life Pelly’s concept that the rest of the company cannot help but follow. And indeed they did. Every member of the cast had bits of business to do; what made it all so remarkable and rare was that the business was nearly always related to patterns and rhythms in the music. During the orchestral introduction to Act Two four maids are seen busily cleaning the main room in the Berkenfield Castle; each one has been given a distinctive set of movements related to the music and it is a hilarious pantomime.

Natalie (she dropped the ‘h’ in honor of Natalie Wood, by the way) Dessay was in perpetual motion throughout the performance, and so much fun to watch one forgets what a fine singer she is. Dessay made her reputation tossing off the showy coloratura parts but she has matured into an artist who can sustain a long line with the best of them. She has the talent to thrill you with vocal acrobatics or break your heart with bel canto at its best. And here she is partnered with a handsome young tenor who is nearly her equal. Although Florez showed he could match Pavarotti high C for high C he is a different kind of singer altogether. For one thing he has a much lighter voice, and for another he is much, much lighter on his feet. He looks the part in a way that Pavarotti never did in such roles.

James Levine is gradually reducing his workload at the Met and bringing in a fine crop of younger conductors. For “La Fille du Régiment” Marco Armiliato was in the pit and kept the music and shenanigans in near-perfect balance.

It was a full house at the Metropolitan 14 in Austin and the audience loved every minute of this fine season-ending production from the Met. Next season there will again be more operas in HD, in fact 10 of them and the opening gala.

The Met HD season has been impressive, but the technology is still not quite where it needs to be. The video direction is beyond criticism; the quick-cutting on the fly during the ensembles in “La Fille du Régiment” was stunning and the robotic camera running back and forth along a track behind the orchestra pit is a great asset. The overall look on the screen, however, is still too dark and somewhat fuzzy. By comparison, the filmed operas from San Francisco – also in HD – are bright and crisp. The Met audio is not state-of-the-art either. The voices sound fine but there is a hard edge on the upper strings and not much bass.

Incidentally, this Met production of “La Fille du Régiment” had already been presented in Vienna and London with virtually the same cast and sets. It was filmed in London at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in January of last year and has just been released on DVD (Virgin 519002-9). Can’t get enough of Natalie Dessay? She has an excellent new CD of Italian opera arias (Virgin 395243-2). And not to be outdone, Juan Diego Florez also has a new album: Voce d’Italia: Arias for Rubini (Decca 475 907-9).

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