The current Times Literary Supplement UK), not available online, includes my review of the Met's exceptional new Parsifal, as follows: In the program book for the new Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera, the French Canadian director Francois Girard comments that his goal “is to engage a modern audience and to let this piece say things that matter, without kidnapping it and … [Read more...] about The Met’s New Parsifal
Schubert Uncorked
Readers of this blog in the New York vicinity will (I hope) be interested to know that I’m producing a take-no-prisoners concert event – “Schubert Uncorked” – this Friday night at The Stone, John Zorn’s club on the Lower East Side. There’s a single, one-hour set at 8 pm. Tickets are $10 at the door. The performers are David Taylor and Bill Wolfram. Taylor is a subversive … [Read more...] about Schubert Uncorked
Interpreting Shostakovich
PostClassical Ensemble’s month-long “Interpreting Shostakovich” festival, in DC, began with a screening of Grigori Kozintsev’s 1970 film version of King Lear, with music by Shostakovich and Boris Pasternak’s Shakespeare translation. If ever there was a film that cannot be viewed at home in TV, this is it. On the wide screen of the National Gallery of Art’s film auditorium, and … [Read more...] about Interpreting Shostakovich
Moral Fire and Mitt Romney
As readers of this blog know, I am the author of a recently published book titled "Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from America’s Fin-de-Siecle." My topic is culture as an agent of moral empowerment. That is: my portraits are of four late nineteenth century Americans who believed that exposure to Beethoven and/or Wagner made people “better” – more humane, more compassionate. This … [Read more...] about Moral Fire and Mitt Romney
Kurt Weill and Darwinian Adaptation
My topic has ever been cultural transplantation – the fate of classical music when exported from Europe to America. Of the composers America has imported, Kurt Weill is a special case. In Berlin, Weill’s defining success was The Threepenny Opera, to a scathing anti-capitalist libretto by Bertolt Brecht. In America, he became a Broadway composer whose big hits were Lady in the … [Read more...] about Kurt Weill and Darwinian Adaptation