Alex Ross's Blog, page 14

At the grave of George Mackay Brown

[image error]

Stenness

[image error]

A Mozart moment

A Murnau moment

[image error]

From Der letzte Mann, 1924.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

[image error]

Photo: Dmitrij Leltschuk.

The Cellist of Auschwitz, New Yorker website, Aug. 9, 2024.

Yuval Sharon to direct the Ring at the Met

The Met announced today that Yuval Sharon, the hugely inventive director of Hopscotch and various other theatrical wonders, will be in charge of the company's next production of Wagner's Ring. The first installment of the staging will appear in the 2027-28 season; the cycle will be presented complete in the spring of 2030. Lise Davidsen is slated to sing Brünnhilde, in her role début. This will come in the wake of Sharon's production of Tristan in the 2025-26 season, also featuring Davidsen. Given Sharon's thorough knowledge of Wagner – he has directed Lohengrin at Bayreuth, Die Walküre in Karlsruhe, and Götterdämmerung in Detroit — this Ring promises to be something quite different from the dramatically inert and intellectually vacant version that Robert Lepage inflicted on the Met some years back. Sharon develops his theatrical philosophy in his forthcoming book A New Philosophy of Opera.

Press releases are of no general significance, but it's worth noting that Met made the announcement in a rather curious fashion. The headline is about a contract extension for Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the company's music director; the Sharon Ring is mentioned in a sub-headline. "The extension encompasses a new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle," it is stated — an actively bizarre way of framing the biggest project any opera house can undertake. Only two short paragraphs are devoted to Sharon; the rest consists of hype of Nézet-Séguin's activities. Davidsen is not quoted. Perhaps Nézet-Séguin will be singing all the other parts as well as conducting.

Carolina Uccelli's Anna di Resburgo

After Long Silence. The New Yorker, Aug. 12, 2024.

Das Fest des Nosferatu

[image error]

Alas, no footage seems to exist of Ernst Lubitsch dancing at the Nosferatu Ball, which followed the unveiling of F. W. Murnau's vampire masterpiece.

Des Moines Metro Opera

Forbidden Desires. The New Yorker, Aug. 5, 2024.

For Wolfgang Rihm

The celebrated, unclassifiable, immensely prolific German composer Wolfgang Rihm has died at the age of seventy-two. He will be remembered not only for his vast, variegated output, which ranges from pure Romantic strains to dissonant chaos, but also for his generous, catholic spirit, which countered the often dogmatic mentality of the German new-music scene in the postwar era. The Wandelweiser composers, among others, were grateful for his support at a time when reactionaries were questioning whether their work should be considered "composition" at all. His music ran toward dark, turbulent spheres, but the man himself exuded a certain joie-de-vivre or Lebenslust. Famously, he communicated with the press by way of a fax machine, which kept interruptions to a minimum.