Alex Ross's Blog, page 146

Miscellany for the second day of spring

Adrian Lester as Ira Aldridge. Photo: Tristram Kenton.

Photo: Tristram Kenton
Photo: Tristram Kenton

Michael Henson, the CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra, is finally stepping aside. Norman Lebrecht says it best: "His handling of the conflict will be taught for years in college as a negative object lesson in arts management." ... With one long nightmare apparently coming to an end, another begins: in a decision that defies comprehension, the board of the San Diego Opera elected to shut down the company rather than address fund-raising challenges. It is a "senseless, premature death," as Mark Swed writes in the LA Times. James Chute, of the San Diego Union-Tribune, supplies some eyebrow-raising figures about the company's finances, notably the $4.6 million given to Ian Campbell, the artistic and general director, and his wife, Ann, from 2008 to 2012. Let's hope opera in San Diego can spring back under new leaders.... Great days for the arts pages at the Huffington Post: first we are told that Schoenberg's name is pronounced "SHOON-berg," then we're given the headline "Opera in America: Is It Circling the Toilet?" Jennifer Rivera's piece is worth reading, though.... NewMusicBox has a multi-voiced tribute to the late, great Robert Ashley.... Gergiev hails the annexation of Crimea; Dudamel seems entangled with the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Anne Midgette contemplates the intersection of music and power.... Dawn Fatale, chez Parterre, gives a cool, knowing appraisal of looming conflicts at the Met: "Peter Gelb promised to revitalize the Metropolitan Opera through an increased number of theatrically exciting new productions, better casting, and innovative media initiatives. He had the right ideas, but has been largely unable to execute on them." ... Lolita Chakrabarti's play Red Velvet, about the great African-American tragedian Ira Aldridge, opens at St. Ann's Warehouse next week. In my capacity as an amateur Aldridgean, I'll lead a discussion after the March 27th show.... Joseph Kerman, dean of American musicologists, died last Monday at the age of eighty-nine. His books and essays, restless in spirit and forceful in expression, will long endure.

Abiding obsession

The Bad Plus's "People Like You." The boys have a new album out on Sony Masterworks, called The Rite of Spring.

Carnegie's Vienna Festival

The Vienna Fixation. The New Yorker, March 24, 2014.

Recommended reading

Ralph Ellison's favorite records

Richard Brody ponders the novelist's magnificently tasteful collection. Notable on his LP shelves: Berg's Wozzeck, Britten's Death in Venice, Tippett's The Knot Garden and A Child of Our Time, and the Nielsen concertos, alongside the expected avalanche of Ellington. Mark Stryker is reminded of a famous Ellison line: "Anyone who listens to a Beethoven quartet or symphony and can't hear soul is in trouble."

Dismaying announcement

Bob Shingleton, the incorruptible proprietor of On an Overgrown Path, has decided to "stand back from blogging." I respect his reasons for doing so, although I hope that the break turns out to be impermanent. He leaves us with Panufnik: "If you take only one thing from this post take this music."

More Billone

For Gerard Mortier

The progressive-minded Belgian impresario, who gave crucial support to such artists as Mark Morris, Kaija Saariaho, and Peter Sellars, died yesterday at the age of seventy. Ultimately, administrators prove their worth through their commitment to new work, and in this respect Mortier deserves enduring thanks: each time L'Amour de loin or L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato is performed, he will be remembered.

Billone

The Talea Ensemble, injecting contemporary life into Carnegie's "Vienna: City of Dreams" festival, just gave a riveting performance of Pierluigi Billone's 2001 work Mani.Long. The Talea will play it twice more this month, at East Carolina University on March 21 and at Brandeis on March 29. Above, video of a more recent Billone piece, Δίκη Wall.

More on Ashley

Remembrances from John Adams and Mark Swed; further comments by Kyle Gann.