Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould's later recordings got progressively more remote from the real world of error, imperfection and the messiness of life. There is a dead feel to them, a lack of pleasure in the doing. Is this the result of the obsessive editing and tweaking he subjected them to? His search for perfection was ultimately sclerotic. It was no surprise that he died of a stroke. The following from the Canadian Encyclopedia discusses his recording technique.


"Gould became a leading exponent among classical performers of a true aesthetic of recording, which he passionately defended in articles and broadcasts, and practiced in dozens of albums for Columbia/CBS, developing a hands-on expertise in recording techniques.
A studio performer, he felt, need not be concerned with projecting musical effects into an auditorium for the purpose of catching and holding the attention of an audience; rather, he could subject the music to minute inspection of detail at every structural level. Moreover, he could allow the technology itself - placement of microphones, splicing, overdubbing, reverb, etc. - to influence the interpretation, and could defer many final interpretive decisions to the post-production process.
For Gould, recording had fundamentally altered the traditional relationship of composer, performer, and listener. He justified his interpretive experiments in part by arguing that there was no point in making yet another recording of, say, the Emperor Concerto without offering significant departures from conventional readings already available. Outside popular music, no artist to date has expanded the technological possibilities of recorded music, or explored its aesthetic and even ethical implications, more than did Gould."
Canadian Encyclopedia

Chicago Sinfonietta at Shedd

Starting out on the right foot is generally a good idea for a performance of any kind. But it was at the beginning of their multiculturally inspired musical event at the Shedd Aquarium on April 30th that the chamber ensemble of the Chicago Sinfonietta was most flatfooted.
Playing the “Spring” section from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons may have seemed a good idea on paper for a program dedicated to “The Glory of Creation,” but the actual performance was unpolished and offkey and lacking in any rhythmic spring and one wonders why they bothered.
An equally dubious performance of some light music by the Czech composer Fibich followed, but things came to life thereafter as the group switched into avant-garde mode for a tasty morsel of the Japanese modern dance form known as Butoh.
Chicago-based Butoh artist Nicole Legette began her performance as an animated pile of white sheets at stage right, moving center to extrude herself as a pale humanoid figure doing complex and inexplicable moves in time with richly percussive musical back up.
Also intriguing (and demanding) was “Chewing Neckbones,” in which the reedist Mwata Bowden, a veteran of the legendary AACM, made profoundly otherworldly noises on the Australian didjeridu (aboriginal long trumpet) following up this virtuoso turn with an equally challenging avant-garde flight on the baritone sax. The jazz-inflected group of musicians provided prime backup on this piece, and gave a smooth rendition of Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge” to redeem their earlier missteps.
This was already an ambitious program, but it concluded with a section of all-out gospel singing, as the Steward Wilson Gospel Singers (seven strong) took to the stage to present some swinging versions of classic gospel hits. Well and truly done.
There was a lot to criticize in this rough-around-the-edges performance from awkward transitions to faulty intonation and pointless visual projections. But the Sinfonietta still deserves kudos for attempting this kind of program. They pulled no punches in the challenges they presented to their audience. And the sizeable group, who had trekked all the way to Chicago’s beautifully situated Museum Campus for the event, were quite enthusiastic in their appreciation. Nice to see so many people galvanized by so much unaccustomed sound.!

The Marketing of CHANT: MUSIC FOR THE SOUL

The success of CHANT: Music for the soul is a classic mix of pre-existing conditions and and post-partum manipulation. It’s classic because its sales model replicates previous formulas – that is to say, it’s all been done before.

First there’s the thirst. From my experience in retail I know there is a deep yearning in a lot of people for spiritual connections. It’s a well-known known fact that so-called “Christian” music is massively in demand. And for some reason there is a reluctance on the part of retail to admit or fill that demand. Maybe it’s the paganism of record store employees combined with the blindness of the buyers, but no one seems to care about the Gospel and Christian sections at any store where I have worked. No one except the customers.

So there’s this massive market that’s underserved and hungry. Well, some folks saw that they could make some money catering to this taste – but how? The scientific theory behind major labels’ marketing strategy is simple: throw tons of product out and see what sticks.

But in the case of CHANT, there was a lot of calculation that went into the project. First off, this was an English project and release. Now, English music is a real mix of the grand and the banal, and this project was aimed right at the broad middle.

It was a good start to do public ads for the artist. “Looking for an authentic sound with appeal to a broader (younger) demo”. Got a buzz started early – this was different. It was another good move to pick the group they did -- one with a popular video on You Tube. Check out the video – it’s really good, and the music is performed beautifully.

Look a little closer at the video and you’ll notice something else: most if not all of the monks are very young. Here’s music that’s 1,000 years old – practically the earliest notated music that we possess, and these lads are less than 30 years old…personally I think that drove some of the sales where you’d never have seen that before... Even monks vowed to chastity can evoke rock star sex appeal.

You know, I figured they had a hit pretty early on. The first event that caught the world’s eye was when the release topped the Billboard Classical chart, edging onto the Pop chart as well without even a CD being issued. It was all about online sales. Itunes and the rest.

But what I also noticed was that the big success caught the label by surprise. Yes, they had prepped the field; they’d primed the New Age pumps – the Yoga journals, the “lifestyle” niches. I did read somewhere the mantra for marketers: It’s the niche, stupid! Well, they covered the niches pretty thoroughly just by doing what they always do.

And everything online available to them was covered as well. This was a new template of how to market music. But as I keep saying, this is the old way simply with new cast of characters.

And make no mistake, they fielded claims that you’d just roll your eyes at – how about “…proven to heal, calm and also give strength”; …provides instant relaxation…” “chant for a new computer gaming generation.” But, sorry, I do think there’s some truth in the claims – certain musics probably do have physiological effects on certain nervous systems at certain times. I’ve felt it myself…so this claim falls under the “permissible lie” rubric.

But the commercial package was also tightly controlled. And good choices were being made. The title change for the American market was smart – “Music for the Soul” is so much more marketable than “Music for Paradise.” The cover image of the monks -- quite Otherworldly and very transferable. Memorable.You don’t even have to remember the name of the album – the picture brands the product. The monks seem to walk on water. Inspired. The picture does reflect the English title, you know – that city in the distance is clearly Paradise!

The pope connection didn’t hurt, I’m sure, and the hefty boost of an NPR feature but we have come to a tipping point in “next level” marketing strategy, where sales just take off and feed off their own momentum. Multiplied sevenfold by the nature of the world wide web of course.

But the label didn’t expect the reaction they got. It’s always been that way – it’s the ones that are really big that that they’re unready for. The only exception to this that I can recall was the worldwide success of the Gorecki Third Symphony on Nonesuch, a label that for a while had its finger on the throbbing pulse of the latte lovers (still does, actually). I recall a WEA sales meeting where the Nonesuch rep was telling a room of hardened cynical music veterans that “this album will change your life.” Well allowing for a little exaggeration it did change a lot of assumptions about classical music.

Spirituality. That’s what Gorecki was about, and that was the appeal of the first chant phenom – which happened over 15 years ago – a whole generation ago. That one also caught the wise guys by surprise, but soon everyone was on the boat and for the next ten years it was all about the monks of Santo Domingo de Silos – and the recording wasn’t even new. It’s just that it filled a need in the marketplace. Supply and demand. New Age was doing well those days. The need was for stress reduction. A lot of people were buying Classical music for just that purpose – it’s still a great hook: check out the Adagios CDs.

A little bit after the monks came the Enigma explosion. Here was chant to a disco beat. Actually it was made to order with its gothick images and satanic associations by reversal but Enigma tapped into the sound of chant itself which is a vestigial echo in the collective memory of countless humans.

There have been other boomlets and tributaries of the motherlode of classical crossover, and this CHANT is in a long line of prototypes and precursors, but it is the harbinger of things to come.as well as a replicator of old business plans.

It’s among an aristocracy: one of the first classical releases to chart at number one with a digital-only presence. It wasn’t the first one (Dudamel had the first, though the numbers were considerably less than CHANT’s.). But it’s life has been acted out in cyberspace more so than in the terrestrial world and that’s a change.

BIZET: DJAMILEH in Chicago

Classical music fans in Chicago have a little-known resource right downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center, where this week an equally unknown gem of a French opera is receiving its Midwest premiere.

The opera is Djamileh, written in 1875 by Bizet, the composer of Carmen, and it’s easy to see why this particular antique has quietly slipped into obscurity. The story, a faded bit of orientalism, revolves around a jaded potentate and his insatiable thirst for the pleasures of wine, women and gambling. The libretto trots out every cultural and sexual stereotype of its age, and ends with a nasty scene where the prince rejects his lovelorn slave girl only to turn around and tell her he was just testing her. The opera ends with a rapturous duet.

Apart from the story line, however, the opera has plenty to savor. The music has sparkle and gracefulness and the vocal lines offer plenty of opportunities for the three soloists to shine both alone and together in some masterful duets and trios.

This performance offered a pared-down orchestra with the score reduced to chamber-music proportions by the musical director, Francesco Milioto, and the reduction worked beautifully. The musicians were a nicely balanced group and played with verve and style.

The three vocalists had a tougher time of it – the space in Preston Bradley Hall is not kind to voices, and trying to make these cardboard characters believable had to be a major challenge. They did their best, however, and they kept the attention of a capacity audience in spite of all the staginess of the production. Bill McMurray as Splendiana, the prince’s servant, stole every scene he was in, and Katherine Pracht has a lovely mezzo voice that was just right for the exotic slave girl. The trio was completed by Cornelius Johnson as Haroun, and the ensembles, including some excellent choral passages, were satisfying and attractive.

Musically this performance was really superior entertainment. Bizet had a fertile musical imagination and it would have been interesting to know how far and where he might have gone had he lived – in fact he died not long after this opera was penned.

So all praise to the Cultural Center for their industry and resourcefulness in presenting this quite special production. And lovers of classical music: you are hereby put on notice: pay attention to what goes on under the splendiferous Tiffany dome – or you might be missing the next unknown treasure they dig up!

KARINA GAUVIN SINGS BRITTEN IN CHICAGO

The Harris Theater was the scene for yet another of Benjamin Britten’s underappreciated vocal masterpieces tonight when the sensational French Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin dazzled in a performance of Les Illuminations, songs inspired by the perverse genius of Arthur Rimbaud.

This early cycle, written in 1939 , when Britten had moved to America as he thought for good (it was not to be), is a rich goldmine of musical invention, and a precursor of his great vocal music yet to come.

Obviously in love with the poete maudit and his dark visions, Britten almost becomes a Frenchman for this work. And Karina Gauvin with her range and technique had the musical and textual complexities under her command at all times.

The strings are used in strikingly orchestral ways from the opening fanfares on and there is such a wide range of tonal color in this piece that I almost had to check on my memory later to make sure it was only strings I had heard!

The tub-thumping of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was the hardly necessary second half of the program. But even this oft-heard piece in a more than respectable performance could not erase the excellence of the English masterpiece that came before.

Salonen Piano Concerto: CSO and Bronfman

For my money, the Chicago Symphony has kept its place at the top of the heap of American orchestras, as much by changing as by retaining its strongest elements. It’s the typical American orchestra, a kind of chameleon, very professional, kind of faceless, kind of a blank slate – until a strong-willed conductor puts his stamp on it and harnesses its virtuosity to his requirements. Americans are hybrids and at our best we reflect and refract the multitudes of cultural influences around us, and maybe focus them, clarify, de-mystify them.

These thoughts are provoked by the current concerts conducted by the eminent Finnish maestro, Esa-Pekka Salonen. In a rambling pre-concert “conversation,” Salonen told of his 16-year sojourn in remote California, and of how his relocation changed his Euro-centric attitudes, and his musical allegiances.

The journey he travels in his Piano Concerto clearly reflects his experience. Made-up Finnish folk music, mechanical birds, minimalism, Jazz, yes, even Gershwin – all figure in the fabric of this massively ambitious piece. There are wonderful stretches of orchestration, solos, ensembles and dramatic outbursts -- music that would test the limits of any orchestra.

But the CSO is up to most any challenge, and with the composer on the podium, they gave a rousing performance of this dense but not congested piece. Salonen is a masterful conductor, and he cleanly dissected his own music so that the pieces revealed their facets in sharp relief.

It was a work of many fragments, though. It didn’t cohere as a whole, and this was it’s downfall for me. It was exciting in places, even romantic in some other places, but basically an intellectual construction that reveals Salonen as the rebellious stepson of the Boulez school of modernism.

I have left the best part for last. Yefim Bronfman is a giant of the keyboard. The price of admission was more than paid off by seeing his almost superhuman pianism. Fighting the eternal battle of the keyboard versus the full orchestra, and winning it hands down, he negotiated mountains of notes with amazing dexterity and power.

If this concerto is flawed as a composition, it certainly does give two great virtuosos, the orchestra and the soloist, many opportunities to enhance their fame..

Anderszewski Beethoven on Virgin Classics

Piotr Anderszewski, conductor and pianist: Beethoven Bagatelles Op. 126; Piano Concerto # 1. (Virgin Classics).

Gerry: This was an album that I actually bought, Bryant, do you think I spent my money wisely?

Bryant: Probably not. You could've saved at least $5 had you chosen iTunes.

Gerry: Do you think any of this music is dainty?

Bryant: Some of those early sonatas are; even the second concerto has bars of horse and buggy daintiness. But no, dainty doesn't come to mind in this recording.

Piotr Anderszewski is a Pole. Do you think he's more at home in the Chopin recordings or in these German works?

Gerry: Well, his first recording was of the Diabelli Variations, then Bach, so obviously he regards these as important. He was a student of Perahia & Brendel as well and the whole Marlboro school is in his background. That said I think the Chopin disc he produced came from the soul, so obviously he's got the blood. I think the mixture is what makes him somewhat unique. Used to be artists didn't mix the two.

Bryant: In regards to Perahia, he's gone back to Bach and now wants to play little else. He just a released a disc on Sony of the Partitas 2-4. What do you think of veteran pianists going back to well-worn repertoire when they could be recording some other composer's latest work? Are they obligated to find balance?

Gerry: I don't obligate any performer to any course of action...that said, I am not convinced his Bach performances are driven by great passion or originality. Maybe he needs this time to lie fallow and he'll go into the French repertoire or maybe some underperformed German school composer like Wainberg or Reger -- which is where Rudolf Serkin went in his later years. I contrast Perahia with Peter Serkin, who is always exploring unusual repertoire, and yet coming back to the standards with renewed insight. Maybe some artists just lose their curiosity with age. But they do have to follow their own muse and not pay any nevermind to folks like us who inhabit different skins.

Sleeping Beauty : ABT

A.B.T. 's Sleeping Beauty in Chicago

Main floor free seat, major American company, full-length Sleeping Beauty; Good opportunity?But I had just seen a full-length Swan Lake by a sterling Russian troupe weeks ago and the images and sensations lingered on. This was quite different.

The first thing I noticed were the absolute rigidity of pose the secondary performers adopted; not just still but statue-like; or like painted figures in a child's story book. Every minimal move clearly determined; the stage a picture; no messy life-like behavior. And so what? Isn't this a fairy tale? Even more than Swan Lake this is clearly an elite child's box of dolls come to life. 1890 was the debut in Petersburg and I'm sure the Czar's lovely daughters were among the audience, or the lovely daughters of some other aristocratic family who were living a doomed life of fantasy with terror ready to break in at any time. Tchaikovsky's ballets all have a sense of that underlying horror that lurks outside.

In this odd production, the lurkers -- the evil fairy and her bug-like minions have all the scariness required to disrupt and threaten. I came to life when they arrived. Maybe this was going to be fun after all. It was.

The bugs did their work and the sleepy head was carried off, and the cardboard figures mimed incomprehesibly and danced quite well, all said.

Really, in these overlong dramas it's just about enjoying the set pieces as they unroll; the high point for me was the entry of the male dancers and Sid Smith got it right in his Tribune review, so I'll just quote him:

The charismatic Carreno remains a sure-footed, comfortable star, a study in soft landings, clean technique and effortless control. He and the hunters, in their romp that opens Act II, take over the stage with an exhilarating rush.

There was a lot more to enjoy in this production, and the company just got better as time went by, so there were grand, gay, and sweet moments throughout. And a lot of misfires as well -- literally with a bizarre rocket blast that seemed strangely disconnected to the actual witch it was meant to transport...

I can't really say I was enlightened by the quirks of staging. I think choreography by committee is not usually successful. How does anyone interpret the switching of period costumes back and forth -- yes, I read the note that said it was the hundred-year sleep of the beauty, but it was just a device to get a different costume theme going as far as I could see...

But I am not a cranky purist, and I like attending performances that are vital and exhilarating. This A.B.T. show was energetic from start to finish. If I didn't get much of a sense of coherence in the action, and if it was more about technique than about the shadings, i enjoyed watching this first class dancing machine give us their (almost) best.

Sangre de mi Sangre or Padre Nuestro a Masterpiece?

Sometimes a film with certain narrative or structural weaknesses has so much excellence in its content that you are well rewarded if you just throw out your criticisms and enjoy the moments as they unfold.

"Sangre de mi Sangre" (the better title is the original "Padre Nuestro") was just given two showings at the Chicago Latino Film Festival. It's a film that deserves wider distribution. Perhaps overlong, and with a plot that is rather too complex and relies on coincidence a bit too much, this movie nevertheless sucks you emotionally into the lives of its characters, Mexican immigrants living at the margins in New York City. The core of the movie is the story of the two young Mexicans trying in their separate ways to survive in an alien environment. The plot revolves around stolen identity and personal interconnections as the two protagonists try to gain security through money or through relationships. The story recalls another masterpiece of ambivalence, "The Son", and I'll say no more, except to indicate that the conclusion of the action is richly satisfying, if harsh. Just a word about the performances: the director is clearly a genius at handling actors. The leads give virtuoso turns to their characterizations, and the cast throughout shows never a false note.

Jonas Kaufmann: The Whole Package?

Jonas Kaufmann: Romantic Arias (Decca)

Here's a voice we'll be hearing for a while. The brief back story of this handsome young German tenor is interesting: he was trained as a light tenor, and by good fortune was allowed to liberate the drama of the lower and richer tones which he says were what he used " in the shower or the elevator."

So his career is a product of a very personal drive which he reveals in his choice of repertoire and his intensely dramatic presentation The arias on his calling-card disc are a mixture of the usual and the slightly less so.

He opens with a full-throated run-through of "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme, and then he takes an abrupt left turn into French opera: Bizet, very idiomatic, with a minor but gorgeously-sung aria from Carmen, turning at last to his home tongue with the show-stopper and only hit from Flotow's Martha -- which he nails as well as Siegfried Jerusalem did in the recent past.

So we get him as eclectic, fluent in various languages and styles -- dare we say Post Modern? An artist who brings as much sensibility and style to Wagner as he does to Massenet. His lyric gifts also enhance an affinity with Italian Opera. Verdi is in his soul, and he did begin his debut disc with an emotive Puccini.

Highlights of this disc include an aria from Don Carlos, the 5 minutes of glorious Wagner, and especially a Berlioz aria from The Damnation of Faust, sung with Wagnerian greatness of soul.

The proof is in the Opera House performance, of course. So we will have to see him. Is he the real thing or the product of the electronics of the recording medium? I suspect he's the whole package, relying on field reviews of his performances. Can't wait to see him in person!

Although the disc is nothing but a collection of snippets, there is something to enjoy in most of these performances, not least the conducting of Marco Armiliano, whose accompaniment matches Kaufmann's eclecticity with stylish performances in a variety of styles. The two artists seem to be on the same wavelength, and the result is a very satisfying CD. It's ipod ready since almost every cut is a keeper: just rip and burn!

Peter Grimes

URBAN OPERA
Peter Grimes at the multiplex


Well, I wanted the experience of the Live from the Met hookup which brings Grand Opera to a cine near you in HD. I’d heard such great things about the experience. So when Bryant suggested we attend the showing of Peter Grimes today, I gladly went along.

But, although it was definitely worth going, I don’t think I’ll be doing it very often in the future. Really, there’s just too much annoyance added in (city driving and parking) and too much energy sucked out, to make it a vital need for me.

Opera live is best really live, and not second-hand through a distancing medium like a movie theater representation. Yes, some of the frisson of the immediate with its potential for the unexpected is there at first, but the absolute control of the technical elements soon takes off that edge. The only spontaneous things that I saw were in the clumsy but endearing interview segments with an uncomfortable Natalie Dessay doing her darndest not to sound scripted.

Best unexpected interchange: Natalie trying to prompt tenor Dean Griffey for his own personal take on the guilt or innocence of Peter Grimes (he wouldn’t be pushed). I’ve always wondered how these artists can take this kind of intrusion into the flow of their performances.

Griffey in particular seemed to be so identifying with Grimes, that I wondered if he wasn’t tempted to smack Ms Dessay around a little. Patricia Racette was herself quite the Ellen Orford, with her very idealistic interpretations and her almost pedantic descriptions of the technical aspects of the music. Both of them give great performances, by the way – quite stellar.

Maybe it was just this production, but I really didn’t see Grimes as just an “outsider” being unfairly tarred and feathered by the moral righteousness of his community. I actually was agreeing that Ellen was quite wrongheaded to set Grimes up with another young boy to abuse, honorable as her reasons were. I was thinking that she was sending this scared kid to his doom. And so it was.

I wonder what it is about this opera that makes it one of the most celebrated of the last 50 years. Certainly the music is quite wonderful; Britten is such a genius of orchestral color and emotiveness. But the libretto is so bookish, so prosaic. There are great vocal parts for many of the characters, and there are such rich characters for good performers to get their teeth into, but the whole thing is rather like a musical version of a Victorian novel. Sweeney Todd comes to mind – there’s even a bit of twisted humor now and then.

And then there is the inventive use of the chorus, who are collectively one of the most important characters in the drama. And the moral ambiguity of the story is quite absorbing, no easy answers here.

But it’s all so unremittingly down, so clearly spiraling to a painful end, that I left before the last act, which I knew was just going to be more and worse tragedy, however gorgeous. The “issues” were of the time and in the psyche of the original artists. Britten, obsessed with young boys, reveals perhaps his struggle with the monstrous side of his fascination, and paints a deeply disturbing picture of an almost erotic intensity.

Liberals of the time (and surely Britten and Pears were socially liberal) had much to say about the power of the ignorant majority, the “other- directed” as opposed to the more heroic “inner-directed”, as Riesman’s Lonely Crowd called them. (Ellen vs. The Borough). It’s a gripping morality play we are watching here, and although it’s got lots of great musical moments, and displays great inner conflicts, I can’t help feeling that moral ideas are not best served by the medium of Opera.

Maybe I was scared to be sucked into the whirlpool of the inevitable denouement – I’ve heard the recordings and I listened to it on my car radio as I retreated, and it’s implacably intense, even masterfully so. But I had had enough reminders of my own inner conflicts, and my love-hate with the Fifties, which haunted my childhood. I wanted out, and Bryant wanted to go as well, for his own reasons – he said he was bored with some of it (great admission, Bryant!) .

Hvorostovsky In Chicago: Eugene Onegin

A Woman’s Triumph

This great melodrama Tchaikovsky hatched in 1879 from Pushkin is one of the best tickets in town. The plush, but modern, staging is brought off in style and with great imagination. There is not a weak link in the singing, and the acting is at the highest level as well. The cast, including Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Dina Kuznetsova and Frank Lopardo, is joined by an acting chorus that forges a collective characterization that enlivens every scene they’re in.

Of course the opera has its problems. For one thing, people don’t do much. They just stand around picturesquely, read books and sit at writing tables. And the music is not always top flight Tchaikovsky. It has flashes of greatness everywhere, but much of it is boilerplate, standard issue accompaniment to the high-tone soap opera which unfolds at a leisurely pace.

Every Russian brings his own feelings to this unhappy love story and that prior engagement with the story probably helps to fill in the gaps in the episodic structure of the opera. For first-timers the great set pieces might seem disconnected. But that said, it would be wrong to dwell on the opera’s weaknesses, when there are so many things to savor in the Lyric production (which dates from 1997). In fact, the set pieces, led by Tatyana’s letter scene, are outstanding here.

A special word about Dina Kuznetsova: her very real character has depth and breadth, and she makes the writing of an effusive love letter an epic rollercoaster ride. Add in a rich and flexible voice, and we have a truly memorable Tatyana both as child and mature woman.

The successful performance of the letter scene determines how we judge Onegin’s patronizing rejection of her. If we identify with the girl’s ardent longing, then we will see Onegin as a cad, which he does seem to be in this defining interpretation by Hvorostovsky. This artist is at the peak of his craft now, so we need only sit and be seduced. His stage presence is magnetic, his movements are leonine and always on key. It does seem as if the Siberian tiger is overworked of late (he backed out of half the run this year), but Onegin’s principal emotion is ennui, and he isn’t on stage all that much, so the baritone could almost phone in his performance.

He’s got to be ready to take command of the last scenes, however, and Hvorostovsky does so with power and economy. There is an almost verismo climax as Tatyana turns and runs out of Onegin’s life forever, and he is confronted with his great bereavement and stands abashed and alone at curtain’s fall.

This high strung psychological drama would seem to be perfect for the music of Tchaikovsky, but his score doesn’t always plumb the depths as deeply as his purely orchestral music. Maybe the addition of words made the passions too concrete for him, so closeted, to put his soul out plain to see, with so much sexual ardor attached to his most revealing musical effusions. Maybe the constraints and conventions of Russian opera of the time put a rein on his creativity. His personal life was undergoing its greatest upheavals at the time, with his panic-driven marriage, and his admission of his homosexuality, so that has to be figured in.

But his understanding of the emotional center of Tatyana, from her repressed early years to her strong and ultimately triumphant later self, is at the root of this opera’s success. His own personal struggles shed light on his portrayal of her, Lensky , and Onegin’s rich and affecting stories.

Alfred Brendel's goodbye to Chicago

The pianist Alfred Brendel would never, but never, inject any sentimentality into his patrician interpretations of the classics, but one wonders if he experienced a slight catch in his throat at the loving response his audience of long time fans gave to his farewell appearance at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.

He offered a kind of microcosm of his career, great gobs of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert with smaller dollops of Bach and Liszt. It's not a broad range he covers, but he goes deep and his technique is still near flawless. He's seemingly slowed down a bit -- this was most noticeable in the Mozart Sonata -- but he fills the spaces he creates with such inight and precision, that it all seems right.

Never showy, he still fights the tics which show how intensely he is concentrating on the musical challenges he boldly tosses off.

His program was thoughtfully chosen, as much for the substance of the pieces as for the respect shown to the intelligence of his audience. Nothing commonplace, but music at the heart of the composers' work. Who programs the other Beethoven Sonata "Quasi una fantasia" instead of the Moonlight Sonata? Who would be likely to open a program with a complex series of variations which ends in an anticlimax as does the exquisite Haydn work? And the encores, spotlighting the lesser-known Brendel: the second movement, so romantic, from Bach's Italian Concerto, and some almost impressionistic Liszt.

The second half of the program was devoted to Schubert's last Sonata, and it too was a deeply considered choice -- a valedictory piece to begin with done with a profound understanding of the sequential nature of the structure, it's emotional rather than logical structure.

I was really moved to see this humble yet somehow grand artist walking slowly out of my life...

PROTEUS

Ainadamar in Chicago

When an artist of the magnitude and quality of Dawn Upshaw puts her heart and soul into a work by a little-known composer, you have to take notice. The very American soprano has been making a specialty of Osvaldo Golijov, and getting his work performed pretty extensively in major venues. To great applause – Ainadamar got a standing ovation on Feb 12th at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, where a pretty sizeable house witnessed a truly memorable performance.

From the very entrance of a distraught Ms Upshaw, the audience was pulled into the emotional heart of the story of a great artist’s murder by Falangists in 1939. The libretto by David Henry Hwang focused on the murder of Lorca as the central event of the piece – is it an opera? A passion? I think it is a new hybrid concert form where the drama is as important as the music.

The lighting, the sound effects, the mikes on the singers, the supertitles, everything was centered on the staged drama of an inexorable tragic loss. The reiterated gunfire (becoming percussion effects) was a jolting climax, but the piece sort of petered out in a too prolonged ending. Still, the performances were never less than compelling. I could wish all music or theater were as deeply felt as this one was.

Dawn Upshaw was always magnificent, with a new layer of chest tones that really extend her range of expression. Jessica Rivera was every bit as marvelous vocally (I was already converted when I saw her as Kitty Oppenheimer in Dr Atomic). And the magnetic Kelley O’Connor brought a flexible mezzo to the trouser role of Lorca. The three artists had wonderful dramatic and vocal rapport, and their trios were quite ravishing.

I think the music also represents an exciting new hybridity quite different from the artificial insertion of “exotic” elements into basically western contexts that is the older way. Here the foreign is domestic, and both are fully integrated into a coherent whole.

Interestingly, I was prepared to dislike this piece. Just hearing the CD as I did, without knowing anything about the narrative, was disorienting to me, and I dismissed the score as pointlessly eclectic. I missed the point. Another lesson in drawing conclusions too easily!

Dr Atomic in Chicago

For me there was a disconnect between what I was hearing and what I was seeing. The music of Adams was rich, inventive and full of foreboding. The choral sections were particularly strong and well-sung. I thought the sound design was involving and even the anti-climactic ending was satisfying to me. The baritone (almost a tenor at times) of Gerald Finley was always in the right place, and his performance of Donne's tortured poetry, standing in front of the curtained bomb, was riveting. Good singing from the rest of the cast as well, especially from soprano Jessica Rivera as Kitty.

The work however failed to cohere for me. The staging was great in spots but studded with arbitrary and overly fussy elements. I was not impressed with the balletic bits, which reminded me more of Sharks and Jets (old in their time), and seemed to be deployed to give some needed physicality to a static script.

The libretto was the problem, and what was happening on the stage was too often uninteresting in spite of the profundity of the issues. It seems as if Peter Sellars the stage director couldn't tell Peter Sellars the librettist when enough was enough...A good example was in the lengthy bedroom scene in Act I. But there was so much good music and such a core of drama (can we say Apocalypsis) underlying it all that it's hard to be too hard on the thing. It's just that this opera will not be on any top ten of mine any time soon.