Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

  • Princeton Festival Goes Virtual in 2020

    Princeton Festival Goes Virtual in 2020

    COVID-19 may have put the kibosh on in-person events, but The Princeton Festival, like life, finds a way.

    The June 2020 public performance season has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. But in its place, the Festival has announced “Virtually Yours,” a free online series of live and recorded performances of instrumental and vocal music, musical theater, opera, and poetry, with educational presentations, to be streamed every day, from June 1 to June 28.

    “This online program maintains the high artistic quality Princeton Festival audiences have come to expect in a variety of genres, both classical and popular,” says Richard Tang Yuk, PF Executive and Artistic Director. “It includes totally new material prepared especially for us by leading artists, plus performances from our recorded archives. We’re confident audiences will find it to be an exciting and engaging series of events.”

    Highlights of the “Virtually Yours” online festival will include the following (all times are EDT):

    • Videos of four Festival opera productions, each streamed just once on Sundays at 1 pm. The operas are Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (June 7), Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (June 14), the acclaimed 2019 production of John Adams’s Nixon in China (June 21), and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (June 28).

    • A “Live Musical Theater Review” (Saturday, June 20, 8 pm).

    • Broadcasts of 2019 Festival concerts by Concordia Chamber Players, Van Cliburn competition pianist Rachel Cheung, and the Princeton Festival Baroque Orchestra and Chorus, airing Fridays at 8 pm on WWFM – The Classical Network at 89.1 FM and http://www.wwfm.org.

    • Videos of musical artists performing from their homes (various days).

    • Latin band Fleur Seule on Saturday, June 13.

    • A series of podcasts launched each Wednesday on such topics as “Women in Music” and “Costuming Operas and Musicals,” along with interviews with Shai Zohar, pianist, and Sylvia McNair, soprano.

    • Twelve renowned poets from the U.S., Japan, and China, reading poems on the theme of women, in a compilation of videos made especially for the Festival. To be released on Monday, June 22.

    • An Opera Workshop for people who want to learn more about the art form, starting Tuesday, June 9; and a Musical Workshop for aspiring singers beginning Monday June 15.

    • Lectures by prominent experts: Professor Timothy Urban on “Why We Love Opera” (Thursday, June 4) and Professor Stacy Wolf on “Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theater across America” (Thursday, June 18).

    A full roster of “Virtually Yours” events, with periodic updates to the schedule, may be viewed online at https://princetonfestival.org/virtually-yours/.

    PHOTOS (counterclockwise from top): Richard Tang Yuk conducts the Princeton Festival Orchestra; pianist Rachel Cheung; Mark Delavan as “The Flying Dutchman;” and Allyson Briggs of Fleur Seule

  • Free Met Opera Streams This Week

    Free Met Opera Streams This Week

    Even during a pandemic, life can be so… operatic.

    Here’s this week’s schedule of Metropolitan Opera “Live in HD” encores. You know the drill. The operas stream free, for approximately 23 hours, beginning each day around 7:30 p.m. EDT at metopera.org. Though I have noticed that the switch more often takes place around 6:00. That said, once you hit play, even if it’s 5:00 or 5:30, it’s been my experience that you can watch until the end, provided you don’t try to break. “Nabucco” is available, allegedly, through 6:30 this evening.

    Here’s a complete schedule of this week’s offerings. You’ll find teasers and bonus materials when following the link.

    https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/week-10/

    Monday, May 18
    Mozart’s Idomeneo
    Starring Nadine Sierra, Elza van den Heever, Alice Coote, and Matthew Polenzani, conducted by James Levine. From March 25, 2017.

    Tuesday, May 19
    Wagner’s Lohengrin
    Starring Eva Marton, Leonie Rysanek, Peter Hofmann, Leif Roar, and John Macurdy, conducted by James Levine. From January 10, 1986.

    Wednesday, May 20
    Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera
    Starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Kathleen Kim, Stephanie Blythe, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From December 8, 2012.

    Thursday, May 21
    Puccini’s Turandot
    Starring Christine Goerke, Eleonora Buratto, Yusif Eyvazov, and James Morris, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From October 12, 2019.

    Friday, May 22
    Mozart’s Don Giovanni
    Starring Joan Sutherland, James Morris, and Gabriel Bacquier, conducted by Richard Bonynge. From March 16, 1978.

    Saturday, May 23
    Gounod’s Faust
    Starring Marina Poplavskaya, Jonas Kaufmann, and René Pape, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From December 10, 2011.

    Sunday, May 24
    Massenet’s Manon
    Starring Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczała, and Paulo Szot, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From April 7, 2012.

  • Beethoven’s Dedication Disaster

    Beethoven’s Dedication Disaster

    How to spoil your shot at a dedication!

    Ludwig van Beethoven had recently completed his Symphony No. 3 under the giddy influence of an idealized Napoleon Bonaparte. As a statesman and military leader who was well on his way to conquering (or as Beethoven may have seen it, liberating) most of Europe, Napoleon was deemed by the composer to be on equal footing with the greatest consuls of Ancient Rome.

    The egalitarian-minded Beethoven may have been blinded by his revolutionary fervor, but once he learned that Napoleon had been proclaimed Emperor on this date in 1804, the scales dropped from his eyes and his affection curdled. He is alleged to have said, “So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of Man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!” In a fury, he scratched out the symphony’s original dedication.

    Later, once he had cooled, Beethoven confided to his publisher that the proper title of the symphony should be “Bonaparte.” Instead, it was released under the name “Sinfonia Eroica” – “Heroic Symphony.” The revised dedication reads, “Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.”

    Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony is regarded as one of the most significant works of the early 19th century. With its structural breadth and emotional scope, the work exploded the boundaries of symphonic form as it was recognized at the time. In his way, Beethoven managed to win as much new ground as Napoleon. Unlike Napoleon, however, he was able to keep it. And he holds it still.

  • Ballets Russes’ Lost English Composers

    Ballets Russes’ Lost English Composers

    Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from such composers as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”), and Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).

    Less well known is the fact that two Englishmen were also approached.

    This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to works by Constant Lambert and Lord Berners – both men so diverse in their interests, and possessing such outsized personalities, it isn’t really possible to do justice to either in the time allotted.

    Lambert was a brilliant polymath. In addition to his considerable talents as a composer, he was a conductor, arranger, and writer, as well as the lover of Margot Fonteyn. Alas, alcoholism and workaholism conspired with undiagnosed diabetes to hasten his demise at the age of 45.

    His ballet, “Romeo and Juliet,” presented as a play-within-a-play, turns Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers on its head, with the leads falling hard in a backstage romance with happier results. Lambert would go on to greater things, but the ballet is undeniably an impressive piece of work for a 20 year-old.

    Similarly, Lord Berners’ interests lay all over the place, but his was a much more relaxed character. Unfailingly productive as a composer, a painter, and a writer, nonetheless he never lost sight of the fact that life would be his magnum opus. And Berners lived well.

    Furthermore, his fortune ensured that he would never be taken to task for any of his whimsical behavior. This included having a 140-foot folly tower constructed on his estate (partly to annoy the neighbors) and keeping a horse and a giraffe to invite to his indoor and outdoor tea parties.

    Berners wrote novels, painted portraits (always sure to include a moustache, whether the sitter had one or not), and composed a respectable amount of music, especially for the ballet.

    For the Ballets Russes, he wrote “The Triumph of Neptune,” which became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham. Sacheverell Sitwell provided the scenario, which concerns a sailor who is shipwrecked en route to Fairyland, and George Balanchine supplied the choreography.

    That’s a heady mix of hornpipes and pas de deux. I hope you’ll join me for “England à la Russe,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

    PHOTO: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache

  • Erik Satie Birthday Crossword Puzzle Challenge

    Erik Satie Birthday Crossword Puzzle Challenge

    Happy birthday, Erik Satie!

    Celebrate the “Velvet Gentleman” by testing your knowledge of this quirky, experimental composer – his music, his world, and those he influenced – with another Classic Ross Amico crossword.

    To fill it out, follow the link and select “solve online” at the bottom of the puzzle page. You’ll then be able to type directly into the squares. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the puzzle, you’ll find the solutions by clicking on “Answer Key PDF.”

    You’re not being graded so, by all means, make it “open book!” No one cares if you google some of the answers. The answers we don’t hold in our heads, we learn.

    https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.05/1705/17051527.495.html

    To set the mood, here’s a clip from Satie’s “Parade,” with costumes by Picasso and choreography by Massine. Gotta love that horse!

    Having a slow Sunday? Here are links to some of my other puzzles of the past few weeks:

    MAX STEINER & DIMITRI TIOMKIN
    Including lots of clues about classic movies of the ‘30s, ‘40s & ‘50s

    https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.05/1007/10071219.977.html?fbclid=IwAR3kSIEbP673PvO9SLAdIRwR-pTqCh8fJsDXa6hcIOYvXYyieahFpC4gVuc

    CAFFEINATED CLASSICS
    Plenty of coffee, tea & chocolate

    https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.04/2606/26063743.014.html?fbclid=IwAR0IEygNSr4BpP0uIWBsnDmK1EK4gSaTcqyh7yn69iSiN5vGGHwFIf6nk2I

    SPRING INTO MUSIC
    The force of May is with us!

    https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.05/0305/03054400.876.html?fbclid=IwAR0qTmBGReUzlZooCxkbis6BTQbTfi9xUvlIjVtmypVkN_QlDLvwIwAkhh0

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