By ANDREW POWELL Published: September 19, 2017 ELMAU — His website left the program as vague as “Beethoven and Shostakovich” right up until the recital, but Igor Levit knew exactly what he wanted to do Aug. 14 in the timber-framed auditorium of this isolated castle-spa below the Wettersteinwand. An aural onslaught was in the offing. […]
Read the rest of this article »By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. We hope everyone had a great summer. Sorry we haven’t posted in a while, but we’ve been a bit “pre-occupied” with in the world of artist visas. It seems something changes every time Trump breaks wind. So, let’s take a break and go address two completely non-visa related questions that […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 30, 2017 SALZBURG — Qualitative upticks at the main festival here have heralded Markus Hinterhäuser’s installment as Intendant after a shaky two-summer void. The priority, it appears, is music itself over theater or opera, as might be expected from a boss who is also a professional pianist. Hinterhäuser is retaining […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 18, 2017 MUNICH — BelAir Classiques and Mezzo TV have succeeded in getting a ban overturned on their sale and airing, respectively, of a 2010 filmed staging of Dialogues des Carmélites made here at Bavarian State Opera. The ban, or arrêt, had been imposed in 2015 by the Cour d’appel […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 29, 2017 MUNICH — Not every week does the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra devote a whole program to music written since 2000. Guest conductor Matthias Pintscher’s concert July 7 in the Herkulessaal proved an exception. It began spatially, extravagantly, with his own fantasy With Lilies White (2002); progressed to a […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 29, 2017 PASSAU — What more heavenly way to mark your 90th birthday than conducting a favorite symphony in four cathedrals on four successive nights, and with an orchestra that adores you? This, at least, was Herbert Blomstedt’s thinking, amenably realized by the Bamberger Symphoniker — in Bamberg’s Dom St […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 6, 2017 MUNICH — Under the incongruous stewardship of Valery Gergiev, the Munich Philharmonic intends to stress its Bruckner credentials the next three Septembers with filmed visits to the Stiftsbasilika St Florian. There, where the composer worked and rests, just south of Linz, the MPhil will record for DVD his […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 4, 2017 OBERAMMERGAU — Amplification makes it possible; amplification limits the achievement. That is the dilemma for opera in this neat Bavarian town’s Passionstheater (1930), built to service a post-plague pledge made 384 years ago. Raked seating in the barn-like house confronts a fixed templar structure on a stage open […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: June 23, 2017 MUNICH — Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, complete, is slated for President Trump’s second orchestra concert on the job, to take place, like the first, in Europe, specifically at Hamburg’s new Elbphilharmonie. Details of the July 7 event, part of the 12th G20 Summit, were announced Wednesday by a spokesman […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: June 16, 2017 MUNICH — Today Berlin got as close to Munich as Vienna already is: four hours by rail. Deutsche Bahn test-trains for the first time ran the recently completed high-speed track between the two German cities, 400 miles apart, and the company promised passenger service starting Dec. 10, the […]
Read the rest of this article »
