Musical America Blogs

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By Rebecca Schmid The socially aware agenda of the Komische Oper’s new Intendant Barrie Kosky has been ruffling the feathers of Berliners months before he officially took over this season, not least with the decision to end the house tradition of performing operas exclusively in the German language. His emphasis on cultural pluralism aside, the […]

By Rebecca Schmid Many American opera-goers, including New Yorkers, look across the ocean and wish that their home institutions would afford themselves the same liberties of programming. Back in Berlin, the Deutsche Oper kicked off its season with a Lachenmann opera, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, while the Komische Oper launched a Monteverdi trilogy including […]

By Rebecca Schmid In Berlin, where contemporary music thrives from the Philharmonie to off spaces, it is a widespread perception that New York’s mainstream institutions are afraid to program anything past Stravinsky. A look at Alan Gilbert’s recent undertakings with the New York Philharmonic, notably in a hugely successful “360” concert of Mozart, Stockhausen, Boulez […]

By Rebecca Schmid Blame it on Cage. Or the Marshall Plan. It is impossible to escape the American canon as the season opens here with the Musikfest Berlin (August 31-September 18), an annual festival dedicated to 20th-century music. The event falls just as Europe’s major festivals are drawing to a close and often struggles for […]

By Rebecca Schmid Reconnecting the spiritual with classical music might seem a controversial issue in an era of cultural pluralism, yet the hunger to unearth the spiritual has seeped into some of Europe´s leading festivals. As Jim Oestreich reported earlier this season in The New York Times, a wave of religiosity has spread from Lincoln […]

Carmen, Magdalena Kozena, Jonas Kaufmann, Salzburg Festival, Rebecca Schmid, Aletta Collins, Simon Rattle, Vienna Philharmonic, Bizet

By Rebecca Schmid „Kinder, schaff Neues,“ (Children, create something new) Wagner wrote in an adage frequently quoted by stage directors in Germany. In Bayreuth, 136 years after the founding of his festival, the spirit is alive and well. Provocatively-minded Regietheater, for lack of a better blanket term, has come to stamp the recently installed administration […]

By Rebecca Schmid The Bayreuth Festival has had its share of scandal to contend with as Wagner’s bicentenary approaches next season. An international investigation into exclusive ticketing practices; the publicized struggle to find the director for a new Ring cycle; administrative policies that have reportedly shortened rehearsal time; widely reviled productions; and—most recently—the last-minute withdrawal […]

by Rebecca Schmid The historical forces that decide which composers enter the canon often seem beyond our control. Why Brahms should become hackneyed while chamber music enthusiasts are not familiar with the name Martinu continues to frustrate musicians and critics alike, and yet a refreshing trend seems to be emerging. As Anne Midgette writes this […]