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: 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 »By ANDREW POWELL Published: June 16, 2017 MUNICH — An odd thing happened during the curtain calls last evening after a taut, riveting Rusalka here at Bavarian State Opera. The orchestra players made various signs of approval for the cast members’ work, as is customary, and then essentially none for the conductor (and leading lady’s […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 16, 2017 MUNICH — Nikolaus Bachler’s Bavarian State Opera has been having its idea of fun with the taxpayer money it receives. In connection with a new Tannhäuser, due May 21, it commissioned for its quarterly Max Joseph magazine a discussion of Wagner’s bacchanale of distant bathing naiads and sedate […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 2, 2017 MUNICH — Like the miracle of compound interest, Bavarian State Opera’s pricing can chart smartly upwards when you’re not watching. The company sells using an astounding total of 128 price points — the product of eight price categories for its National Theater home and sixteen sliding scales. Things […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: April 24, 2017 MUNICH — It was a short courtship by recent standards. Dalmatian conductor Ivan Repušić (pr. REP-oosh-itch), 39, debuted with the Münchner Rundfunk-Orchester in a concert La rondine in Oct. 2015, returned for a gala two months later and signed his contract* last June. His background, happily, is stable: […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 13, 2017 MUNICH — Bavaria’s Culture Ministry declined to comment last week on the handicapping of online ticket buyers by Bavarian State Opera, one of the entities it supervises. In theory the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Culture, Science and Art, to give it its full name, supports culture […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 13, 2017 MUNICH — Philipp Stölzl’s new and relatively sane production of Andrea Chénier will be video-streamed Saturday by Bavarian State Opera as part of a regular free service. — when: 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT), March 18, 2017 — where: https://www.staatsoper.de/tv.html Omer Meir Wellber brings his inimitable visceral […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 9, 2017 MUNICH — Making a taut and impassioned case for Mahler’s Tenth Symphony (1910) here at the Herkulessaal Feb. 17, Yannick Nézet-Séguin still rather confirmed Leonard Bernstein’s dictum that the composer “had said it all in the Ninth.” Mahler’s inspiration sustained itself, as tidily executed by the Symphonie-Orchester des […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 7, 2017 MUNICH — Without citing an error, Bavarian State Opera claimed last month that the report here about its handicapping of online ticket buyers contains “false statements” but at the same time said it would “leave it as it is.” The report, based on research by people using two […]
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