Musical America Blogs

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 25, 2015 MUNICH — Although it brings together skilled players, the Münchner Symphoniker has operated as something of a fifth wheel in the musical scene here. That may be about to change. Kevin John Edusei, the orchestra’s new Bielefeld-born chief conductor, 38, revealed impressive capacities as musician and personality in […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 4, 2015 BAMBERG — When the Bamberger Symphoniker replaces its Chefdirigent next year, it could do worse than hiring Constantinos Carydis. The intense but discreet Athenian secured creative and technically superb playing in a Nordic and Impressionist program Nov. 29 here at the Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, confirming skills he has shown in […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 31, 2014 MUNICH — Lëtzebuerg Stad, a.k.a. Luxembourg-Ville, population 100,000, holds a spiffier position these days in the musical firmament. Its orchestra has graduated from the legendary but somewhat seedy aegis of Radio Luxembourg — once a commercial thorn in the national broadcasting sides of France and Britain — and […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 13, 2014 MUNICH — Passive accompanist and intent visionary: Gianandrea Noseda managed to be both Nov. 18 in his debut program with the busy Bavarian State Orchestra. For Dvořák’s Violin Concerto (1879) he indulged David Schultheiß in a lyrical reading that generally took its time, ignoring chances in the outer […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 11, 2014 MUNICH — Puccini lost even before the curtain went up Nov. 15 on Hans Neuenfels’ conceptual new staging of Manon Lescaut for Bavarian State Opera. Anna Netrebko, its titular star, abandoned the project in quiet disgust, understandably it turned out. Disaster did not follow, but the night and […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 30, 2014 MUNICH — Along with the whole U.S., this city was on Krystian Zimerman’s “avoid” list. His Bavaria visits would take in Augsburg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, any place but the capital, following a harsh review of a performance he gave a dozen or more years ago. Somehow Munich’s musical life […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: October 31, 2014 SALZBURG — Alexander Pereira is now gone from the main festival here, and two tenuous summers are in the offing before Markus Hinterhäuser replaces him as Intendant in 2017. His exit, under a cloud, ends a budget tempest but threatens reversals of worthy initiatives he took: lengthening the […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: September 29, 2014 ERL — Nothing tests funding for the musical arts like Der Ring des Nibelungen. Then again, nothing cements a support base so decisively. Take this Austrian village of 1,452 souls and several hundred brown cows, where the eighth Ring cycle in sixteen years turned smoothly Aug. 1, 2 […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 29, 2014 MUNICH — Staged works and the legendary Lied evenings hold the limelight here at the annual Opernfestspiele, begun 139 years ago. But veins of chamber music and, since 2008, choral programming run through the five-week schedule, lending scope and affirming organizer Bayerische Staatsoper’s depth of musicianship. The chamber […]

By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 7, 2014 MUNICH — It was standing room only for Die Flut yesterday (July 6). Not only was Boris Blacher’s 1946 radio opera sold out, but the audience was expected to stand or stroll through it, as directed by Aernout Mik at a former riding hall here. Improbably part of […]