Latest

November 21, 2021 Obituary: Michael Miller, Writer, Editor of New York Arts and Hudson-Housatonic Arts, Dies at 73
November 8, 2021 A Crop of Recordings XXXVII: Schmitt/Honegger, Furtwangler, Sibelius, Ondine
October 20, 2021 Glimmerglass 2022: Francesca Zambello’s Final Season Ends Twelve-Year Tenure
August 22, 2021 A Crop of Recordings XXXVI: Mozart/Muti, Gershwin/Rodziński, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky/Vasily Petrenko, Brahms/Iván Fischer, Handel/Haselböck
August 4, 2021 Commentary: What We Do

Otakar Ostrčil

HHA

A Scene from a 1935 Production of Honzovo království, with Zdeněk Otava, Vladimír Tomš, Bronislav Chorovič.

The Devil, Greed, War, and Simple Goodness: Ostrčil’s Jack’s Kingdom (1934)

August 25, 2018Ralph P. Locke

Here is a little-known opera that, like an opera by the Swedish composer Laci Boldemann that I have reviewed here, and like Ravel’s amazing L’enfant et les sortilèges, utterly bypasses the usual categories of comic and grand/tragic by cultivating instead the rich realm of fantasy and folk tale.

Opera

Paesiello’s La grotta di Trofonio, from 2016 Valle d’Itria Festival

A Flood of Unfamiliar Operas by Rossini, Saint-Saëns, and Others, Now on CD

March 1, 2018Ralph P. Locke

Over the past year or so (2017), an unusually large number of fascinating and rarely performed operas were made available, mostly for the first time ever, on CD. NewYorkArts/Berkshire Review for the Arts has asked me to share some of my delighted discoveries from this flood of new arrivals, as well as—in separate articles—my (rather lengthy and detailed!) reviews of two contrasting operas that seem to me particularly worthy of discovery:

Michael James Miller, writer and arts critic, died aged 73 on November 14th, 2021, after a long illness with cancer. He was at home in North Adams, MA, his partner Joanna Gabler and youngest son, Lucas, beside him. His last word was “Peace.”

Michael was born on January 10th, 1948, in Miami, FL, the son of Max “Ike” Miller, a restauranteur and later a successful commodities trader. His mother was Helen (née Briggs), a homemaker and devoted parent to him and his elder sister, Anne.

A Crop of Recordings XXXVII: Schmitt/Honegger, Furtwangler, Sibelius, Ondine

Here is one of the strangest living bits of ceremonial history you will ever encounter, along with some fine, nearly forgotten music ever since. The year 1937 witnessed Paris’s International Exposition, the last continental world’s fair to take place before the Second World War, and something of a nervous set piece for political tensions of the day.

Bella Merlin, co-author of When Action Is Eloquence, talks with Michael Miller about Shakespeare and Company

In her interview about the book she has co-authored with Tina Packer, When Action is Eloquence, the distinguished actor and teacher Bella Merlin reflects on how she came into contact with Shakespeare & Company and her three year progression through the completion of a manuscript based on her own deep knowledge of acting and her participation in the Company’s month-long intensive course.

The Belcea Quartet plays Szymanowski and Schubert – Capital Region Classical

It may be unnecessary to claim that the Belcea Quartet is one of the most esteemed string ensembles performing today. However, being based abroad, and having been founded over twenty-seven years ago by Romanian violinist Corina Belcea and Polish violist Krzysztof Chorzelski, their artistic uniqueness and stature has eluded wide recognition in the U.S.

Brahms in Good Hands

Traditionally, the BSO’s Tanglewood season concludes with a performance Beethoven’s Ninth, an overplayed sound-track triggering optimistic images of brotherhood and the profound goodness of the human heart. The mere fact that this became a ritual has drained it of musical significance—which has been replaced by its function as an ambiguous signifier; it has been pulled out to celebrate great occasions, cultural and political movements of all stripes, including by the Nazis.

Disparities, Intended or Otherwise: House-Blend III at PS 21, Chatham

Ligeti’s Trio for horn, violin, and piano is subtitled “Hommage à Brahms” since it was commissioned, in 1982, as a companion piece to Brahms’ trio for the same instruments. This is a rare instrumental combination owing to radical disparities in color, volume, and methods of tone production that challenge the composer to balance and blend their sounds. It was probably this quality that acted as one of the inspirations for this piece, which marked a turning point in the career of this composer. Ligeti does not consciously emulate Brahms in this work; if anyone, it is Beethoven who serves as a distant presence.

A Crop of Recordings XXXVI: Mozart/Muti, Gershwin/Rodziński, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky/Vasily Petrenko, Brahms/Iván Fischer, Handel/Haselböck

Welcome to the world of unselfconscious Mozart as it once was. When this LP first arrived in record bins in 1977, there was nothing stylistically unusual about romantically phrased performances of the composer’s music, delivered by large orchestras with substantial masses of strings. Herbert von Karajan, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm, George Szell, all recorded “big” Mozart. Towards the end of the decade Josef Krips would turn out some nicely crisp late symphonies with the Concertgebouw for Phillips, a bit reduced in scale, but we were still a long way from the aggressive small dog Mozart which bites at our ankles today and answers to the word “Authenticity.”

Latest

November 21, 2021 Obituary: Michael Miller, Writer, Editor of New York Arts and Hudson-Housatonic Arts, Dies at 73

November 8, 2021 A Crop of Recordings XXXVII: Schmitt/Honegger, Furtwangler, Sibelius, Ondine

October 20, 2021 Glimmerglass 2022: Francesca Zambello’s Final Season Ends Twelve-Year Tenure

August 22, 2021 A Crop of Recordings XXXVI: Mozart/Muti, Gershwin/Rodziński, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky/Vasily Petrenko, Brahms/Iván Fischer, Handel/Haselböck

August 4, 2021 Commentary: What We Do

Otakar Ostrčil