Iréne Theorin as Brünnhilde with members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus in Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.” Photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera
Here’s the final installment of my coverage for Musical America of San Francisco Opera’s extraordinary Ring cycle.
SAN FRANCISCO—If Siegfried highlights Zambello’s ability to tease out vital, three-dimensional characters from a deceptively simple surface, Götterdämmerung shows her clarifying the most complex component of the entire cycle–an installment which introduces an entire generation of characters new to the Ring–with a gripping theatrical momentum. The night/day dichotomy of the Prologue aptly summed up the diametrical viewpoints of this staging…
The conductor Donald Runnicles concluded his tenure with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on the last day of the 2016 Edinburgh International Festival with a performance of Schoenberg’s epic Gurre-Lieder at Usher Hall.
The gargantuan forces needed bring to mind the festival atmosphere Mahler’s Eighth Symphony also evokes. Here’s a sampling of the reviews:
And so this concert summed up the kind of playing that he and this orchestra have developed together – a rich glow at the heart of the strings and a capacity to turn on a dime and power up almighty sounds.
Runnicles is particularly well known for his interpretations of the core Austro-German Romantic repertoire, so Gurrelieder plays to his strengths. Under his baton Schoenberg’s ripe score yields up its influences. There is Wagner in the love music, of course, but also Bruckner in the solemnity of the Wood-Dove, Beethoven in the nature-painting and, of course, Mahler in the scale and structure. That scale could be pretty overpowering at times, and not just in the final, overwhelming greeting to the sun that ends the work. The sweep and surge of the love music was intoxicating, as was the wall of brass and percussion that accompanied the chorus’ romping as the hellish riders. What was most striking, however, was the way Runnicles repeatedly brought out the delicacy of the orchestration.
[Schoenberg’s] mega-cantata Gurrelieder, was the vehicle chosen to whisk us off on such a glorious journey, driven by the massively-inflated forces of the BBC Scottish Synphony Orchestra, a male-dominated Edinburgh Festival Chorus, five soloists and speaker, all under the towering leadership of maestro Donald Runnicles, and formulated by a musical language gathering up the scraps of Wagner, colouring them with whole-tone harmonic treats from Debussy, sweeping up Mahler in its tracks before opening the gates to teasers of the world-changing Schoenberg-to-come.
Natasha Lyonne is an actor, writer and director with one of the most recognizable voices in the world. She stars in the new series Poker Face, so we ask her three questions about getting Botox.
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The Exilarte Center in Vienna is the world's leading research institution devoted to preserving the work of composers such as Walter Arlen and others, who were exiled or killed during the Holocaust.
HBO's new show, which draws from a video game of the same name, is replete with apocalyptic landscapes and zombies. But what makes the series truly groundbreaking is the emotion that runs throughout.
Phillips, who died in 2003, discovered Elvis and produced his first records, and was one of the leading catalysts in post-WWII American music. Originally broadcast in 1997.
The United Ukrainian Ballet Company is made up of dancers taking refuge in the Netherlands. The company travels to Washington, D.C., to perform Giselle, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky.
The Sundance Film Festival returned in-person to Park City, Utah, this year, and with more submissions than ever. NPR's Aisha Harris screened nearly 20 films — these are her favorites.
The composer has been lauded for decades over his deeply affective music; director Alejandro González Iñárritu, composer Hildur Guðnadóttir and more join us to explain why.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 