"Nixon in China" has always been one of my favorite contemporary operas. Twice, at the Colorado Music Festival, I've seen concert performances of it, back when the CMF was a bit more adventuresome. I've had the original cast performance on CD, with James Madallena as Nixon and Carolann Page as as his wife Pat.
Opera Colorado decided more than a year ago to present it in Denver in 2008 and I looked forward to the performance. As I often do, I listened to the CD several times to "practice" before the performance. I had read about the original Houston Grand Opera staging with a 747 on stage, but I knew from reading the local reviews that this was different. Different is okay.
What surprised me the most was how the sequences played out, always different from the way I imagined it. For example, in Act 2 there is a storm, whose musical content always reminds me of Wagner and "Siegfried". For unknown reasons, I've always imagined that Pat, who interrupts this wonderful orchestral music to sing "Thank God you came.....". is alone in her room waiting for Nixon to return. It sounds that way, to me. Wrong!!! It all transpires, as per Opera Colorado's performance, as part of the long second act dance scene where Kissinger sings "whip her to death!". I was way off, clearly.
The last act also surprised me. I guess I was so enamored of the earlier parts that I forgot the slow diminuendo that ends the opera as all the characters think to themselves their own relevance. While long, it is beautiful.
Robert Orth sang Nixon, Maria Kanyova was Pat, Chen-Ye Yuan sang the role of Chou En-lai and Marc Heller was Mao. The highlight to me though was Tracy Dahl belting out "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung". Great fun!!
Once again, a real performance with the words visible in the super-title box changed my impression and acceptance of an opera. Normally I have the words turned off so I can focus on the music and singing. I guess that's a mistake. Kudos to Opera Colorado.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Broadcasting Beethoven Piano Sonatas
Several months back I was curious about the frequency of broadcasts of Beethoven's string quartets. I chose 3 of the larger classical music radio stations: New York's WQXR, Seattle's KING and Denver's KVOD, the one I listen to frequently. I also chose these three since I calculated daily their symphony broadcasts as part of my classicalfmradio.org statistics.
Like the Beethoven symphonies, the string quartets were broadcast in a similar pattern -- long quartets broadcast less frequently than short ones. I expected similar results for Beethoven sonatas but I was somewhat surprised. Here is the table of the sonatas, their durations and the frequency of broadcasts by the 3 stations:
I'm not sure what this tells me: a few surprises like KVOD never broadcasting his Sonata #3 in over 5 years and WQXR not broadcasting #24. Come on, even on a bad day, Beethoven was way better than most. It appears that nicknamed sonatas are broadcast more than ones without, but I guess that's not surprising. The real long one, "Hammerklavier" does get played some and you can plan on hearing one of his piano sonatas about every other day or so. Not bad, I guess.
Like the Beethoven symphonies, the string quartets were broadcast in a similar pattern -- long quartets broadcast less frequently than short ones. I expected similar results for Beethoven sonatas but I was somewhat surprised. Here is the table of the sonatas, their durations and the frequency of broadcasts by the 3 stations:
Beethoven Piano Sonata DURATION KVOD KING WQXR |
=================================================================================|
#01 in F minor, Op 2 No 1 17:10 2 11 13 |
#02 in A Major, Op 2 No 2 22:33 14 15 9 |
#03 in C Major, Op 2 No 3 25:17 0 11 12 |
#04 in Eb Major, Op 7 28:36 7 11 9 |
#05 in C minor, Op 10 No 1 18:54 10 15 10 |
#06 in F Major, Op 10 No 2 14:01 28 13 27 |
#07 in D Major, Op 10 No 3 25:20 5 12 9 |
#08 in C minor Op 13, 'Pathetique' 18:28 70 47 25 |
#09 in E Major, Op 14 No 1 14:13 41 13 25 |
#10 in G Major, Op 14 No 2 17:00 19 16 24 |
#11 in B Major Op 22 22:46 16 20 9 |
#12 in A Flat Major, Op 26 11:43 11 4 14 |
#13 in E Flat Major, Op 27 No 1 15:46 17 12 17 |
#14 in C# minor, Op 27 No 2 'Moonlight' 16:21 88 57 39 |
#15 in D Major, Op 28 'Pastoral' 24:52 54 16 33 |
#16 in G Major, Op 31 No 1 22:56 8 14 9 |
#17 in D minor, Op 31 No 2 'Tempest' 22:01 33 27 24 |
#18 in G Major, Op 31 No 3 22:19 11 29 10 |
#19 in G minor, Op 49 No 1 8:11 17 2 24 |
#20 in G Major, Op 49 No 2 8:14 51 8 25 |
#21 in C Major, Op 53 'Waldstein' 22:12 53 40 20 |
#22 in F Major, Op 54 11:29 27 9 21 |
#23 in F minor Op 57 'Appassionata' 21:47 68 44 26 |
#24 in F# Major, Op 78 'Fur Theresa' 8:23 23 8 0 |
#25 in G Major, Op 79 10:07 22 10 25 |
#26 in E Flat, Op 81a 'Les Adieux' 16:37 49 35 29 |
#27 in E minor, Op 90 12:34 17 18 21 |
#28 in A Major, Op 101 20:41 22 17 17 |
#29 in F Flat Major, Op 106 'HammerKlavier' 42:52 20 25 7 |
#30 in E Major, Op 109 23:49 29 20 14 |
#31 in A Flat Major, Op 110 23:13 30 25 21 |
#32 in C minor, Op 111 29:05 14 22 10 |
=================================================================================|
Average Length of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas 19:22 |
=================================================================================|
Total Performances of all Beethoven Piano Sonatas 876 626 569 |
Average Performances for all 32 Sonatas 27.4 19.6 17.8 |
=================================================================================|
Number of Broadcast Days by the Stations in Study 1980 1698 1698 |
Average Performances per day .44 .36 .34 |
=================================================================================|
I'm not sure what this tells me: a few surprises like KVOD never broadcasting his Sonata #3 in over 5 years and WQXR not broadcasting #24. Come on, even on a bad day, Beethoven was way better than most. It appears that nicknamed sonatas are broadcast more than ones without, but I guess that's not surprising. The real long one, "Hammerklavier" does get played some and you can plan on hearing one of his piano sonatas about every other day or so. Not bad, I guess.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Golijov's Oceana
Osvaldo Golijov's Oceana was performed the other night by the Pro Musical Colorado Chamber Orchestra and the Ars Nova Singers. Last summer I got turned onto Golijov, though somewhat grudgingly, by a performance by the Colorado Music Festival of his Ainadamar, which I commented on earlier. Golijov is "hot" and has several recordings of which I have a few. I've been meaning to track down his St, Mark Passion, but it's a pricey album, with only so-so reviews.
The FM stations don't seem to like him, even though he's getting big billing nationally. Only WQXR in New York and KING in Seattle have broadcast anything by him thus far this year. KVOD, my local station, continues to pretty much ignore him, though they have played some of his songs from Ayre and broadcast his Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind once in 2007. KVOD, Denver, Cow town -- I'll say no more.
Back to the performance. I have the CD and knew what to expect, but the audience didn't. While they responded admirably, I sensed a certain unease with the piece. It is sung in Spanish from poems by Neruda with a diverse orchestra and extra percussion. It was hard to grasp and follow, though I wonder if a Spanish speaker would have had a different reaction. I had earlier told my dinner hosts that I only really like the last part "Chorale of the Reef" and the performance confirmed my opinion. But let's give a big three cheers to this new orchestra and the Ars Nova for giving us something new and different. It's just too bad that you can only get music like this live and not on public radio.
One negative comment: why is it that a somewhat inconsequential performer sitting up front, the fellow playing the "Talking Drum", which seemed mute from where I was sitting, wore a white shirt while everyone else was in a tux or black dress? Didn't get the message, I guess.
The FM stations don't seem to like him, even though he's getting big billing nationally. Only WQXR in New York and KING in Seattle have broadcast anything by him thus far this year. KVOD, my local station, continues to pretty much ignore him, though they have played some of his songs from Ayre and broadcast his Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind once in 2007. KVOD, Denver, Cow town -- I'll say no more.
Back to the performance. I have the CD and knew what to expect, but the audience didn't. While they responded admirably, I sensed a certain unease with the piece. It is sung in Spanish from poems by Neruda with a diverse orchestra and extra percussion. It was hard to grasp and follow, though I wonder if a Spanish speaker would have had a different reaction. I had earlier told my dinner hosts that I only really like the last part "Chorale of the Reef" and the performance confirmed my opinion. But let's give a big three cheers to this new orchestra and the Ars Nova for giving us something new and different. It's just too bad that you can only get music like this live and not on public radio.
One negative comment: why is it that a somewhat inconsequential performer sitting up front, the fellow playing the "Talking Drum", which seemed mute from where I was sitting, wore a white shirt while everyone else was in a tux or black dress? Didn't get the message, I guess.
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