In the ongoing skirmishing between the Metropolitan Opera and its employee unions over labor costs, the company has “pulled back the curtain” to detail costs of staging its $4.3 million production of Borodin’s “Prince Igor.” The Wall Street Journal’s Jennifer Maloney crunches some numbers:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-metropolitan-opera-opens-its-budget-curtain-1401416711
(via www.artsjournal.com)
Linz, Austria, which Adolf Hitler claimed as his hometown (his birthplace was Braunau am Inn, a town on the Austrian-Bavarian border), celebrates music that Hitler’s Nazis banned as “degenerate:”
http://slippedisc.com/2014/05/hitlers-birthplace-plans-week-of-decadent-dancing/
(via Norman Lebrecht)
Erin R. Freeman, outgoing associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony, has been appointed to a new joint position as director of choral activities at 
Virginia Commonwealth University and director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus. She has led the chorus since 2007.
The new post is being “piloted” as a one-year,
non-tenure faculty appointment at VCU for the 2014-15 academic year.
Freeman’s future with the Symphony Chorus had been uncertain since her appointment last July as director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus.
Taking the new Richmond post means that she “will be continuing her exceptionally fine work with the [Symphony] Chorus, as well as becoming a leader in this heightened collaboration with VCU,” Steven Smith, the symphony’s music director, said in a prepared statement.
“We are delighted that Dr. Freeman will be lending her formidable talents to the VCU community, and we are excited about the potential of this new collaboration” with the symphony, said Daryl V. Harper, chair of the VCU Music Department.
In addition to new responsibilities at VCU, Freeman faces a busy 2014-15 season of performances. The Richmond Symphony Chorus will sing in Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony (No. 2), Handel’s “Messiah,” Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms,” the “Let It Snow!” holiday pops program and a Duke Ellington program with church and community choirs. The Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus schedule includes Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells,” Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative concert and several Christmas and pops engagements.
A native of Atlanta, Freeman sang in the Atlanta Symphony Chorus under Robert Shaw’s direction, and later became a member of his chamber chorus, the Robert Shaw Singers. She came to Richmond in 2004 to conduct the Richmond Philharmonic. She was hired as the Richmond Symphony’s assistant conductor in 2006, and subsequently was promoted to associate conductor. She also led the American University Symphony Orchestra in Washington, and has guest-conducted a number of ensembles.
Freeman has degrees from Northwestern University and Boston University and a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University.
May 29
noon-4 p.m. EDT
1600-2000 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org
Glinka: “Jota aragonesa”
BBC Philharmonic/Vassily Sinaisky (Chandos)
Albéniz: “Iberia” – “El Corpus in Sevilla,”
“Málaga,” 
“Eritaña”
Marc-André Hamelin, piano (Hyperion)
Ginastera: “Variaciones concertantes”
Richmond Sinfonia/George Manahan (Elan)
Haydn: Symphony No. 86 in D major
Orchestra of the 18th Century/Frans Brüggen (Philips)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano & director
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (EMI Classics)
Beethoven: “Eroica Variations,” Op. 35
Ronald Brautigam, fortepiano (Bis)
Ravel: “Valses nobles et sentimentales”
Alexandre Tharaud, piano (Harmonia Mundi France)
Schubert: Fantasy in C major, D. 934
Jennifer Koh, violin; Reiko Uchida, piano (Cedille)
Stravinsky: “Suite Italienne”
Leonidas Kavakos, violin; Péter Nagy, piano 
(ECM)
Past Masters:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
in D major
Leonid Kogan, violin
Paris Conservatoire Orchestra/Constantin Silvestri (EMI Classics)
(recorded 1959)
Rachmaninoff: “Étude-tableau” in E flat minor,
Op. 39, No. 5
Yuja Wang, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)
The Dallas Morning News’ Scott Cantrell writes that young American conductors, while technically adept and attractive to audiences, too often lack a sense of phrasing, fail to understand tension and release, and otherwise don’t let music breathe:
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/columnists/scott-cantrell/20140510-conductor-or-automaton-the-machining-of-american-orchestra-conductors.ece
Cantrell suggests that conducting students receive more grounding in song and dance, approximating the old European practice of putting young conductors through apprenticeships in opera and ballet.
I would add more teaching of history, and not just for young conductors. In my experience, most musicians are clueless about the societies and social currents that informed the music they play.
If you don’t know about a society’s manners and mores, aspirations and priorities, patterns of speech, pace of life, you’ll be at a great disadvantage when trying to grasp the style and subtleties of its music.
Take something as basic as tempo: Brahms, Tchaikovsky and other late-romantics frequently used the tempo indication allegro ma non troppo – fast, but not too fast. Their understanding of that pace almost certainly would differ from the way an early 21st-century composer would perceive it.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, an ordeal that radically transformed politics, society and culture in Europe and elsewhere. From our perspective, the world before that war might as well be a different planet. Classical musicians constantly take listeners to that place, but have no idea about what it was like to inhabit it. That shows in their performances.
May 22
noon-4 p.m. EDT
1600-2000 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org
Mason Bates: “Mothership”
Alex Burgoyne, saxophone; David Gonzalez Jr., trombone; Kelsey Patterson, flute;
Caleb Miller, 
piano
Ohio University Wind Symphony/Andrew Trachsel (John Mark Records)
Rameau: Suite from
“Les Boréades”
Orchestra of the 18th Century/Frans Brüggen (Philips)
Anna Clyne: “Prince of Clouds”
Jennifer Koh & Jaime Laredo, violins
Curtis 20/21 Ensemble/Vinay Parameswaran (Cedille)
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 16 in D major, K. 451
Robert Levin, fortepiano
Academy of Ancient Music/Christopher Hogwood (L’Oiseau Lyre)
C.P.E. Bach: Cello Concerto in A minor, Wq 170
Peter Bruns, cello
Akademie für alte Musik, Berlin/Stephan Mai (Harmonia Mundi France)
Stravinsky: Concertino
Boston Symphony Chamber Players (Eloquence)
Johann David Heinichen: Concerto in F major, S. 235
Musica Antiqua Köln/Reinhard Goebel (DG Archiv)
Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/Vasily Petrenko (Avie)
Past Masters:
Dukas: Villanelle
Dennis Brain, French horn; Wilfrid Parry, piano (BBC Music)
(recorded 1957)
J.S. Bach: “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047
Maurice André, trumpet; Janos Rolla, violin & director; Maxence Larrieu, flute;
Bernard Schenkel, oboe
Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (EMI Classics)
Brahms: Serenade in D major, Op. 11
(reconstruction of original version)
Czech Nonet (Praga)
Good news on the troubled-arts-troupe front: The San Diego Opera, whose board decided in March to shut down the company, has been revived after a “crowd-funding” campaign raised $1.6 million and activated a $500,000 matching grant. It will stage three productions next season, The New York Times’ Michael Cooper reports:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/arts/music/san-diego-opera-raises-money-to-remain-open.html?ref=music&_r=0
A less grand, more streamlined opera company is not such a bad idea, opines The Washington Post’s Anne Midgette:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2014/05/19/opera-today-san-diego-rides-again-the-fat-lady-wont-go-away/
