Brian Dickie

I must be nuts (again!)

There is a new website supporting classical music in Chicago which I have agreed to supply with a weekly column.  So you may find extra goodies there each Monday!

seems ages.........

I have been non stop these last two days and now in the comparative calm of Sunday evening can record the varied happenings since Friday, which seems so long ago.

That performance of Onegin on Friday evening at Northwestern's rather gloomy Cahn Auditorium was somewhat dampened by the desire of the school to give opportunities to everyone and therefore have two casts which inevitably reduces the rehearsal time as well as diluting the talent pool - but there were some stellar performances, notably from the remarkable Amanda Majewski from whom we will be hearing much more.  She joins the Opera Theater of St Louis program this Spring - that will be terrific for her and for them.

I found it remarkable that the conductor, Victor Yampolsky, was conducting his very first opera! I rather prefer to see students have the opportunity of working with more seasoned people although Yampolsky is of course a highly regarded conductor of wide experience in the orchestral repertoire.  But opera has some tricks of its own to be learnt from experience, and experience alone!

Sarturday morning at Buntrock Hall in Symphony Center, was the long awaited second of five BBC Reith Lectures given by Daniel Barenboim and to be broadcast on Radio 4 in England in April - and presumably also on the Internet.  They should be worth listening too.  But I can imagine that he might have been frustrated by the process here.  The "moderator" - a celebrated English radio and tv journalist Sue Lawley, presenter of the long running program Desert Island Discs, can not perhaps be expected to have the measure of a man with the sensibility of Barenboim.  I fear that this could turn out to be yet another dumbing down exercise and that the enormously important message of Barenboim will eventually be lost in a bland presentation to a largely uncomprehending radio audience.  Oh dear - this is somewhat depressing.  I do hope that I am wrong.

The audience was distinguished.  Alfred Brendel was there - as always making his presence felt.  So was Lawrence Foster, a conductor of immense distinction not enough recognised in his home country.  And many many others - much though not all the best of Chicago's musical life.  But also some educators and academics who appeared to have lost the plot completely.  Interesting!

Our last performance of our Double Bill was yesterday evening.  We will miss it and all those involved.  Raymond Leppard has gone home to Indianapolis - I hope he will be back.  We are planning something!  And the casts have dispersed, many due to return to us is due course.  This is a happy company.  We have managed to build a good spirit.

We had a splendid audience last evening including an eminent English retired General. In 1965, this young officer, destined to become Britain's most senior soldier, based at the Wellington Barracks in London served as a member of the firing squad on Stage with Maria Callas (seen here is this production with Tito Gobbi) in act 3 of Tosca at the Royal Opera  House in the celebrated Zefirelli production when it was new in 1965.  He has been an enthusiastic opera goer ever since not least when he was based in Berlin and had special opportunities no doubt to see opera on both sides of the wall.  In his present life as a banker he misses no opportunity to attend opera wherever he may be.  I am glad to report that he greatly enjoyed both Padlock and Dido.

This morning I took my friends Errol and Susan Girdlestone to the airport to return home to Nice.  Errol has dome a magnificent job with our ensemble of young singers - shaping a group of talented individuals into a cohesive group performing Purcell's wonderful music with great distinction.

The rest of our music staff remains with us - notably of course Stephen Hargreaves who has become a fine assistant conductor and an increasingly authoratative accompanist of great help to our young singers in their recital programs.  Anne Breedon is our new entrant, Cameron Stowe returns to us in April and we have a new member in Peter Nelson, an American long resident in Germany.  Observant blog readers will remember that he was part of our Neue Stimmen team in Munich last Summer.

So we now have a short break before we start rehearsals again.  But there is much to be done.  We announce our 2007 season in March - watch this space for exciting news.  And we have masses of cash to raise and tickets to sell.  So we never let up.

Theater Thursday

We had a remarkable crowd of newcomers to COT at the performance yesterday evening.  The League of Chicago Theaters runs a program called Theater Thursdays.  Check it out here. This was new to me and to us - an innovation from our dynamic Colleen Flanigan who has brought so many good new tricks to the Marketing effort.  It may not be a coincidence that the audience last night was much more noisy (in a good way) and involved than normal - the result was a rollicking performance of the Padlock and a thrillingly intense Dido.  So more Theater Thursdays and more young newcomers to Opera please! 

This morning our young singers are auditioning for Nicholas Kraemer, (left) Principal Guest Conductor of Music of the Baroque, here for their performances of the St. John Passion over the coming days.  It will be good to see Nicholas - a colleague from years back at Glyndebourne.  I have missed him on his most recent visits to Chicago.  This will be remedied today. 

I will be at Northwestern this evening for a performance of Eugene Onegin.  I look forward to seeing some of those remarkable singers who auditioned to me in November.  Onegin is a perfect opera for the young - the story is right and Tschaikovsky wrote it for the students of the Moscow Conservatory.  This does not mean it is easy - far from it.  But the vocal and musical challenges are well within the capabilities of really talented young singers.  And that is what we will find in Evanston this evening.

Speaking of talented young singers I was horrified to read this in the NY Times this morning.  What CAN they be thinking of?  I assume that things will change.

Jesse and Katie

A really beautiful recital by our two young stars at lunchtime.  Those of you who were not there missed a good one.  Jesse is a really classy young baritone for whom I predict a distinguished future - gorgeous sound, winning personality and a wonderful balance of intellect and sensibility.  Katie has grown immeasurably in the last couple of years since she joined us from Northwestern.  Outstanding vocally she has a quick wit and grabs each song by the scruff the neck and delivers it at high octane.

Both these young people on on their way!

Its all go

Yesterday was choc-a-bloc.  All morning we had auditions at Roosevelt University's beautiful Ganz Hall (seen here) for the CCPA/COT Performers Diploma program for the next academic year.  Things are looking up - there was an extremely high standard, both from the CCPA Masters candidates for the program as well as strong applicants from other schools.  We have just six vacancies for next year and it was easy to fill them and difficult to have to turn down some excellent candidates.  This is a turnaround from a year ago when we only just managed to get in enough candidates sufficiently qualified.  That means talented enough to be engaged as young artists by COT.  I am in the unusual position of having an absolute veto - so the CCPA is not in the business of filling up the numbers regardless.  This is a good thing!

We started at 9 am and finished at 1.30.  9 is too early for auditioning - both for singers and listeners.  But as it turned out one of the early ones was one of the best.........

The Dress rehearsal of Lyric's Orfeo ed Euridice was at 2pm.  They are doing the Vienna version (the first) of 1762 - first performed in the Burgtheater, not a large house at all.  This is the dance free version and very short it is - performed without intermission just 85 minutes long.  David Daniels is the stunning Orfeo and the lovely Canadian soprano, Isabel Bayrakdarian, is Euridice - the finest thing I have seen from her.

There will no doubt be some discussion about the choice of a small theater version of this piece for the extremely large Civic Opera House rather than the more spectacular, longer and dance rich, Paris version of 1774. But if you have the remarkable David Daniels there is no possibility of doing Paris - for an alternative to Vienna you have to opt for a composite (until recently a standard solution but no longer considered "respectable" musicologically!)

We shall see how Robert Carsen's splendid production is received.  Designed by Tobias Hoheisel and conducted by Harry Bicket this is work of the highest integrity, as one would expect from these three considerable artists.

The end of the afternoon was taken up with the last of Susanne Mentzer's immensely successful masterclasses. 

Masterclasses

This week Susanne Mentzer is conducting Master Classes with the company's young singers.  She is a considerable inspiration and has been working with us with great success over the last couple of seasons.  But her magnificent performanace of Dido, in which all these young artists are appearing of course, adds another dimension.  Here she is with Jesse Blumberg who, together with Katie Calcamuggio (see Monday's post) will be giving a lunchtime recital at Preston Bradley Hall at the Cultural Center tomorrow at 12.15.  Don't miss it!

Great evening yesterday at the splendid Palace Theater where Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is here for a stint.  A brilliant show - classic!

Today - auditions all morning for next year's Diploma program at the CCPA.  And then to the Orfeo dress rehearsal at Lyric.

Another nice review

This time in the widely read and syndicated Pioneer Press.  Brilliant work by our Director of Press and Marketing, Colleen Flanigan!

just another two days.....

It was an action packed weekend - I went to the evening at the Fairmont on Saturday, our third performance was yesterday afternoon.  Katie Calcamuggio provided the star turn on Saturday evening - a perfectly out of tune performance of the Michael Flanders and Donald Swann A word on my ear -  hilarious, and a great vehicle for Katie's well known comic skills - not to mention her vocal ones.  Flanders and Swann were very much part of my teenage years in England so this was a nostalgic moment!

Another excellent performance of the Double Bill yesterday - and a pretty full house full of warm enthusiasm.  Amongst them was the marvellous Swedish soprano, Camilla Tilling who took the afternoon off from her performances of Sophie in Lyric's Rosenkavalier, to come with her husband to see their friend Jesper Taube at COT.  The Swedish singer thing is remarkable - the extraordinary number of fine singers from this small country (population-wise) never ceases to amaze.  I have had the good fortune to have encountered the finest of the last 45 years - mainly at Glyndebourne of course where Elisabeth Soderstrom, Kersten Meyer, Hakon Hagegard, Ingvar Wixell, the late beloved Gosta Winbergh, and many many others were part of the "family".  And its so great that this phenom continues.  Our Fiordiligi and Dorabella from the 2002 Cosi, Ingela Bohlin and Tove Dahlberg, have burgeoning careers of major proportion - Miah Persson, who was with us, as was Jesper Taube, in Baden-Baden in 1998, is a new international star, and the irresistible Camilla Tilling adds further lustre to the new generation.

its Friday again....

.....but this heralds a busy weekend rather than one of rest.  We have performances of the Double Bill this evening and on Sunday afternoon, and tomorrow evening the "Winter Delights" event at the Fairmont features COT young artists in more light hearted mode.  If you are in Chicago already it is not too late to get tickets - look here.  And opera is popping all over Chicago as is usual in February.  Read this for more information!

A great review in the Sun-Times this morning.

I had an enjoyable lunch yesterday with Tim Albery, a self confessed "late developer" who at the age of 50+ is one of the hottest "young" directors around.  He was here for meetings with his design team, Tobias Hoheisel and Jennifer Tipton for their new production of The Magic Flute at Santa Fe , a highlight of the 2006 season.  This was, incredibly, his first visit to Chicago and it was a horrible cool and wet one.  He was not prepared for London weather......

Sadly he could not make it to our opening night but I showed him the Harris just in case!

On the other hand Robert Carsen and Harry Bicket, director and conductor of Lyric's new Orfeo ed Euridice which opens next week, did make it to see us on Wedenesday evening.  And loved it - as two old Glyndebourne hands they are particularly discriminating!

As a postscript to the jollifications after the show on Wednesday one of our cast members has kindly forwarded this picture which gives the flavor!  I will not identify them but we and they know who they are!

First night

We had a super first performance, a noisy enthusiastic audience and Susanne Mentzer naturally walked away with the honors - but she wouldn't have done it without H Purcell and the other terrific members of the cast around her! Partying late and somewhat later into the office this morning.   

I thought that The Padlock came off really well and although there is some sniffy initial critical reaction I believe that time will show this to be a great combo.  Anyway the audience was approving and of course, with a comedy, they have a role to play.  The Dress rehearsal had been somewhat muted - but that turned around last night.

Maybe winter is coming to Chicago at last after the absurdly mild first 45 days of the year.  Its nasty and wet out there, dark too.  And temperatures are plummetting for the weekend. Keep warm everyone - particularly you singers!