Brian Dickie

Leap Year Day!

Yes, it is Rossini's birthday!  And how excellent that this fact is recognized with a Google Doodle.  Well maybe these silicon folks are really good after all........

I am hopping off to London this evening from where there will be much to report, including the Death of Klinghoffer at ENO on Monday.  Just in case you are wondering, I will not be at Rusalka at the Royal Opera House.

MOB evening

There was a delightful short evening of first class music making at the Harris Theater yesterday - courtesy of Music of the Baroque and Nicholas Kraemer.  We went on a musical journey through Baroque Europe starting and ending in Italy (Corelli and Vivaldi) passing through Germany (Telemann) France (Rameau) and England (Purcell)

The excellent strings of the MOB orchestra had multiple opportunities, including the grand finale, a concerto for four violins from Vivaldi's L'estro armonico.

It is over - but all is not lost.  You can tune in to hear it on WFMT on April 13.  

There is more lovely stuff coming up from Music of the Baroque in the coming months. Jane Glover returns for Handel on March 25 and 26;  and on April 23, St George's Day, Shakespeare's birthday, and another thing of importance, as you discover when you get there - Jane is back in town for the B minor mass. And May 20 and 23 will bring her back again for the season finale.

These are all surely "must be theres".

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Sunday special

Gerard McBurney's Beyond the Score series is an endless souce of pleasure - and he has taken another leap forward now with his remarkable dramatic essay on Pierrot Lunaire which we saw yesterday afternoon at Symphony Center.  With a smaller than usual number of performers on stage - just 5 players including piano, plus a singer and four actors - space was freed up to do a much more "theatrical" show. Furthermore greater opportunites were afforded to the marvellous video and lighting designers, Hillary Leben and Peter Mumford.

As ever it was brilliantly written and directed by Gerard McBurney - this is one of the jewels in the crown of the CSO.  The only thing missing was the apprearance of Gerard himself.  But I guess he was glad to watch from a decent distance as his players enacted the drama, and taught us all a thing or two about the history and evolution of music from the second Viennese school.

Next up will be Beethoven's Fifth in June.  If you go along to that I am sure you will once again discover much that you did not know.........

 

Portrait of Arnold Schoenberg 1917 - Egon Schiele

Britten the song writer

Benjamin Britten was a very great opera composer; but he was a remarkable song writer as well.  And of course he was a fabulous accompanist as exemplified by some remarkable Schubert recordings he made with Peter Pears.

Nicholas Phan gave us great pleasure yesterday evening in both Schubert and Britten.  He is a very gifted Lieder singer - not a very commercial proposition these days alas - but he has developed a most interesting career exploring a wide repertory extremely intelligently.  He will be back in Chicago in April for the Evangelist in the St John Passion with John Nelson.  That should be worth taking trouble to go to.

Meanwhile you can hear Nick's way with Winter Words and a collection of other Britten songs, including the delightful folk song arrangements, on his recently issued CD.  It has been very warmly received, justifiably so.

I will be at Beyond the Score this afternoon.  You should be too!!

Frigid Saturday

 It looks lovely out there but my is it cold?!  I ventured out again around 4pm to get a little fresh air - and fresh is the word!  But Chicago was looking pretty with a lovely late afternoon glow as you see above in the view south to the city from the park by Belmont Harbor.  There were a few dogs around with their intrepid owners - but that was about it.

This evening I am looking forward to a recital by Nicholas Phan (our Telemaco in Ulisse in 2007).  He has come a long way in the last five years - a very talented young man and we are proud to have helped set him on course.  He has now, in collaboration with friends and colleagues started a new venture, the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago.  This evening he will give us Britten and Schubert, a lovely program including Britten's Winter Words.

Youthful genius........

It is really very remarkable that a 26 year old from Saxony came to London and took by storm the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket in February 1711 - and moreover the opera in question, Rinaldo, provides more audition arias than most of the rest of Handel's operas put together!  I think that it was first performed on the day after the great man's 26th birthday which was possibly February 23.  Or maybe a day or two later depending no doubt on the calendar you are using - but either way the man was 26ish.  And either way also today is the exact 301st anniversary of Rinaldo's first performance!

So it was good to go along to Lyric this afternoon to hear the arias in context.  And the singers passed the test of course.  They have assembled an impressive cast with a string of remarkable débutants.  Julia Kleiter's singing of Lascia ch'io pianga, with a stunning purity of tone and a heartbreaking musical sensibility, was a time stopper for me.  And Iestyn Davies, a counter-tenor already well known to us in England of course, has surely arrived in Chicago as a new star.  He is remarkable.......and we already also have David Daniels in the cast - what luxury!  In addition to this very special pair Chicago at last sees Luca Pisaroni and the South African soprano Elza van den Heever, both long overdue.  And finally there is a remarkably convincing Goffredo in Sonia Prina, who gets the show off to a smashing start.

This whole event is guided by the sure hand of Harry Bicket.  The production is a new one by Francisco Negrin - in the tradition of European Regietheater which will appeal to some, and not to others as far as I could glean from the audience this afternoon.  Alas I had to leave after the second act but hope to get back to a performance.  That singing gives real pleasure - as does the 26 year old's music!

I spent the evening at North Park University doing jury duty for their performance competition.  They had two groups, undergraduates and Masters candidates.  The jury was made up of faculty plus one visitor - me!  We did not ever actually meet formally.  We just marked our sheets with the scores and handed tham in.  I was happy to find that my first two choices in each category reflected precisely the consensus distilled from the other eight jurors.  Seems like a good process!

There was one remarkable sophomore mezzo who won the undergraduate category.  She is someone to watch.

I eventually arrived home at 10:30 - just an hour ago.

More Charpentier

We at COT produced the first Charpentier in Chicago (Médée) last year, and now we have another one by the excellent upstart Haymarket Opera Company, the brainchild of Craig Trompeter, a regular member of COT's orchestra when we employ early music specialists.  This is La Déscente d'Orphée aux Enfers, probably written during 1685, the year of the birth of Handel and J S Bach, and first performed the following year.

The Haymarket company follows the practice of Toronto's Opera Atelier in seeking to recreate the sights as well as the sounds of the 17th century.  And so, as you can see from my photos here, they have plausible 17th century costumes and scenery.  This formula has been extremely successful and popular in Toronto, and I have no doubt it will be here as well.  This is just their second production, and I was delighted to get to the dress rehearsal this afternoon having been unable to see their début production of Handel's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo last fall.

They have the good fortune to have Marc Molomot, a first class haut-contre, in the title rȏle. If you are in Chicago, do go along to the Mayne Stage, just by the Morse El station on the Red Line.  There are performances tomorrow and Saturday, both sold out, but they are adding an additional one at 10pm on Saturday.  How about that?!

Remembering Liza Connell

I have had a number of messages from old friends and colleagues of Liza.  I am sure that those of you who remember this wonderful person and artist who died on Saturday will enjoy reading them.  And you may wish to add you own in the comments section here below.

First I heard from Scott Gilmore, now COT's Head of Music Staff:

I am very much aggrieved. Liza was a magnificent human being. She and I were quite close while I was in London - in fact, she learned/prepared Isolde, Elektra, and all of the Bruennhildes with me - those were hours spent in my little music room and her big music room in bliss, as there never was a harder worker or more dedicated individual. Since I moved back to the USA, we'd managed to send one another Christmas cards, although I missed this past year...

I wish I could be in London to be with those who must be planning some kind of a get-together in her honor. It makes me so sad........

And from Errol Girdlestone:

Quite a shock, reading your blog this morning.

Liza was such a good friend at the Coli and was partly responsible, with Harry Blackburn, for my going to work in S. Africa. She wasn't too happy about my accepting a contract working for Leo Quayle (possibly because he'd turned her down for the PACT chorus in days of yore!) but we saw one another from time to time when she visited Cape Town after my year in Pretoria,

I got to know her first at the ENO over Eboli and then a Santuzza, which she did superbly well. Afterwards I worked closely with Reggie (Goodall) and was entrusted with her coaching the Götterdämmerung Waltraute, which was when we really became friends. I had dinner in her flat just a few days prior to leaving for S. Africa and was given the lowdown on how to deal with Afrikaaner speedcops, and always to remember to dust myself off after falling into a highveld river - all accompanied by Liza's typically earthy chuckle and ear-to-ear grin.

Although I hadn't seen her for nigh on thirty years I know things would always have been the same. She will be sorely missed.

And from Myer Fredman:

I was very shaken to read about Elizabeth. I used to coach her when she was a student at the LOC and later she was the Rosina in my Australian début with John Cox in 1974; a long time ago now. You may be surprised to read that I was 80 a couple of weeks ago but I'm very active and busy as usual!

And Michael Beauchamp:

dear Brian, I'm sure everyone who was there will never forget that season in Wexford. Liza was a wonderful force of nature, and through the years, as you say, she never really changed. It's the saddest news.

The future

This is a very brief one.  We had a board meeting today.  There was agreement about the 2013 season - and it will be announced at the end of March.  It is nothing to do with me - Chicago is in for a new wave of excitement.  Some people will love it, others may not.  So its business as usual!

We have to sell tickets, we have to raise money.  Tomorrow we have an event when Andreas Mitisek, my successor as General Director of COT from September, will be meeting our faithful at a reception at the University Club.  I remember so well my equivalent event 13 years ago.  Actually that was at the Women's Athletic Club - the legendary WAC.  A happy memory.  I am sure that it will be the same for Andreas tomorrow.  This is old Chicago at its best!