tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post2245411018073185332..comments2007-05-22T18:04:35.181+01:00Pliablenoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-76731258627412873242007-05-22T18:04:00.000+01:002007-05-22T18:04:00.000+01:002007-05-22T18:04:00.000+01:00I find El Nino far from ghastly, and as for Mr Adams running out of ideas, it should be noted that he's always been (except for his orchestral music titles) highly dependent (too dependent?) on the conceptual/theatrical input of Peter Sellars (and, before that, Peters Sellars and Alice Goodman).<BR/>[LA Times Music critic Mark Swed and others think Peter Sellars a genius, pure and simple.]<BR/><BR/>(Philip Glass seems to be finding new dramatic seriousness now with Christopher Hampton after spending long years collaborating with such surrealist Soho colleagues such as Robert Wilson and David Henry Hwang.)Garth Trinklhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11084463787729969177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-60674947014319258362007-05-22T04:38:00.000+01:002007-05-22T04:38:00.000+01:002007-05-22T04:38:00.000+01:00<I>he was raving about John Adams's latest opera A Flowering Tree - 'You can put his recent pieces up against anything of Verdi'</I><BR/><BR/>Nonsense! Better than <I>Otello, Don Carlo(s), Rigoletto</I> and <I>Falstaff</I>? Silly American PR hyperbole. "Corporate bandwagon" is right, Pliable. As for the ghastly <I>El Nino</I>, my friend Jim said it best as we walked out of a performance here in Los Angeles: "I'm half black, half Latino and John Adams is a typical fucking white man, he's completely run out of ideas so he steals them from my cultures". Um, OK then! :-) Adams is horribly over-praised these days, isn't he?<BR/><BR/>Can't wait for the <I>The Tempest</I> recording later this year.Henry Hollandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15871451112170286316noreply@blogger.com