Straussian modernism and Viennese Schmaltz

'It is worth noting that the novel's last scene, with it's off-stage procession, tumultuous church-bells and climactic murder, itself resolves a very inward drama in the convention of grand opera. A fact not lost on the twenty-three-year-old Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose opera Die tote Stadt (premiered simultaneously in Cologne and Hamburg in December 1920) is based indirectly on Bruges-la-Morte, and is now the form in which the novel is most widely known.

Its immediate source was Le Mirage, the four-act theatrical version of Bruges-la-Morte which Georges Rodenbach prepared at the end of his life, but never saw staged. In dramatising his book he found himself driven to just those kinds of explication through dialogue that the novel pointedly avoids. Korngold, in following him, and in wrapping the play in his precocious melange of Straussian modernism and Viennese Schmaltz, prolonged and broadened the fame of this recondite novel - but at the cost of what makes it so singular and unforgettable.'

Those words are from novelist Alan Hollinghurst's introduction to the new edition of Georges Rodenbach's novel Bruges-la-Morte. It is essential reading and I know many readers will disagree about the Viennese Schmaltz and say that Korngold's opera is also essential listening. Die tote Stadt is available in several versions including one from Naxos. I took the photos of Bruges in February when visiting that evocative city for something well beyond Strauss modernism, the John Cage happening.

Talking of Richard Strauss I will be playing the rarely heard string septet realisation of his Metamorphosen on Future Radio on May 4 as part of a programme marking the anniversary of the surrender of German forces in Europe on May 7, 1945. The main work in the programme will be the equally rarely heard Violin Concerto by Benjamin Frankel. Born in London in 1906 of Polish-Jewish parents Frankel studied in Germany and London, and his 1951 Violin Concerto is sub-titled 'In Memory of the Six Million'.

Two weeks later, on May 18, I will be presenting a programme of works by musicians in exile. The music will be Bohuslav Martinů's Concertino for Piano Trio and String Orchestra, then a very rare treat in the form of Peter Paul Fuch's Five Miniatures in a performance from a private tape made available by the composer's widow and finally the String Quartet No. 5 by Fuchs' teacher Karl Weigl. It is a great privilege to be able to showcase these composers, and my thanks go to Future Radio for making it possible to bring this music to thousands of happy new ears.


Photos (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Sacré bleu! - it is just Bollywood camp

In June last year contributor Antoine Leboyer wrote here about the trivialisation of music at Paris' venerable Théâtre du Châtelet with these prophetic words - 'There are no real operas save, perhaps, a rarity by Roussel which looks more like a vehicle for Bollywood director Sanjay Bhansali. Maybe this reflects the new director’s vision for classical music, but, for Parisian audiences, Le Châtelet is becoming the temple of crossover and mass-market entertainment'.

Andrew Clements' review of the Roussel rarity, Padmâvatî, in today's Guardian confirms that Antoine's prediction was spot on - 'A director of real flair and imagination might breathe life into the piece. But the Châtelet production has been handed over to an all-Indian team led by Mumbai film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who has simply come up with a series of inert tableaux, to which some coarse acting and risible choreography adds nothing at all. It is just Bollywood camp, and even the on-stage presence of a horse, an elephant and a young tiger (the python promised in the cast list sadly did not materialise) as well as some very dodgy moustaches is not enough compensation'.

Now read about Aida with no clothes.
Image credit AFP - Miguel Medina. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The true future of opera

'As a by-product, this development will put an end to today's star system. The indispensable quality of "stardom" is its rarity. But, on the one hand, the difference between a star and a non-star performance will not be tolerated much longer by a growingly knowledgeable public. On the other, the stars themselves will fade. Even now, their strength is being progressively dissipated by the incredible fatigue of their enforced nomadic life, and in the end they will be unable to deliver what is expected of them.

The true future of opera lies in the ensemble principle, by which I mean well-matched ensembles of fine singers working together and staying together. This mode of organisation has never completely disappeared. A few, very few, theatres have always maintained it, and elsewhere, now and then at the insistence of a maestro, a performance reflecting it turns up. So the ensemble principle will not need to be re-discovered. Even the public knows about it. And once the public starts asking for it, sooner or later it will get it' - Antal Dorati writes in his 1979 autobiography Notes of Seven Decades (Hodder ISBN 0340159227).

The exigencies of the star sytem mean that Punch and Judy receives a tiny mention in this new Royal Opera House national press campaign, but its composer doesn't. Never mind, read about him here, and continue playing spot the composer's name here, before reading more about Maestro Dorati here.
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Zandra Rhode's new Aida has no clothes

After the fiasco of Kismet and Carmen today's Guardian reports on the triumphal farce of English National Opera's new Aida:

Imported from Houston, it's directed by Jo Davies, while sets and costumes are the work of fashion designer Zandra Rhodes. Such is the palaver surrounding Rhodes's contribution - you can even get an e-card with a doll (see above) of one of the characters you can dress up - that the uninitiated might reach the conclusion that Aida is about frocks and bling rather than an examination of how political and religious authority can rot the lives of those who are close to the seats of temporal power yet unable to wield it. Neither director Jo Davies nor Rhodes has taken the piece seriously, and what we are presented with is a gaudy, insubstantial spectacle, and a messy one at that.

What next from ENO? - 'Classical Star the Opera' as a co-production with BBC TV?
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Lebrecht is right - Naxos is not in same league

Thought-provoking email about the Naxos v Lebrecht case:

'Lebrecht is right in so far, as Naxos product is not in the league of a fine opera recording of the 60 to 80s with top cast, recorded by DECCA or even DG, Philips or EMI. Their product will still sell in 50 years, whereas Naxos product does not have this unique quality, neither sonically nor artistically. A recording with a top approved cast with a conductor like Karajan (above) is still a seller today, even if recorded "only" in Stereo. The 5.1 surround sound format is no quality asset, for classical music this is not the decisive feature. That is the great difference to Naxos or other label products.

Sincerely, L. Ruschin'

Now read another reader suggesting that Naxos dumbs-down production standards.
Header image shows Herbert von Karajan with Christa Ludwig during a playback at the 1969/70 sessions for Götterdämmerung, which, as L. Ruschin says, continues to sell today. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Royal Opera House loses the plot

The advertisement above is from the Royal Opera House's current press campaign. Their production of Parsifal, which gets a tiny mention bottom left, is conducted by Bernard Haitink (age 78) and John Tomlinson (age 61) is singing Gurnemanz. Which makes it one of the musical events of the year in my book. But, sadly, Holy Fools don't have as much sex(ist), or age appeal, as a 29 year old soprano.

Below is an advertisement from the programme for another memorable musical event in London, Otto Klemperer's 1961 London Beethoven Festival. It is followed by part of the acceptance speech Maestro Klemperer made when he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law from Occidental College, Los Angeles.


'The lawyer fights for justice; his highest duty is to go and permanently fight for innocent people, to save their life against the attacks of their enemies. And what are we doing, we musicians? We fight for the innocent Lady Music. Is she not accused? I think she is. She is accused of being useless, a thing of luxury. And is she not innocent? Is there any reason to condemn music to death? I do not believe it. The contrary is true. We musicians have to protect this noble Lady, Music; we have to save her from the attacks of materialism'.

Attitudes towards Lady Music have changed very little in some parts since that speech was given on 24 September 1936. But recognition of her contribution is increasing. A wonderful book has just been published which chronicles an important contribution to twentieth-century music. It celebrates the life and work of Imogen Holst, who was an important influence on English music for more than three decades, and who worked alongside that great figure of twentieth-century music, Benjamin Britten, for twelve years.

The stereotype of Aldeburgh portrays it as an exclusively male domain. But the inclusiveness of that most musical of places is reflected in the location of Imogen Holst's grave, alongside that of Britten and Peter Pears in Aldeburgh churchyard. The words on her headstone, from her father Gustav Holst's Hymn of Jesus, deliver a message that is still not fully understood today:

The heavenly spheres make music for us
All things join in the dance

Now join in the dance here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, and read about Britten's women here.
The Beethoven Symphonies advertisement comes from my own collection. The Occidental College speech is from Klemperer on Music (Toccata Press ISBN 0907689132) - highly recommended for advertising agencies everywhere. Imogen Holst - A Life in Music is published by Boydell & Brewer ISBN 9781843832966. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Opera directors 2 - Composers 0

After the Michael Ball Kismet fiasco English National Opera (above) scores yet another own goal with Carmen..
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Holocaust opera as university assignment

Nice, and topical, to see my January 2006 article on Viktor Ullman's (right) holocaust opera The Emperor of Atlantis being set as an assignment by Louisiana State University's music department. Also good to see that nothing changes with students. They are all arriving On An Overgrown Path just a few days before the assignment deadline.

Now here is an opera for study at Columbia University.
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In Memoriam - Alan Blyth

If you are a keen record collector the chances are that sleeve notes by Alan Blyth (left) will be on a number of your recordings. He wrote for many of the UK's leading newspapers, appeared regularly on BBC radio, was assistant editor at Opera magazine and a longtime contributor to The Gramophone, and published many books including Remembering Britten. He was music critic at The Listener for three years, and used this platform to criticise the programmes of the then BBC Controller of Music, William Glock and Pierre Boulez. His last set of sleeve notes will appear posthumously on the re-issue of the 1959 recording of Handel's Acis and Galatea with Joan Sutherland and Peter Pears.

Alan Blyth died on August 14 2007. Follow this path to The Times obituary.

Photo credit The Gramophone. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

In search of the lost chord

Email received yesterday from director Tim Hopkins, whose new multi-media opera I wrote about here:

Dear Pliable, Glad you enjoyed performances of Elephant and Castle (photo above), and thank you for taking the trouble to write about it. If you would like to see some more current work, there is an exhibition called Picture House curated by English Heritage at Belsay Hall near Newcastle. I have made an installation with sound and video, called The Lost Chord. There is also a performance piece but this is staged only occasionally, between now and September. The exhibition has work by many different artists - my bit is a small part of this.

With best wishes
Tim Hopkins, Clockwork Studios, London SE5

Now stay around Aldeburgh for Cold war - chilled music
Photograph copyright On An Overgrown Path. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Is this composer the future of grand opera?

As a welcome antidote to English National Opera's ill-judged Kismet (I note that Peter Bazalgette, the big cheese from Big Brother is on the ENO board - which explains a lot) this email was very welcome ~ Hello, I just wanted to inform you that 'Edalat Square' won Houston's Opera Vista Competition over the weekend. It will be staged next year at their festival in June. An MTV affiliated network, LOGO, is considering filming the opera and airing it on TV. Here is a flattering review of the opera:

"The most adventurous of the lot — in both music and libretto — was R.Timothy Brady's poignant, highly poetic Edalat Square, a disquisition on the torture and hanging of two Iranian teenage boys for homosexuality. With keening strings and an overwhelming performance by Vanessa Beaumont as the wailing, distraught mother, Brady used almost calligraphic musical motifs to limn both the intolerance of Shari'a law and man's inherent divinity. Prodigiously talented young Brady is the composer to watch. He may prove to be grand opera's future."

The full article can be found here. Thank you again for your support of the opera.

Best regards, R. Timothy Brady

For the back story on Edalat Square follow this path.
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Not a good spectator sport

Erica Jeal in today's Guardian thinks Glyndebourne's new staged St Matthew Passion lacks ... passion.

Now take the path to the church where it was first performed.
Photo credit Glyndebourne. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Opera - we live in interesting times

The new circus opera Monkey: Journey to the West, with music by Damon Albarn, gets a good review in today's Observer. The review is headed opera, but the reviewer is the paper's pop music critic, Kitty Empire. After its Manchester premiere the production moves to Le Châtelet in Paris, where Antoine Leboyer recently lamented the virtual disappearance of classical music. We live in interesting times...

Good that the Observer sent an open minded critic to Manchester, shame the Guardian wasn't that smart at Aldeburgh .
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One of the great intelligent singing artists?

The controller of the BBC Proms fended off charges of "dumbing down" the annual event after the West End singer Michael Ball (above) was signed to perform an evening of show tunes. Nicholas Kenyon, the Proms controller, praised Ball's voice and said he felt sure a classical music audience would accept his inclusion. "I think he is one of the great, intelligent singing artists alive today," he said. "He deserves a place at the Proms just as much as performers in the great classical tradition" ~ Independent 26 April 2007

This new version is built around an irredeemably vulgar performance from Michael Ball, whose amplified crooning makes crossover king Alfie Boe sound almost like an opera singer ~ Anthony Holden reviews English National Opera's Kismet in today's Observer.

But it is possible to be naughty but nice.
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Not posh enough for an opera house?

'While it seems to me right that the American musicals should come to be seen as a kind of operetta and therefore incorporated into the repertoires of opera houses, the present tendency seems to be to do this only with musicals of the more pretentious kind. This year, for example, English National Opera has put on Kismet and On the Town - the one with music by Borodin and the other with music by Leonard Bernstein, both of whom may be regarded as "serious" composers. The truth is that the best stage musicals (even in terms of their music) tend to be the more unashamedly popular ones, by people such as Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Richard Rodgers. Yet these are clearly not posh enough for an opera house' ~ writes Alexander Chancellor in today's Guardian, while elsewhere in the paper the ENO production suffers a fair amount of collateral damage from Tim Ashley.

Now read about the virtual disappearance of classical music across the Channel in Paris.
No apologies for using the LP cover of Percy Faith's recording of Kismet, credit to Percy Faith original recordings. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

I hear those voices that will not be drowned

Put Guardian critic Andrew Clements in a plush upholstered seat in a concert hall to listen to Shostakovich or Mahler's parodies of popular tunes, and chances are he will wax lyrical in his review. Ask him to walk around outside Snape Maltings and experience a multi-media and amplified opera which includes, horror of horrors, a Beatles tribute band, and he will grumpily find it 'in a word, dreadful.' Fortunately I don't earn my living in London churning out reviews of unamplified Mahler and Shostakovich in twentieth-century concert halls, so here are my pictures, and impressions, of Aldeburgh Festival's new commission, Elephant and Castle.


Opera is the original multi-media art form, and it all started with Monteverdi's Orfeo in 1607. The proscenium arch single location format using natural acoustics has been the status quo for four-hundred years. Isn't it time to at least challenge that status quo?


Director Tim Hopkins sets out his position clearly: 'The arrival of digital technology proposes a new box of tools in this area, within the economic reach of arts projects. It's a bit like the early days of film: the grammar of how you use it and what you can do with it hasn't been decided yet.' Note the last sentence Mr Clements, that explains what Elephant and Castle is about.


The 100 minute opera is in seven scenes using six different locations seen in my pictures here. One scene is in the Maltings concert hall (pictures adjacent to this text), the rest are in the landscape around the hall. Two of the scenes are reflective interludes combining sounds and video. The second interlude samples words from Britten's Peter Grimes 'I hear those voices that will not be drowned'. The irony of that sample passed Andrew Clements by.


Music critics still live in the world of Mahler and Shostakovich, and see their role as answering the profound question - is it great art? Nobody is pretending Elephant and Castle is great art. As director Tim Hopkins explains it is art in progress, precisely as Orfeo was in 1607. To even start to understand Elephant and Castle you need to leave the concepts of great art and conventional performance practice behind in London. Otherwise the journey is wasted.


Now Andrew Clements is safely back in London he may well hear music by that great symphonist Carl Nielsen. As he settles into his seat in the luxuriously refurbished, revoiced and unamplified Royal Festival Hall Mr Clements should reflect on these words by that visionary musician:

'The right of life is stronger than the most sublime art, and even if we reached agreement on the fact that now the best and most beautiful has been achieved, mankind thirsting more for life and adventure than perception, would rise and shout in one voice: give us something else, give us something new, indeed for Heaven's sake give us rather the bad, and let us feel that we are still alive, instead of constantly going around in deedless admiration for the conventional.'

I came away from Snape last night feeling that I was very much alive. Thank you Jonathan Reekie, Tim Hopkins, Tansy Davies, Mira Calix and the Aldeburgh Festival.

All photos taken by Pliable on 21 June 2007, copyright On An Overgrown Path. Quotation from My Childhood by Carl Nielsen, Hutchinson 1973. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

An amazing gesture of hope for the future?

"There was a Royal Academy exhibition in 1997 about the architect Denys Lasdun. As I recall, there was a photograph of him in wartime on the beach at Normandy wearing battledress, teaching architecture to the army education corps. I thought that was an amazing gesture of hope for the future. I began to think of buildings as hopes, as frail human endeavours, as children that need to be brought up, invested in and looked after. It's also an idea of the architect as hero, as distinct from architect as villain. Lots of things unravelled from that: where did it all go wrong, where did it all go right...

My endowment from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) concerned exploring connections between the historic ambition of opera to combine human expressive arts, and the possibility of contemporary technology. A starting point was to enhance a use of moving image within opera performance. The arrival of digital technology proposes a new box of tools in this area, within the economic reach of arts projects. It's a bit like the early days of film: the grammar of how you use it and what you can do with it hasn't been decided yet.

The question arose as to what kind of musical voice the work could have. The potential to echo the contrasting environment with two compositional styles emerged, and Jonathan Reekie, chief executive of Aldeburgh Music, suggested composers Mira Calix and Tansy Davies. Tansy uses acoustic classical instruments and is inspired by different cultural registers. Mira Calix uses an electronica approach but the source of her sound is often from the natural or found world - rendered into patterns. So both connect to qualities of contrast or duality in the piece within their own work, as well as in contrast to each other."

Tim Hopkins talks about the new Aldeburgh Festival commissioned opera Elephant and Castle which he devised and directs, with music by Mira Calix and Tansy Davies, and text by Blake Morrison. The opera incorporates film, digital sounds, installations and live performance. It is about architecture and aspiration, urban legends and primal myths, past and future, work and play, and children and parents.

The first two performances are today Wednesday (June 20) and Thursday (June 21), and the audience has been told 'dress for the weather' as the performance promenades through the landscape around the Snape Maltings - see picture below. The two images here are computer renderings of scenes from Elephant and Castle. The video artist Tal Rosner is the partner of Festival creative director Thomas Adès. Although Rosner is not connected with the new opera the Festival has a commitment to exploring video and other new media.

In his 1964 Aspen Award acceptance speech Aldeburgh Festival founder Benjamin Britten said "There are many dangers which hedge around the unfortunate composer: pressure groups which demand true proletarian music, snobs who demand the latest avant-garde tricks; critics who are already trying to document today for tomorrow, to be the first to find the correct pigeon-hole definition. These people are dangerous - not because they are necessarily of any importance in themselves, but because they make the composer, above all the young composer, self-conscious, and instead of writing his own music, music which springs naturally from his gifts and personality, he may be frightened into writing pretensious nonsense or deliberate obscurity. He may find himself writing more and more for machines, in conditions dictated by machines, and not for humanity: or of course he may end by creating grandiose clap-trap when his real talent is for dance tunes or children's piano pieces."

Is Elephant and Castle an amazing gesture of hope for the future, and a bridge to new audiences? Or is it just the latest avant-garde tricks? Follow this link for my review and production photos.


Now read about an amazing architectural and musical hope for the future that is not disputed.
Images and Tim Hopkins quote from interview with David Benedict in the excellent 2007 Aldeburgh Festival programme book. Image credits Tim Hopkins and Pippa Nissen. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The audience of course loved it

Country house opera is one of the few areas of classical music where audiences are growing. It tends to attract those lovely people who broker private equity deals, and holds little attraction for me. A view that seems to be confirmed by Anthony Holden's review in today's Observer:

La donna del lago, Garsington, Oxfordshire, Thurs to 7 July - Like his twin brother Christopher and all too many other globally renowned opera directors, David Alden can be maddeningly inconsistent. For every award-winning Jenufa or Ariodante at ENO, there are two or three eccentric turkeys gobbling their way round provincial houses. Now he has elected to head into rural England and immediately, infuriatingly, disastrously caught the country-house bug.

Rossini may be best known for his comedies, but the mature composer also wrote ornate, high-romantic dramas. One such is La donna del lago, the first Italian opera to be based on a Walter Scott novel, inspiring 25 more in the two decades after its 1819 premiere, not least Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. We might never have enjoyed such riches if Alden had directed La donna's premiere. At Garsington (above) he reduces this noble work to a shambolic panto. Perhaps it is because he's American that Alden signs up to the general belief that black-tied, champagne-quaffing English country-house audiences must be made to laugh, and have a jolly evening out, whatever the work on offer.

So the rebel Scottish army becomes a bunch of can-swilling lager louts, staggering around the stage in a parody of music-hall insobriety. The trouser-role romantic lead, Malcolm, is a punk in Sex Pistols T-shirt and Doc Martens. Mustachioed deer smoke cigars and read Country Life, pickpocketing their drunken hunters. The baddie, Rodrigo, does a Ricky Gervais stand-up routine in horns and leather jacket; when he gets angry he starts, guess what, overturning tables and chairs. Yes, just about every available stage cliche is on view.

Only the heroine, Elena, manages to maintain some semblance of dignity amid this puerile chaos, though the vocal range of Carmen Giannattasio is severely stretched by Rossini's coloratura demands. The same proves true of the tenors Colin Lee, Michael Colvin and all other principals. David Parry conducts with more enthusiasm than finesse, while Alden makes a Monty Python mockery of high Rossini. The audience, of course, loved it.

As Anthony Holden goes on to say, thank goodness for Aldeburgh
Garsington image credit Corydora. Review credit Observer. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Taking issue with blogs ...

'Teatro alla Scala's chief legal counsel ... has today asked Opera Chic in a terse but polite e-mail to change the Opera Chic website's logo because it supposedly creates confusion in the readers minds with La Scala's own official website, due to Opera Chic logo's similarity to La Scala's own logo (until a few minutes ago, now it has been replaced). La Scala also took issue with some other minor things: they don't want anybody to take pictures inside the theater before, during, or after the performances, and so they asked Opera Chic to take down from the site all and every photograph taken inside La Scala: we are working on removing those, too ...' ~ from Opera Chic blog June 6 2007.

'Want to start a blog in Iran? Then you'll have to register it with the government - which has recently begun to require that all bloggers register at samandehi.ir, a site established by the ministry of culture of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government. All you need do is give your personal information, including your blog's username and password - otherwise it will be filtered and blocked so that nobody in Iran, and perhaps outside too, will be able to access it. This has led to an outcry among many Iranian bloggers who consider the net an independent and free forum for expression' ~ from the Guardian June 7 2007. You can read President Ahmadinejad's own blog in English via this link.

Now read about bloggers for Tibet
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The virtual disappearance of classical music

As France moves into Nicolas Sarkozy's new Presidency here is an exclusive report from Paris by Antoine Leboyer on the worrying changes at a historic music venue:

If we are to be offended by the appearance of West End star Michael Ball for one evening at the BBC Proms, what should we say about the virtual disappearance of classical music from Paris’ historic Le Châtelet? Built in the second half of the 19th century, Le Châtelet used to be a venue that presented all types of music, from operas, ballet, and operettas to classical music concerts. Mahler conducted there and the theatre hosted several seasons of the Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes.

Le Châtelet then focused on light music and operettas until the 1980s when the City of Paris administration ran it as a “competitor” to the Paris Opera. The theatre was run by Stéphane Lissner before he moved to the Aix Festival, the Wiener Festwochen and then La Scala, and by Jean-Pierre Brossman after his time at the Lyon Opera. Very quickly, thanks to these directors, Le Châtelet became internationally recognised as a place of excellence.


Long-lasting relations with ensembles, orchestras, conductors, directors and soloists were established. Le Châtelet was the place where John Eliot Gardiner came every year to perform Mozart, Gluck, Verdi, and he found ideal working conditions there for his complete Berlioz Troyens (header image). For this occasion, national TV even broadcast live a Sunday performance. Ensembles like the Philharmonia Orchestra held long residencies, and performed concerts while still having the time to rehearse operas. This allowed Christoph von Dohnányi to stage many ambitious Strauss works. The Peter Sellars – Kent Nagano team came to premiere works by John Adams (El Nino above) and Kaija Saariaho (L'Amour de loin below), and foreign opera houses including the Berlin Staatsoper under Barenboim and the Kirov under Gergiev stayed for long residencies.

More importantly for French audiences, Le Châtelet became a showcase for regional opera houses from Lyon, Toulouse and other cities to present their best works each year. The programmes had classical music at their core, but found space for other genres.

Everything from Baroque to wonderful Offenbach operettas was given equal prominence, and the team of Marc Minkowsi and Laurent Pelly did wonders for the "Mozart des Champs-Elysées" (which to the French means Offenbach - his La Grand-Duchesse de Gérolstein is below). Jazz and non-classical singers were also invited, and, between operas, the hall was used for recitals and orchestral concerts.

Many halls offer cheap seats but these are often are of poor quality. Le Châtelet offered a wide range of ticket prices, and although the affordable seats were high up they offered satisfactory sound and sight-lines. The theatre became the most egalitarian venue for classical music in Paris, attracting audiences of all ages and from all backgrounds that would not have came to the more elitist Salle Pleyel and Theatre des Champs-Elysées.