The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Avery Fisher Hall will be renamed. Is there no end to the shameless egos of Big Money and the desperation of those who pursue it? What’s next? The Walmart States of America? Plus, this afternoon is your last chance to see the Madison Opera’s production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” which gets rave reviews.

ALERT: Today at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall of the Overture Center is your last chance to see the Madison Opera‘s production of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s only opera “Fidelio.” The production has drawn high praise from local critics. (Below, in a photo by James Gill, are the lead singers tenor Clay Hilley as the imprisoned Florestan and soprano Alexandra LoBianco as his wife Leonore.) For tickets, call the Overture Center box office at (608) 258-4141.

Here is a review by John W. Barker for Isthmus:

http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=44067&sid=39e0add1db8c192442a2b8defe5ff286 

And here is a review by Greg Hettmansberger for Madison Magazine’s blog “Classically Speaking”:

http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Blogs/Classically-Speaking/November-2014/Fidelio-Rings-True/

By Jacob Stockinger

It reads like something right out of a novel by Charles Dickens or Honore de Balzac or Emile Zola.

Did you hear about Avery Fisher Hall (below)? They want to rename it!!!!

It needs major work and expensive upgrading.

The stakes only get higher and more expensive, of course. But Big Money is no doubt up to the challenge.

Some you may remember the comments I recently posted about the renaming of the Wisconsin Union Theater as Shannon Hall (below) because of generous donations. A plaque would have sufficed, like at Camp Randall Stadium. 

It shouldn’t be too hard for Big Money to follow the more modest and more respectable examples of local philanthropists Jerry Frautschi and Pleasant Rowland, who funded the Overture Center for the Arts without plastering their names all over it.

But no! The rich need to splash their names all over the buildings so that we honor wealth more than public service or history.

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/classical-music-the-ear-offers-cheers-and-jeers-for-the-wisconsin-union-theaters-renovated-shannon-hall/

Well, now I see that a renovation of famed Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City is seeking some deep pockets by offering naming rights.

Or should I say “re-naming rights.”

Officials will even pay the Fisher family millions of dollars to allow the renaming of the legendary hall where so many great careers have started and been put on display for the public.

That’s tacky, and even outdoes the University of Wisconsin-Madison when it asked the Elvehjem (pronounced LVM) family if it could rename the Elvehjem Museum of Art to the Chazen Museum of Art.

The Ear didn’t like that, either. But at least the UW-Madison didn’t pay for the family’s permission, didn’t buy back the honor and then turn around and give it to someone else.

Maybe that is the reality of financing projects in today’s income disparity and wealth gap plus lower taxes on the rich that Trickle-Downers want to lower even more.

But it is nonetheless shameful.

What’s next? Avery Fisher Hall becomes David H. Koch Hall?

When do we become the Wal-Mart States of America?

Here is the story that appeared in The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/arts/music/lincoln-center-to-rename-avery-fisher-hall.html?_r=0

Tell us what you think of it.

The Ear wants to hear.