The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: We should hear more operas sung in English translation – like Wisconsin Public Radio’s live broadcast TODAY at noon of the Metropolitan Opera’s shortened version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”
6 Comments
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear thinks that we in English-speaking countries should hear more operas sung in our native language.
Yes, sung in English – not the original Italian, French or German.
You can see how you’d like it for yourself if you listen at noon TODAY– Saturday, Dec. 29 — to Wisconsin Public Radio. That’s when you can hear the Metropolitan Opera’s live broadcast of its family-friendly production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”
The Ear did so and – except for deleting the wonderful overture — loved it.
So, apparently, did a lot others. (You can hear Nathan Gunn in a sample in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
After many years, the production has now become a holiday tradition for the Met to offer children while school is out for the holidays.
And one suspects it is developing new audiences – especially with the colorful staging and costumes by Julie Taymor, who won such acclaim for her staging of “The Lion King” on both the stage and film.
Sure, a lot of purists will probably object to substituting English for the original Italian, French, German and Russian. But it is so freeing and feels so good to understand what you are hearing without the distraction of constantly going back and forth trying to look at both the supertitles and the stage.
It also seems worth a try, given the problems that many opera companies are having competing with the “Live from the Met in HD” productions that you can see in movie theaters for far less money, and the decline of both season subscribers and single tickets.
To be honest, of course even in English you will miss some of the words. That’s the nature of singing. But excellent diction helps. And if you are lucky enough to see the production in person, supertitles in Italian, French German and Spanish and, yes, English are still provided.
It is not a completely new idea. After all, Great Britain has the English National Opera, which performs standard operas by Verdi and Puccini, Monteverdi and Handel, Mozart and Wagner, in English. So, many of the very great operas have already been translated into English and could be staged in English elsewhere.
Here are links where you can learn more about the English National Opera:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_National_Opera
Do you question how the text is hurt in translation?
It’s worth remembering that Mozart himself used the vernacular German instead of his usual opera house Italian so that he would reach the general public. Why not do the same today? Translation could make opera much more accessible, less pretentious and more populist.
The same is true for cutting the show down to 100 minutes from almost 3 hours. Let’s just admit that the attention span of the general public is much shorter than it used to be.
Orchestra and chamber music concerts as well as solo recitals are trimming their running times often down to 90 minutes or less, and meet with great approval from the public. Why not try the same approach with opera? Indeed, both the Madison Opera and the University Opera have limited but successful experiences with editing operas and using English.
It is also worth recalling that in translation we read greater words than an opera libretto. If we can translate Homer and Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Proust, why can’t we translate opera librettos? One just has to be sure to find a great translator with a sensitive musical ear– such as American poet Richard Wilbur is with his award-winning, rhyming translations of Moliere’s comedies and Racine’s tragedies. Similarly, American poet J.D. McClatchy has done a fine job with The Met’s “Magic Flute.”
Here is a link to more information about the production, including a synopsis:
https://www.metopera.org/season/2018-19-season/the-magic-flute/
And here is a review of the Met’s “Magic Flute” by Tommasini:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/arts/music/review-mozart-magic-flute-met-opera.html
What do you think?
Should more operas be staged in English?
Should long operas be edited?
Why or why not?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: #AmericanPoet, #AttentionSpan, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #Children'sOpera, #ClaudioMonteverdi, #EnglishLanguage, #EnglishNationalOpera, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FrenchLanguage, #FyodorDostoevsky, #GeneralPublic, #GeorgeFridericHandel, #GermanLanguage, #GreatBritain, #HolidayTradition, #ItalianLanguage, #JulieTaymor, #LiveFrom the MetinHD, #MadisonOpera, #MarcelProust, #MetropolitanOpera, #MetropolitanOperaLiveinHD, #MusicalEar, #MusicReview, #NathanGunn, #NewYorkCity, #OperaMusic, #OperaReview, #RichardWilbur, #RussianLanguage, #SatelliteBroadcast, #SingleTickets, #SpanishLanguage, #TheEar, #TheLIonKing, #TheMagicFlute, #TheMet, #TheNewYorkTImes, #UnitedKingdom, #UnitedStates, #UniversityOpera, #VocalMusic, #WilliamShakespeare, #WisconsinPublicRadio, #WolfgangAmadeusMozart, #YouTubevideo, abridge, abridged, accessible, American, Arts, attention span, award, award-winning, Baroque, Beethoven, blog, Broadcast, Chamber music, children, cinema, Classical music, colorful, comedies, comedy, composer, costumes, cut, diction, distraction, Dostoevsky, Early music, edit, England, English language, English National Opera, Facebook, family-friendly, feel, film, film'theater', forward, French, George Frideric Handel, German, Great Britain, Handel, hear, holiday tradition, Homer, Italian, Jacob Stockinger, Julie Taymor, language, like, link, live, Live From The Met in HD, look, Love, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Madison Opera, Marcel Proust, Metropolitan Opera, Moliere, money, Monteverdi, movie, Music, music review, musical ear, Nathan Gunn, New York City, New York Times, NPR, opera, Opera review, Orchestra, Overture, poet, Poetry, popular, populist, post, posting, pretentious, problem, production, Proust, public, Racine, Radio, read, recital, rhyme, Richard Wilbur, Russian, Saturday, school, Shakespeare, share, shorten, sing, singer, Singing, single tickets, Spanish, stage, staging, students, subscribers, sung, supertitles, tag, The Ear, The Lion King, the Met, theatre, today, tragedies, tragedy, translation, trouble, UK, understand, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, vernacular, version, vocal music, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Which piece of music did you first connect with emotionally and how old were you?
14 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
Another weekend, another reader survey.
For The Ear, music was and remains much more an emotional experience than an intellectual one.
So he was intrigued when he came across a survey question on the Internet earlier this week.
The question was simple: When did you first connect emotionally with a piece of classical music and how old were you? And what was the piece and composer of the piece that you first connected with emotionally?
It sounds so easy. But The Ear found himself going back through time and really straining to choose the right answer.
Early on, The Ear loved the sound and drama of Smetana’s tone poem “The Moldau.” And he loved some works by Johann Sebastian Bach that he heard in church. During piano lessons, there was some pieces by Chopin.
But then at about age 11, the Great Emotional Awakening to Music came in a way that reminded him of the famous madeleine memory episode in Marcel Proust’s novel “Remembrance of Things Past,” translated more accurately, if less poetically, these days as “In Search of Lost Time.”
Since he himself was a young and aspiring pianist, The Ear has realized, he no doubt first connected with the powerful recording by Arthur Rubinstein (below top) of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18, by Sergei Rachmaninoff (below bottom). That recording also featured Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and you can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.
The answer really isn’t a surprise — young people love the sweep of Romantic music. After all, on a lesser emotional level, Rachmaninoff had also moved The Ear with the famous Prelude in C-Sharp Minor — the “Bells of Moscow” — which spurred The Ear into starting piano lessons when he heard it played live and right in front of him by a babysitter.
How intently he listened to the concerto, with a friend in the basement of his friend’s house, over and over again. How it moved him and never failed to move him – and still moves him today.
And then, maybe at 12 or 13, he rushed out and bought the Schirmer score tot he concerto when he was old enough and skilled enough to try to play some of it – the famous opening chords and excerpts from the beautiful and lyrical slow second movement. That experience of playing even excerpts also proved very emotional.
Now, there is also a practical purpose to this question. The answer just might give adults an idea about how to attract young children and new audiences to classical music.
Anyway, that’s what The Ear wants to know this weekend:
How old were you when you first connected EMOTIONALLY to classical music?
And who was the composer, the piece and the performer that you connected with emotionally?
The Ear hopes you have just as much poignant fun recollecting the answer as he did.
Let us know the answer in the COMMENT section with a YouTube link if possible.
The Ear wants to ear.
Tags: Arthur Rubinstein, Arts, babysitter, Bach, Bells of Moscow, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chopin, church, Classical music, Compact Disc, concerto, conductor, Fritz Reiner, In Search of Time Lost, intellect, Internet, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, lessons, Madison, Marcel Proust, Music, Orchestra, Piano, Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff), piano lessons, poem, Prelude, Proust, Rachmaninoff, Rachmaninov, recording, Remembrance of Things Past, Romantic, Schirmer, score, Smetana, The Moldau, tone, tone poem, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: Pianist Jeremy Denk is named a MacArthur “genius.” Here is a sampler of his immense talent as displayed in concerts at the Wisconsin Union Theater, at NPR, in his blog “Think Denk” and on his latest Nonesuch recordings of Bach, Beethoven and Ligeti.
2 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
As you may have already heard, classical pianist Jeremy Denk (below) received a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” this week. The stipend is $625,000 to be paid over five years and to be used for whatever the recipient wants, no string attached.
Here is a link to the MacArthur Foundation announcement (curiously, yet another year has gone by without any recipients from the UW-Madison):
Several observations and interpretations come to mind.
One is that Jeremy Denk, a trained chemist as well as pianist, has already performed in Madison – TWICE – at the Wisconsin Union Theater. Both programs were mammoth undertakings. I met and worked with Denk both times, especially the first, and he is a remarkably deserving artist who is honest, droll, articulate and original. I also very much like his philosophy that radical music should stay sounding radical, no matter how many years later.
The first recital featured J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations on the first half with Charles Ives’ Sonata No. 1 on the second half. Whew!
While here for that concert, Denk, a master blogger as you can find in “Think Denk,” he gave a public master class for young pianists (below), a fascinating talk on pedaling in Chopin at the UW School of Music, and a panel on blogging. As you can tell, Denk is a terrifically gifted musician with many different achievements to his credit.
Then last season, Denk appeared again in recital, in Mills Hall, to a regrettably small audience, and he played Franz Liszt and Bela Bartok, followed by J.S. Bach and Beethoven. It was nothing short of phenomenal and utterly convincing.
Both concerts were outstanding events.
And both events point to the wisdom of the Wisconsin Union Theater in finding and booking up-and-coming talent.
Not that Jeremy Denk is young.
At 43, Denk is a seasoned concert veteran and he has taken the time to make the music he plays his own. He is not fresh out of some competition win at 23 or 24, and still stretching to find his maturity and a personal point of view. He is writing a book for Alfred A. Knopf based, to be published this year, based on some articles (on making his first recording and on being a piano student under various teachers) that he wrote for The New Yorker magazine and on his blog “Think Denk.”
Denk is also a devout Francophile who loves Proust and Balzac as well as great food and drink. The Ear thinks that helps to explain the sheer beauty and sensuality as well as logic of his playing.
If you have any qualms about the Wisconsin Union Theater concert series this year –which features violinist Rachel Barton Pine (below top) with the UW Symphony Orchestra under UW alumnus conductor Kenneth Woods on Saturday, Nov. 2, the Miro String Quartet (below middle, in a photo by Jim Leisy) on Friday, Feb. 21; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal tuba player Gene Pokorny with the UW Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, March 8; and pianist Inon Barnatan (below bottom) on Friday, April 18. The MacArthur’s high-profile recognition of Jeremy Denk is a good reminder to trust the WUD series, however unexpected its choices may seem.
Here is a link to the Wisconsin Union Theater series:
http://www.uniontheater.wisc.edu/season2013-14.html
Here is a link to Jeremy Denk’s blog:
And here are links to NPR, where Denk was an artist-in-residence for a week and where you can hear both interviews and excerpts from his first Nonesuch recording of etudes by Gyorgy Ligeti and Beethoven’s final Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111; and excerpts from his CD and DVD of J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations (the famous opening Aria is at the bottom in a YouTube video) that will be released this coming week. (He also recorded a fabulous album of Turn-of-the-20th-Century French violin sonatas with Joshua Bell for Sony Classical.)
http://www.npr.org/event/music/155236091/in-practice-jeremy-denk
http://www.npr.org/2013/09/21/224429650/first-listen-jeremy-denk-j-s-bach-goldberg-variations
Personally, The Ear hopes Jeremy Denk records a lot more repertoire, and soon, especially now that he is a house artist of the prestigious Nonesuch Records label, which gives the notoriously difficult-to-record piano outstanding sonic engineering. Several requests come to mind: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15, for which he is well-known; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503, which he is touring with right now; the six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, by Johannes Brahms; some shorter J.S. Bach preludes and fugues as well as various suites; some sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti; and some works by Frederic Chopin, preferably the thorny and often underplayed mazurkas and the ballades that are so rich for fresh interpretation.
Did you hear Jeremy Denk perform in Madison?
Have you listened to his recordings?
What do you think of Denk’s playing and writings?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: "Goldberg" Variations, Béla Bartók, Beethoven piano sonatas, Charles Ives, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Denk, Domenico Scarlatti, francophilia, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Gene Pokorny, Goldberg, György Ligeti, Honore de Balzac, Jeremy Denk, Jim Leisy, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Joshua Bell, Knopf books, Ludwig van Beethoven, MacArthur Foundation, Marcel Proust, Miro String Quartet, New Yorker, Nonesuch Records, Rachel Barton Pine, Sony Classical, University of Wisccnsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, UW-Madison, Wisconsin Union Theater, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 