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James Levine leaves Boston Symphon [音楽時評]

先週予定されたBoston Symphony の Mahler 9th の指揮をキャンセル(Assitant Conductor が代演)したJames Levine が,これ以上Metropolitan Opera とBoston Symphony 双方のMusic Director を継続するのは困難と告げて,2004年以来のBonston Symphony を辞任しました(9月1日付け).

Things went well at first. He reinvigorated the Boston orchestra, which had grown dispirited after three decades under Seiji Ozawa, and poured his intellectual energy into programming new and ambitious works, specializing in contemporary composers like Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen and others. Overseeing the Tanglewood Music Center, the symphony’s summer home and a training center, came with the job, and Mr. Levine jumped into it with vigor. (He is still on the schedule to be there this summer.)

For the first couple of years “it was glorious, and things artistically were incredibly satisfying,” Mr. Volpe said. He dismissed the idea that the orchestra’s playing had slipped, praising a singing quality and emphasis on upper voices brought by Mr. Levine. “The personnel of the orchestra is probably as good as it’s ever been.”  

と小澤征爾が低下させた演奏水準を超一流に復活させたのでしたが,その後,指揮台から落ちて腰を痛め,その手術を繰り返しながらやってきたのでした. 
昨年春の手術は大成功で,昨年秋のシーズン開幕からは,1日にBoston & Met Opera の双方を指揮するという離れ業をこなしたりしていたのですが,そこいウイルス性疾患が重なって,今回の辞任に至ったのだそうです.

今後はMet Opera に専念するそうです.

これから来シーズンに向けたMusic Director 探しになりますが,James Levine の後任というのはなかなかたいへんな人選が難しいと考えられます.

 

 

Levine, Citing Health, Says He’ll Leave Boston Symphony

James Levine, dogged by a relentless series of health problems, said on Wednesday that he would resign as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, concluding that he could no longer handle the job along with his duties in the same post at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

James Levine has missed about a fifth of his Boston Symphony concerts.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times   
James Levine leading the Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall in February. He could still return as a guest conductor.

Mr. Levine, 67, plans to step down on Sept. 1, after seven seasons at the symphony, a tenure marked by artistic leaps but also by repeated cancellations and frustration among orchestra players, management and patrons over his absences.

Mr. Levine said he was just as frustrated as everybody else.

“This has been brewing in my mind for a long time,” Mr. Levine, who was in New York, said in a telephone interview. “Each time that I had to cancel because of illness, or each time that I arrived and wasn’t my best, I kept thinking we can’t keep this up. This isn’t right for the orchestra or the audience or me.”

The orchestra said it was a joint decision.

Mark Volpe, the Boston Symphony’s managing director, said that in November he and Mr. Levine began discussing an “evolving artistic role.” Mr. Volpe has not hidden his frustration in the past, once calling the concert to concert uncertainty “slow torture” and saying the situation was “not tenable” in the long-term.

Last week the lingering effects of a procedure related to Mr. Levine’s most recent surgery, compounded by a virus, forced him to cancel performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. That was a signal to both that the time had come.

“We said, ‘It’s clear to us you should be focusing on your health,’ ” Mr. Volpe recounted, adding that he told Mr. Levine that it was time to move forward with a search for his successor. “He fully understood,” Mr. Volpe said.

Mr. Volpe told the orchestra on Wednesday afternoon at rehearsal. “Frankly, no one was shocked,” he said.

A committee was being formed to find a new conductor, but it was highly unlikely anyone would be in place by next season, Mr. Volpe said.

Mr. Levine’s medical history includes sciatica, a hand tremor and weight problems. He has had a succession of operations in the last five years: repair of his rotator cuff, removal of a kidney and two back surgeries.

While he missed many Met performances, the impact seemed greater in Boston.

Orchestra music directors, as opposed to those at an opera company, generally have a greater influence on a season, shaping repertory, approving guest conductors and soloists, and overseeing new orchestra hires. At the Met, however, the conductor is one element in a huge machine that includes stage directors, production designers, star singers, a chorus and its director, and a large staff of assistant conductors, rehearsal pianists and coaches.

The work at an orchestra is also more intense: a week can be packed with rehearsals, meetings and back to back concerts. Rehearsals, preparation and performances at an opera house are more spread out over time. Mr. Levine said his health would still allow him to handle that kind of life. He also pointed out that he had been at the Met for 40 years, lived in New York and had a reliable music staff at the opera house. “I’ve been at the Met for such a long time that everything about it is comfortable to me and familiar to me, and I’m at one with it,” he said, “whereas in Boston, unless I’m 100 percent well and rested, then I can’t give them the work they deserve.”

Orchestra officials will work to replace the seven or eight weeks of programs Mr. Levine was to conduct. Both Mr. Volpe and Mr. Levine left open the possibility that Mr. Levine could return as a guest conductor.

From the outset Mr. Levine’s health drew scrutiny over concerns he would have difficulty juggling both music directorships. Things went well at first. He reinvigorated the Boston orchestra, which had grown dispirited after three decades under Seiji Ozawa, and poured his intellectual energy into programming new and ambitious works, specializing in contemporary composers like Elliott Carter, John Harbison, Charles Wuorinen and others. Overseeing the Tanglewood Music Center, the symphony’s summer home and a training center, came with the job, and Mr. Levine jumped into it with vigor. (He is still on the schedule to be there this summer.)

For the first couple of years “it was glorious, and things artistically were incredibly satisfying,” Mr. Volpe said. He dismissed the idea that the orchestra’s playing had slipped, praising a singing quality and emphasis on upper voices brought by Mr. Levine. “The personnel of the orchestra is probably as good as it’s ever been.”   

Mr. Levine acknowledged that he might have bitten off too much. “From the very beginning I didn’t handle both jobs completely smoothly,” he said. “There was always for me a tightness in the schedule between finishing a group of things here and then having to go right away to another group of things somewhere else.” As a younger, healthier man, he said, he could handle that.

Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, said Mr. Levine had not cut back on his plans at the house. He will maintain a pace of four to five productions and 30 or more scheduled performances through the 2014-15 season, the extent of the Met’s fixed plans so far.

According to statistics provided by the Met, Mr. Levine had roughly 50 scheduled Met performances in each of the first three seasons starting in September 2004, when he joined the Boston Symphony; his load fell to an average of 35 after that. Of 285 total performances scheduled, the operations, recuperations and other medical issues caused him to miss 55. The Boston Symphony said he missed about a fifth of its concerts.

Mr. Levine is next due for a Met orchestra rehearsal on March 29, and a performance of “Das Rheingold” the next day, the start of a performance-packed period. In April and May he is set to conduct another “Rheingold”; four performances of “Wozzeck”; four of “Il Trovatore”; seven of a new production of “Die Walküre”; and two Met orchestra concerts in Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Levine’s health problems sometimes seem to be scrutinized like those of a political leader or pope because he is an enormously influential figure in classical music. He plays a central role in one of the world’s leading opera houses, has the devotion of many major singers and directs one of the top orchestras around.

He has a large fan base and attracts donors. Administrators rely on his leadership to keep their institutions musically excellent. Audience members buy tickets for him, not — at least not yet — for the likes of his substitutes, including Sean Newhouse, an assistant conductor for the Boston orchestra who led Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 last weekend.

On Tuesday, before the announcement of Mr. Levine’s resignation, the Boston Symphony said he was also pulling out of all 12 remaining concerts this season, including three high-profile dates at Carnegie Hall, March 15 to 17. The orchestra said an assistant conductor, Marcelo Lehninger; Roberto Abbado; and Andris Nelsons would be substitutes at Carnegie.

Mr. Levine’s first extended absence came after a Beethoven Ninth performance in Boston almost exactly five years ago, when he tripped on the stage and landed on his right shoulder. The result: a torn rotator cuff and surgery to repair it. Until then he had been remarkably durable, missing perhaps a dozen performances out of 2,000 at the Met.

In July 2008 he had surgery to remove a kidney because of a malignant cyst. The 2009-10 season brought an operation to fix a herniated disk near his neck and a 10-hour surgery to correct curvature of the spine and compression on his spinal cord. A lingering problem with a nerve from that operation caused continuing discomfort and a procedure to fix it led to the latest round of absences, and ultimately, his departure from the Boston Symphony.


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Detroit SO: Too little, too late? [音楽時評]

Detroit Symphony Orchestra のMusicians は,オーケストラが2010~10シーズンをキャンセルするという楽団側の発表があってから,俄に契約なしで職場に復帰すると言い出したそうです.

それについてAnne Midgette は Too little, too late? と論評しています.

The question is whether the season, and the orchestra, can be saved. It's a question that's far from rhetorical. There seems no solution to the standoff, and lots of Detroit players are looking for other jobs. Mark Stryker, in the Detroit Free Press, reports that the whole percussion section is leaving.

彼女はドイツ統合後の自治体財政逼迫時の情況を思い起こして書いています.           At that time, Munich's daily newspaper ran a series of opinion pieces in which dozens of prominent artists, administrators and politicians debated the degree to which the arts were actually necessary to a community, when the choices are between, say, funding hospitals or the opera house.

さらに第2次大戦後,Orchestra はビルの地下室で演奏会を開いていた当時を回顧して,postwar performances in the basements of bombed-out buildings, playing to rapt audiences of people who welcomed the chance to enter another realm for a few hours. That, they said, demonstrated the kind of spiritual sustenance that the arts can provide. と論じています.

そして,Detroit のMusicians には,次のように忠告しています.                     a city in which entire blocks are sitting vacant. Yet an orchestra is not necessarily providing the kind of sustenance that people in crisis today turn toward. It has a different relationship to the culture; to a lot of people, it still has to demonstrate what it can offer, before it can begin the work of offering it.

As I see it, the DSO management sought to respond to the changing landscape -- of orchestras, as well as of Detroit -- by expanding the definition of the players' role, introducing into the contract mandatory outreach activities which many of the players already participate in, but which would now be part of the job. But changing their job descriptions was one of the aspects of the proposed contract that players objected to most.  

newspaper coverage of the players' complaints -- including the decline in base salaries down to around $80,000, a 30% decrease -- has not won them new fans in a city where most salaries are a lot lower than that and lots of people have lost their jobs altogether.

結論として,Is there an answer? Can music demonstrate that it is spiritually sustaining to an American city in trouble? Can a city like Detroit still afford an orchestra? And what do you think the DSO should do, moving forward, to start rebuilding?

客観的に見ると,Detroit Symphony には,将来性がないということでしょうか..... 
経済的沈滞を続ける日本のOrchestra も,他山の石として,真剣に検討すべき問題ではないでしょうか.....

 

Posted at 3:41 PM ET, 03/ 1/2011

DSO: Too little, too late?

By Anne Midgette

On February 19, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's management announced the cancellation of the season after players voted against a final contract proposal, continuing what has stretched into a 23-week strike.

Now, the players say they're ready to return to work, without a contract.

The question is whether the season, and the orchestra, can be saved. It's a question that's far from rhetorical. There seems no solution to the standoff, and lots of Detroit players are looking for other jobs. Mark Stryker, in the Detroit Free Press, reports that the whole percussion section is leaving.

Given the stalemate that's reigned for weeks, the players' action now looks like a belated realization that their futures are very much at risk.

I lived in Germany during the period when the costs of reunification were playing havoc with arts budgets, and cities that had previously been able to afford lavish arts institutions were suddenly finding themselves strapped. (One of my first articles for the Wall Street Journal was about the city of Frankfurt going bankrupt.) At that time, Munich's daily newspaper ran a series of opinion pieces in which dozens of prominent artists, administrators and politicians debated the degree to which the arts were actually necessary to a community, when the choices are between, say, funding hospitals or the opera house.

One element that kept recurring in these essays was reminiscences of people who had lived through World War II, and seen postwar performances in the basements of bombed-out buildings, playing to rapt audiences of people who welcomed the chance to enter another realm for a few hours. That, they said, demonstrated the kind of spiritual sustenance that the arts can provide.

That image sticks with me as I think of Detroit, a city in which entire blocks are sitting vacant. Yet an orchestra is not necessarily providing the kind of sustenance that people in crisis today turn toward. It has a different relationship to the culture; to a lot of people, it still has to demonstrate what it can offer, before it can begin the work of offering it.

As I see it, the DSO management sought to respond to the changing landscape -- of orchestras, as well as of Detroit -- by expanding the definition of the players' role, introducing into the contract mandatory outreach activities which many of the players already participate in, but which would now be part of the job. But changing their job descriptions was one of the aspects of the proposed contract that players objected to most.

The problem is that art can't respond to crisis effectively if people don't want to hear it. Meanwhile, newspaper coverage of the players' complaints -- including the decline in base salaries down to around $80,000, a 30% decrease -- has not won them new fans in a city where most salaries are a lot lower than that and lots of people have lost their jobs altogether.

Is there an answer? Can music demonstrate that it is spiritually sustaining to an American city in trouble? Can a city like Detroit still afford an orchestra? And what do you think the DSO should do, moving forward, to start rebuilding?

By Anne Midgette  | March 1, 2011; 3:41 PM ET


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Anne Midgette: NEA survey の音楽参加の解釈 [音楽時評]

NEA(National Endowment for the Arts) Announces Highlights from 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts についての記事です.

評者のAnne Midgette はクラシック音楽の聴衆が減り続けていると論じてきたのですが,2008年の調査結果では,クラシック音楽への参加度合いは反って増加しているという数字を公表しました.

それについて Ann Midgette は,調査結果では参加の度合いが増加しているが,それは参加様式の多様化を反映したモノで,クラシック音楽の聴衆はやはり減り続けていることが読み取れると主張しています.

when the definition of "participation" is expanded to include more than simply buying a ticket to something. The 2008 survey told us that only some 35% of adults attended a performance or visited a museum; but the new survey pulls the lens back and realizes that 75% of adults interacted with art in some form via their computers.

people will continue to find new ways to discover it, hear it, make it.

But it also proves that the old institutions are being left in the dust. Classical music has the highest participation of any art, and ticket sales are still tanking (as the same data demonstrates)? This is more evidence, say I, that orchestras in particular are going to have to continue to work to expand their role if they want to stay alive in an era that loves classical music more than ever but is happy to pursue it without them.

と警告しています.

 

 

Posted at 10:24 AM ET, 02/25/2011

NEA survey: good news - bad news

By Anne Midgette

Whenever I express my concerns about the declining audiences in classical music, people rush to inform me that I’m quite wrong and there’s more interest than ever before. The NEA’s latest figures on participation in the arts, released Thursday, prove that we’re both right.

A survey released in 2008 indicated a steep decline in audience participation in the performing arts. But it turns out the data paints quite a different picture when analyzed differently -- when the definition of "participation" is expanded to include more than simply buying a ticket to something. The 2008 survey told us that only some 35% of adults attended a performance or visited a museum; but the new survey pulls the lens back and realizes that 75% of adults interacted with art in some form via their computers.

And classical music is leading the way: 18% of that audience participated in classical music, more than any other kind of art (Latin music, visual and literary arts followed: 15% each). That’s notable because classical and Latin are thought of as niche genres. This is the best concrete demonstration I’ve seen of the long-tail theory of the Internet, the idea that the Internet enables people with specialized interests to find and cultivate their interests more easily.

This is really great news. It proves that there is, indeed, a healthy interest in classical music. As I’ve said all along, the field itself isn’t endangered: the music will prevail, and people will continue to find new ways to discover it, hear it, make it.

But it also proves that the old institutions are being left in the dust. Classical music has the highest participation of any art, and ticket sales are still tanking (as the same data demonstrates)? This is more evidence, say I, that orchestras in particular are going to have to continue to work to expand their role if they want to stay alive in an era that loves classical music more than ever but is happy to pursue it without them.


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