Anne Midgette の音楽評を読む機会が減っています．それは彼女が所属する Wall Street Journal が有料制になったからです．それに彼女がいうように，on vacation だったこともあります．
ここで取り上げているのは，今真っ盛りのSummer Festival ですが，まずワシントン周辺から始めています．starting with the DC area’s own national park for the performing arts, Wolf Trap, なのですが，それがかつてとすっかり変わったと書いています．もうクラシックから離れてきたというのです．although Wolf Trap used to offer the likes of Jessye Norman and Aaron Copland and Martha Graham and now offers things like Video Games Live and the Sing-along Sound of Music, it’s not Wolf Trap that’s changed．．．
何が変わったかが問題ですが，彼女は，Back in 1971, it was easier to find 7,000 people who wanted to hear Julius Rudel conduct a scene from Boito’s “Mephistofele” than it is, today, to fill a house with yet another all-Tchaikovsky program．と聴衆の嗜好が大きく変化したというのです．
今日では，満席の聴衆を集められるクラシック音楽家は，today there are only five classical artists who can reliably sell out a concert: Renee Fleming, Lang Lang, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, and Itzhak Perlman. (No one said these were the best artists, just that they were the ones with this particular kind of star power.)しかいないというのです．
そこで重要な問いかけは，The question of whether Wolf Trap could be more artistically ambitious, or satisfying, is another one. What are your thoughts on Wolf Trap’s programming, then and now? Do you regularly attend? And what are your thoughts on the declining numbers of classical-music superstars.
アメリカやヨーロッパ，そして日本や中国を含む各国が現在直面している経済的危機，とりわけその背景に各国政府財政が直面する放漫な赤字体質があり，これから世界的に緊縮財政を迫られるとすると，わが国の，放漫財政に乗った過剰な音楽ホール群，各種音楽団体群は，これからどう対応していけるのでしょうか？？？
巧みな，世界的？小澤征爾のＮＨＫ売り込みでつないできた松本フエスティバルでさえ，今年は，無名のヴェネズエラ出身指揮者のオーケストラ・コンサートのチケットが未だに売れ残っています．
3.11の大震災で，あっけなく崩落した最新式の川崎ミューザ・ホールを，川崎市が崩落の原因究明も報告しないまま，22億余の予算を計上して修復するそうですが，果たして，聴衆はそんなホールに詰めかけるのでしょうか？
余談にわたりましたが，国費を誤魔化して受領し続けた室内歌劇場問題も含めて，わが国のクラシック界も，いろいろな意味で再検討を迫られているのではないでしょうか？
Of Wolf Trap and other festivals
This blog has been taking an unannounced vacation this month. To help ease back into the swing of things, here are links to some coverage of the region’s summer festivals, starting with the DC area’s own national park for the performing arts, Wolf Trap, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer. In an article that runs in the print edition this weekend, I argue that although Wolf Trap used to offer the likes of Jessye Norman and Aaron Copland and Martha Graham and now offers things like Video Games Live and the Sing-along Sound of Music, it’s not Wolf Trap that’s changed: what’s changed is the nature of the basically middlebrow audience that Wolf Trap serves. Back in 1971, it was easier to find 7,000 people who wanted to hear Julius Rudel conduct a scene from Boito’s “Mephistofele” than it is, today, to fill a house with yet another all-Tchaikovsky program. I was particularly struck by hearing from several independent sources that today there are only five classical artists who can reliably sell out a concert: Renee Fleming, Lang Lang, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, and Itzhak Perlman. (No one said these were the best artists, just that they were the ones with this particular kind of star power.)
The question of whether Wolf Trap could be more artistically ambitious, or satisfying, is another one. What are your thoughts on Wolf Trap’s programming, then and now? Do you regularly attend? And what are your thoughts on the declining numbers of classical-music superstars.
