We Get the Culture We Deserve

The situation at the OC Register for Tim Mangan is very frustrating. He has been given the People section, dramatically reducing his time to devote to classical coverage. He is one of our country’s finest music critics working in a county that has a rich supply of classical music performances, many very significant. I guess we should be grateful that he still has a job. What I don’t understand is where is the outrage from our music public? The same goes for Opera Pacific, R. I. P. During these crazy times, if we don’t come forward we could lose really big. Contributions are, of course, important. More important is participating, buying a ticket and attending, bringing others. As someone once said, "we get the culture we deserve."

Respecting Your Food

On our ever expanding list of must watch films is Temple Grandin. Saw it last night. Claire Danes is the title character who is autistic and becomes an influential pioneer in the development of more humane treatment of cattle in livestock farms and slaughter plants, certainly important for foodies who, or need to develop, respect for what they eat.. I was not only bowled over by Claire Danes' performance but also by the score by Alex Wurman. The music at first reminded me of Philip Glass but takes it own emotional turns, perfectly matching the dramatic development. The work of both Danes and Wurman are among the 14 Emmy nominations garnered by the film. The award ceremonies are on August 29. The DVD is now out or you can go to HBO on demand and see it. Wonderful film.

On the subject of confronting and respecting your food, I urge all to read Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. It is the upbeat account of raising poultry, rabbits, pigs and bees in the middle of a rundown neighborhood in Oakland. It is hilarious, brilliant and especially poignant.

Life goes on somehow

As a new season is soon to be upon us, I am reflecting on this year 2010 and remembering the great personalities that have left us, people that meant a great deal to me and the music world in general.

Ernest Fleischmann died in June. He was one of the true giants of our classical music business. He has been eulogized by some of the best music chroniclers of our time. When I first came to Orange County, I received an angry phone call from him threatening to sue the Philharmonic Society if we persisted in using that name in L.A. Times advertising because it confused his LA Philharmonic patrons. We had recently changed our name from the Orange County Philharmonic Society to the Philharmonic Society of Orange County (Philharmonic Society for short). I responded saying that being sued by the LA Philharmonic over this would be the greatest piece of publicity imaginable for us. No matter how high the attorney fees, they would never surpass that amount we would have to pay a public relations firm to achieve the same amount of notoriety. He laughed and we became fast friends from that time forward.

Music critic Alan Rich was a one of a kind. When we would occasionally stick our neck out, he was there for us. Sometimes, he stood alone with us. He was a passionate writer, not always happy with what he heard in the concert hall.

A number of years ago, Mitch Miller and I had a huge squabble over the number of pops concerts he was to conduct the Rochester Philharmonic for which I was president. He was about to turn 80 at the time, and I was looking to the future at a time when I thought he might be ending his career. What a miscalculation! He just passed away, a year short of his 100^th birthday.

I was very saddened to learn of the death of Joan Murray in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was president of the Symphony and Opera Association when I was in my first stint there as an executive director. Joan was absolutely the most committed volunteer that I have yet to encounter. She was involved in everything and taught me a great deal from our hundreds of conversations.

Life goes on somehow. The music will never stop as long as we can all pick up the fallen harnesses left by these magnificent people and trudge onward. They did the same for us.

Opening Night of the BBC Proms

To wrap up our summer Philharmonic Society festival trip, we finished in London with a couple of plays – Warhorse and Pricilla, Queen of the Desert - and the opening night of the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall with a performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Here is a clip of that performance:

Youtube has disabled the embedding for this second video I want to share with you, so here is a link to another clip of the 2006 Proms final night conducted by my old friend Sir Mark Elder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ0oCmDXrVk

Food in London is great. Try St. John, J. Sheekey (the best seafood) and Just St. James (in early summer you have to have the Jersey gold potatoes and you will find Nutbourne Wine here).

Glyndebourne, East Sussex, England

Glyndebourne is the ultimate opera theme park. You are in beautiful East Sussex, 50 miles south of London, in countryside with fields of sheep, herds of deer, rolling downs and the occasional fox. Glyndebourne has superb productions in wonderful acoustics, dining at the long interval either in one of the restaurants or at a meadow picnic, and people- watching the fascinating, British opera goers, all right out of Central Casting. Weather permitting (which it did for us), the effect is a life experience. Here is our group of Philharmonic folks in one of our better pictures taken by our driver Graham, who is the best, by the way.

The vocal discovery of this trip to Glyndebourne – the Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee. His Macduff moment in Verdi’s Macbeth was stunning. He has a big voice and a passionate presence on stage. I missed him at the Bowl in Dudamel’s Carmen first of August. Reports from that performance echo my Glyndebourne experience. Check him out and keep him on the radar.

Look for and drink Nutbourne Wine while you are in Sussex.

Soprano Véronique Gens

Our Aix group also enjoyed a performance of Gluck’s Alceste conducted by our friend Ivor Bolton who has brought his Mozarteum Orchestra to us a couple of times. Soprano Véronique Gens was Alceste. What a gorgeous sound and superb acting! Here is sample of her remarkable voice as she sings Fauré’s beautiful Après en rêve (After a Dream). This was my first time to hear her live. Do you know of her voice?

Le Rossignol

Saw two amazing performances. The first was an evening of Stravinsky’s music staged by the genius Robert Lepage called "Le Rossignol e autre fables" (The Nightingale and other tales). LePage used finger puppets, mimes and even put the orchestra on the stage and flooded the orchestra pit where the action took place. Here is a video of Le Rossignol production we saw (click on the 3rd diamond in the time bar). Gorgeous music. Very unusual staging, reminiscent of Vietnamese water puppets. Please enjoy.