nadir and nadirer
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: March 9, 3:30 PM: After only 30 hours and on only the third try (or perhaps fourth, depending on how often you refresh the page), the New York Times has managed to report accurately the personnel and repertoire of a single selection at a concert that took place three days ago:Â
There’s still no trace of what you might call criticism here, but, hey, Bernard Holland filed four pieces this week (an average of over 200 words a day!), including this obviously labor-intensive listing:
“TRISTAN UND ISOLDE” (Monday) A much awaited “Tristan,†with Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner in the title roles, and with James Levine conducting, has evidently been so awaited that all seats are gone.
UPDATE: March 9, 11:30 AM: After more than 24 hours and surely dozens of emails from annoyed readers, the New York Times has finally “corrected” their blunder (see below) about the Opera Orchestra of New York’s “recent” gala concert:
La Cieca will congratulate the Times editorial staff for uncovering the well-kept secret that the duet “Mira d’acerbe lagrime” is in fact from Il trovatore and not from Bellini’s Norma. Further kudos are due for their investigative journalism in revealing that Dolora Zajick and Aprile Millo are the same person.
March 8, 11:48 AM: All right, it’s time either to euthanize Bernard Holland or else to find a nice farm out in the country where he can live out his few waning days. In this morning’s Times, the notoriously slovenly scribe types:
Shall we all say it together? The program was changed; Millo sang not Norma but Trovatore, opposite not Zajick but Stephen Gaertner.
Mere musical illiteracy might explain a reviewer’s confusion of Bellini’s best-known opera with a Verdi warhorse, but mistaking a bearded baritone for a mezzo-soprano who was on the same stage on a half hour previously requires either legal brain death or physical absence from the auditorium during a program he was assigned and paid to cover.
True, Holland’s gaffe is not so grave as to bamboozle a nation into a bloody and futile war, but, on the other hand, Judith Miller never mistook Sadaam Hussein for Valerie Plame.
2:00 PM: No correction yet in the online edition.
4:45 PM: Still no correction.
10:45 PM: Even now, no correction.
Wasn’t it George Bernard Shaw who made the quip about critics and eunuchs in the harem? As a music critic himself, it makes the joke funnier. We have similar blunders over here: a recent review of Cynthia Lawrence and Joseph Wolverton in Tosca at the Royal Albert Hall praised their Verdian phrasing! And the same critic was lampooned in the satirical magazine Private Eye for complaining that the audience had applauded during Webern’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, when, in fact, the short pieces had been played twice!
Meanwhile, TT describes Van Cliburn as sharing his Ft. Worth home “with a longtime friend” in TT’s 3/9/08 piece about the pianist. So every Sunday we are going to have a TT article that flits around the gay issue, as happened in last week’s Kwiecien piece? Then during the week TT continues nuts all over the newsprint in his reviews of hunky male singers? NY Times music critics = pathetic losers!
This sort of errors have been appearing on the NYT for quite a few years now. Henahan, Bernard Holland, and Midgette have all written blatant mistakes through the years. Actually, I still think that Henahan holds the record. He was awful. In my lifetime I can only think of two NYT reporters that I could trust: Bill Crutchfield and Harold Schonberg.
Along a similar line: Just a week ago Midgette’s obituary of Giussepe diStefano on The Washington Post started by saying that DiStefano was primarily known for his recitals with Maria Callas. This tells me that she knows just about nothing about recent operatic history or about DiStefano himself. DiStefano was a world-leading tenor years before Callas hit the international scene and for some years his was one of the truly glorious voices of the Century. If the tenor’s and soprano’s names are linked in the public image, it’s because of the many recordings that they made together.
I never trusted Harold Schonberg at the NY Times, and often found him very thick on the subject of opera. His low point was a 1971 review of a new TRISTAN at the MET – fabulously designed by Schneider-Siemsenn and appropriately staged by August Everding. Nilsson in particular was terrific, and Jess Thomas more than held up his end. Schonberg was enormously impressed by the staging – but attributed the entire production to the designer, as if a stage director didn’t exist. And he did so more than once during the review.
Rothstein got kicked upstairs when his 1992 review of a new ELEKTRA praised Behrens to the sky. The poor woman had been in distress the entire performance, and withdrew from the run, leaving the remaining performances to her standby. All other reviews either mentioned her poor vocalism or drew a veil of polite silence in respect of a valued artist having a bad time of it. Rothstein didn’t know the difference.
Paul (#24): On the other hand, we forgave Harry because he really did love baseball.
New York Times: Governor Spitzer caught in Norma duet with Aprile Millo.
Maybe it was the Norma duet with Gail Gilmore as Agdalgisa and Anita Bryant stepping in for Aprile Millo? Wait am I getting prior posts and old reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show crossed?
Parigi Times: Prior to her encounter with a Mr. Germont, Ms. Violetta V has acknowledged entertaining a certain Client 9. When asked by FBI agents to identify her most recent trysts, she burst into song: “Albany, Alfredo”.
Re: Atomic Wings post, let’s have an Opera with a Scarlet “A”? thread. (I’m talking about characters, not real-life singers…)
Cieca,
I am pleased that you are ruffling the New York Times. The Times looks just ridiculous. How can they expect to maintain any level of influence within the arts given this shabby reportage? They act like nobodies. Soon enough, it will not be confined to the internet; these things do have a way of taking on a life of their own. And rightfully so.