Back story
So, was anyone at Saturday night’s performance by the Boston Symphony? How’s James Levine doing with that back problem? And doesn’t it seem that a maestro who has had a history of delicate health should maybe at this point decide whether he wants BSO or the Met — particularly when both these organizations have elaborate and difficult programs to be prepared and presented simultaneously — because, obviously, early this week, something had to give, and what “gave” was the Met.
Or — stop La Cieca if she’s wrong here — isn’t it important that the second night subscribers get the same conductor who brought his halo-encircled visage to the podium on the night all the furs, nose jobs and critics were in attendance?
And, further, how much howling would we hear (and rightfully so!) if, say, Angela Gheorghiu or Anna Netrebko sang opening night, then called in sick for the second performance, meanwhile doing an out-of-town engagement?
If the job at the Met is too much for the maestro to handle, isn’t it time to find someone else to handle it?
THe conductor thing just gets more and more unreasonable all the time, everywhere.
The Utah Symphony just announced its new conductor, Thierry Fischer, who will continue to hold conducting posts at BBC Wales and Nagoya (!?!) WTF? You have got to be kidding me. It’s so so stupid this kind of satellite leadership.
He really is having back trouble.
(1) Squirrel @ 2: What “salacious insinuations”? I defended Levine in saying that there may have been agreements to spare his health (and sanity) during that week. The idea that we need someone “younger” flies in the face of the whole history of conducting, in which the greatest achievements have often been reached those those much older than Levine.
(2) I can only laugh at the “sheeple” and “far Left” claims about my little analogy (which I said was not a real parallel, but an illustration of something that can happen). No less a Tory than Andrew Sullivan has laid out what the U.S. has just achieved with regard to Iran, in the Sunday Times of London. As he points out, it is laughable to compare his strategy or tactics in any way with the bullying and alienation with which Bush treated the Iranians. And the results are very different as well:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6850643.ece
Clearly some neon-cons have been victims of the rope-a-dope as much as the tyrants in Tehran.
Maybe Maestro Levine realized that there wasn’t time to grab an “after the fast”, nosh, and high-tail it out of concluding Services at schul, before tonight’s Curtain…?…lol..!
ALTO
2. Whatever, you criticized the Cieca for spreading unfounded rumors; then you offered your own rumors and admitted you lacked “hard facts”. That’s all!
3. Either I find your digressions on Iranian politics funny, or I find them really inappropriate here. Which is it? Either way, can u refrain?
good one, brooklynpunk
which sins do you think Jimmy needed to most atone for this year?
discuss !
Alto: Peace in our time, dear. Or “I don’t really know the facts of the case but I think they acted stupidly.”
Quote of the year?
Squirrel, my small aside for comparison was in no way argumentative. But the name-calling, silly “peace in our time” references, etc. most certainly are. So they have raised a political subject that should not be allowed to rest on lies. Here’s another pointed claim along the same lines that I took for granted, from the extreme right-wing Washinton Times. I hope this suffices to clear the record that I was not trying to make some crazy left-wing point. In any case, with it I rest my case as a defendant:
“Mr. Obama’s disclosure Friday that Iran had a secret nuclear facility and that he had known about it since taking office introduced a new way of looking at many of his decisions since January. ‘You have to go back and look at the nine months and all the moves he’s made since then, and that he knew Iran was lying to him, and he still went ahead with it,’ said Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a Washington advocacy group devoted to eliminating nuclear weapons from the world .’He played Iran perfectly, to isolate Iran, unite all the other countries around him, with an open hand to Iran, and then he springs the trap.’ Not only did the president look strong, he looked cunning,” – Jon Ward, Washington Times.
Levine’s selective back problems make it quite clear that it’s the new production of Tosca that’s the cause of the pain. This has nothing to do with scheduling. It’s the only way Jimmy has of making his feelings known. Not good, I’d say, but them’s the facts.
As for rehearsal requirements, that’s all efficiently planned as well. Levine and the BSO did the Mozart Requiem at Tanglewood in July.
I sang in the chorus for Saturday night’s BSO performance. Two clarifications/comments:
1. @phf655: I also sang our performance of the Symphony of Psalms back in 2005, and I can tell you that Levine’s range of motion was a thousand times better than in the earlier performance. He certainly wasn’t conducting as extravagantly as he did for Les Troyens, but that’s understandable.
2. @phf655 (and @BillyBoy): The original rehearsal schedule was an all day rehearsal Friday and a Saturday morning rehearsal. There were never rehearsals scheduled on Thursday. These were works that both the orchestra and chorus know quite well. (@BillyBoy, the last time we did the Mozart was in 2006 at Tanglewood; we performed the Brahms Requiem this summer.)
I’m surprised at the lack of charity and the level of conspiracy theory driving this discussion, and hopefully the news about the Maestro’s back surgery lays to rest any theories that his trouble last week was “selective.” If the Met fans don’t want him in New York, we’ll gladly take him for keeps in Boston, but somehow I don’t think that one orchestra would be enough for Jimmy.