Gone in sixty seconds
Out of nowhere, Santa Fe Opera’s chief conductor Frédéric Chaslin has resigned his position. “According to Santa Fe Opera’s press release, he cited his concert and recording commitments with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (which he joined as music director beginning with the 2011-12 season) and his desire to spend more time composing as reasons for his decision.” [Santa Fe New Mexican]
Excellent news, but you can be sure there’s more to this than meets the houseboat.
Wigglesworth’s the man!
Yes, QPF, why is this excellent news?
Have you been in SF for the past two years? I have, as well as the eight years previously. The improvement in the orchestra under Chaslin has been quite remarkable. One can quibble with some of his conducting (Tosca), but on the whole this is a serious loss. He is a genuine opera conductor…witness the two different performances of Maometto I saw this year. He dealt with an obviously indisposed Luca Pisaroni in one of them and was enormously supportive and responsive to the singer´s needs. In the subsequent performance, when Pisaroni was hitting on all eight cyliners (us Santafeans will get the allusion,lol) it was full steam ahead, and brilliant. This is what opera conducting is all about. Are you making these snap judgements of personal knowledge?
Dr. Malatempra, do you have any insight (or gossip) as to why Chaslin left? Or why Santa Fe can’t seem to hang onto its conductors? It does seem odd …
sorry to interrupt the discussion
but you have to listen to a sensationell CASTA DIVA by a young soprano from East Ostetia, now performing with the Bolschoi VERONIKA DZHIOEVA
enjoy it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDZfIyYCIoo&feature=related
Hey, K. Even better would be not to interrupt the discussion and put stuff like this in the “general” intermission thread, which this week is named “Remember me” and is only a few threads down, and is always available under whatever name. Believe me, it will get found. Big hug, (Cranky) Little Rory, who is clearly obsessed with The Rules!
http://tinyurl.com/cpo6lcl
LOL, so true!
sorry
Very nice Casta diva.
Thank you for your answer
next week ms. dzhioeva is perfoming JAROSLAWA in HAmburg. i will be there
Grüsse
kraneled
Why the photo of the young Bob Hoskins?
Well, Mr. Hoskins has also announced his retirement lately…
Quanto, why is this excellent news? Was Chaslin so bad at his job? (I haven’t been following his work.)
Also, isn’t this the second or third time in the past ten years or so that a conductor has made a quick departure from Santa Fe Opera? (I vaguely remember something similar happening with both Edo de Waart and Alan Gilbert.) What is it with that company and conductors?
Mr. Myster, who lives in Santa Fe, should know more about this issue.
Where are you???
Yes, let Mr. Mystery tell ALL.
I also noticed that Weir’s ‘Miss Fortune’ has been removed from the schedule for 2014 (no surprises there, after the London critics dismembered it) and replaced by Huang Ruo’s Dr Sun Yat Sen. I saw three scenes at one of NYCO’s workshops. Hmm. I wont’ comment. I guess there is a sort of retro-chic involved in this rather worthy exhumation of a political figure. Wouldn’t Shaporin’s ‘The Decembrists’ be more fun (nicer frocks) -- or Molchanov’s ‘The Dawns Are Quiet Now’ (not so much Commie-chic as Commie camp).
In any case, to replace an experienced pro not fully firing on all cylinders, with a newbie not quite sure where the ignition is, will be interesting to see played out.
oy, chazerai…….
You have no idea what restraint I am showing. I’ve been tempted to post, for comparison’s sake, some Western-style operas by Chinese composers that would make “The First Emperor” look like Don fucking Carlos.
Does anyone have the video (or audio) of Don fucking Carlos; I love Latinos!
So do I, let’s get that video out ipso facto
Now look what you have started, m.!!
Even I want to see THIS Don Carlos, done, I assume in good style, and by that I mean in the French tongue?
Well you surely must have meant in the Greek tongue
Or were you just trying to be a LADY?????
Marschallin II:
I am a mortifyingly epic failure at being a “Lady”, despite the best efforts of Beloved Nonna.
Pronunced as “incorrigible”.
I do, m.croche, I do -- I was at a premiere of a monstrosity (I have totally forgotten the title, and composer and everything) at the Beijing Egg -- it had Ying Huang in it, and it was about a fallen woman who brought down a dynasty -- oy it was so awful, Chinese Meyerbeer orchestrated by a buzz saw and marching soldiers straight out of Mel Brooks. One of those myriad occasions where one wants to screech ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theatre -- though the putonghua escaped me at the time.
Belfagor…
Sounds grim, but was it grimmer than SEA OF BLOOD?
(Woebegone opening)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zgQoG6dUmUE
(Rousing Conclusion)
Completists can find the middle sections on youtube (Also: you can activate the Russian subtitles by watching on youtube.) Libretto by the multi-talented Kim Il Sung.
One more try -- SEA OF BLOOD, Part the First
I’m sure THEATRE OF BLOOD is more fun …
Gee-whiz! Press the little “CC” button on the embedded “Sea of Blood” links and you can call up the Russian subtitles or even have them (machine) translated into the language of your choice. At long last, “Sea of Blood” is truly accessible to the masses worldwide.
By way of compensation…
O brother!! They revived this in 2005?? What is it -- Putin’s favorite opera? I remember, there’s a tune at the end that sounds like a monstrous coupling of ‘West Side Story’ and that theme from ‘Love is a Many-Splendored Thong’.
(sorry to have wrenched the thread off topic in 2 moves)
And I will wrench it in further. Just to let you know Mr. Belfagor, LA NAVE sails on October 29th and yours truly will be on board!
E la nave VA!!
Can’t wait!
Cheers from Camille
from the camp to the truly over the top and down the other side!
Better yet: how about a revival of Ivan Ivanovitch Dzerzhinsky’s And Quiet Flows theDon?
wasn’t that the Bieito production with watersports? They had a co-writer?
Dunno, but Stalin used to enjoy it very much when it was performed in the late thirties.
I saw the Brat in that when the Bolshoi played the MET. Or was that the dawns are quiet now?
At least in Santa Fe they notify the press and public when a music director has left…
Bravo, Signor Bruschino, you sly volpone!
Rumor has it that the maestro took Mr. Mystery to the house boat and Mystery has not been seen since.
Sig. Quanto: You are quite correct. Mr. M. is currently chef on a houseboat in the Seine and is no longer posting on Pasatiempo. He has asked me to refer you to Dr.
Malatempra “who is more or less on the right track.” There is a story behind the Chaslin matter that will likely emerge in the fullness of time. And, yes, he was
dismissed.
Mr M sends to you his compliments and bids you all farewell. There will be
no more.
Agent of Mr Myster
What’s this, Il tabarro?
Told you so !!!!
Frankly, I’d rather be on a houseboat on the seine than conducting anything!
Better in a houseboat on the Seine than insane on a houseboat.
…or even insane in a housecoat.
More changes in American Opera: this week, the Florida Grand Opera announced that they identified and hired their next General Director and CEO, Susan T. Danis (lured away from the Sarasota Opera, for which she is credited with raising more than 47 million dollars). Here’s hoping she make a clean sweep of things right from the start of her regime -- including replacing their present music director and other people who would be a hindrence to her success there. Some CEOs come in and don’t rock the boat, but that one is in desperate need of a captain who is also brave enough to make some heads roll. Good luck to her.