 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-04-02 15:23
(From the second link)
Quote:
Couldn't Slatkin have pulled this stunt at, say, a summer festival in mountains of Colorado? But the Met? In New York? Sheesh.
Am I the only one who finds this mildly odd? Are festivalgoers a lesser audience than New Yorkers? Doesn't every audience deserve a professional-style performance?
--
Ben
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Author: TonkaToy
Date: 2010-04-02 15:41
Slatkin may not be a great opera conductor and he may have had a rough go of it at the Met with this production of Traviata, but I think Mr. Tommasini of the Times lacks basic reading comprehension skills, is trying to make some sort of point, or just doesn't care for Mr. Slatkin.
He says in the first paragraph that Slatkin, "showed up for rehearsals not fully knowing the score" and that, "Mr. Slatkin conceded as much on his personal Web site".
He then quotes Slatkin's web site as saying that he (Slatkin), "had never conducted” this Verdi staple" and figured he, "would learn a great deal from the masters.”
I'd contend that "not knowing" is a heck of a lot different than "never conducted" and is categorically negative in intent.
Whatever the artistic merits of Slatkin's conducting of Traviata I think it's disingenuous at best to say that he "didn't know" the score.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-04-02 16:04
Considering Slatkin's vaste body of excellent work, I'm not worried about his career, his commitment, or anything else.
Check out his Vaughan Williams symphony cycle with the Philharmonia, if you can get your hands on a copy. It might be the best ever recorded, though it is unfortunately out of print.
As for opera, his understanding of Gershwin's Porgy & Bess--the necessary tautness of the counterpoint, etc.--has in my opinion never been matched.
Ricardo Muti once said that conducting Beethoven 9 for the first time is always terrifying: he had his debut on that piece with Philly. Everyone else on stage had, of course, performed it plenty of times. Sometimes when considering conductors and the difficult of the job, we clarinetists should slowly put our reed knives down and give the guys a break.
I applaud Slatkin for venturing into new ground (especially when he was originally slated to conduct a piece in his wheelhouse, which was slashed sue to budget constraints.)
Pax,
Eric
[edit: PS--oops...I posted this as a response when it should have been to the first post....still learning my way around here...now where is that light switch?]
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2010-04-02 16:05)
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2010-04-02 18:46
He was originally scheduled to conduct a different opera.
He also had a heart attack recently.
WAIT a SECOND
THIS JUST IN:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/arts/music/02slatkin.html
Well, that settles that, doesnt it.
He QUIT.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
Post Edited (2010-04-02 19:11)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2010-04-02 22:37
It comes out making Mr. Slatkin seem a little less blameworthy if you read his entire account on his blog (I read the entire 1st part, which the Times review quoted, but haven't had time to read subsequent parts yet). He certainly doesn't, for one thing, say that he was still unfamiliar with the actual content of the Traviata score when rehearsals began in New York. His self-doubts had to do with history, background, performance traditions and the like, areas that someone not steeped in the opera tradition (as he says he was not) would need to learn to produce a really authoritative reading. But Traviata was rather hastily substituted for an opera he had performed previously.
Sounds, as I read the Times review and his website, as if the real culprit was limited rehearsal on a standard piece that nonetheless requires more rapport among the performers than the schedule permitted to develop.
Karl
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Author: Ed
Date: 2010-04-03 00:04
I also suggest reading
http://www.leonardslatkin.com/
It gives some perspective to the situation.
While I was not there and have not heard the performance, I am reluctant to throw stones at such a well respected musician.
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Author: Gary Foss
Date: 2010-04-03 00:10
Tictactux, as someone who stage manages "one of those summer festivals in Colorado" I did notice the slight from Detroit.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-04-03 00:26
What do you expect when you only have to pay a couple of hundred dollars of a ticket, perfection or something like that. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-04-03 01:10
From the NY Times review:
>>By way of background, Mr. Slatkin had originally agreed to conduct John Corigliano’s “Ghosts of Versailles,” last performed at the house in 1995. Mr. Slatkin, the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and a champion of American music, had conducted Mr. Corigliano’s opera in Chicago.>>
>>But in a cost-cutting adjustment to the Met’s 2009-10 season, “The Ghosts of Versailles” was replaced with “La Traviata.”
>>
I live in Virginia and didn't attend the performance, but because the reviews describe specific technical problems, I'm inclined to trust the reviewers' ears. For a conductor to sign on for Corgiliano and then get that old chestnut, the triviata, oops, I mean "La Traviata,"dropped on him from on high must've been ... interesting. I'd be curious to know exactly when the management pulled this switcheroo. How much time did Mr. Slatkin have to get ready? Rumor hath it that Angela Gheorghiu is a willful diva, challenging to conduct under the best of circumstances.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2010-04-03 22:07
I prefer the word of Slatkin to that of the world's crummiest major newspaper and its lazy reporting staff -- (and, by the way, I have 50 years' experience with some much better news organizations than the Times). Having some personal experience of the opera world, and having read Slatkin's blog, I think he was coping very nicely until the Times put the boot in. And tell me, what conductor hasn't had to conduct something unfamiliar for the first time?
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2010-04-03 22:30
DavidBlumberg wrote:
"Beejay - my sister in law would argue that point with you.
She's their managing editor."
...I'm failing to see how this proves anything...
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Author: beejay
Date: 2010-04-03 22:30
David,
I'd argue the point with her, sure, and with anyone else. The review in question is a typical example of its slipshod reporting.
BJ
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2010-04-03 23:50
Since Lenny and I were room-mates at Juilliard, I have always respected & admired him as a person & great musician. I also lived near the "old Juilliard" on Claremont Ave. with Lenny's brother Freddie Slatkin (now Zlotkin), a principal cellist with the NYC Opera.
They both come from a very talented family of famous LA musicians:
Felix Slatkin, their father, a conductor of the Hollywood Bowl & violinist with the Hollywood String Quartet
Eleanor Aller Slatkin, their mother, a cello soloist on hundreds of LA studio movies.
Lenny has had recent health issues, but I have been assured that it will not affect his busy conducting schedule or professional engagements.
His most recent performance at Juilliard bears out his prowess with the great American composers he has championed for so long.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/arts/music/03schuman.html?ref=arts
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2010-04-04 00:04
Beejay and Clarinight - the NYTimes is one of the very few papers left that is a leader in the field if not THE leader in the field. It's easy to take shots at them, and sometimes they certainly do deserve it, but it is a world leader of the News.
I'll bet even Sarah P. reads it.......
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2010-04-04 01:27
David, you misunderstood. I was not defending Beejay's assessment of the Times; only pointing out a very obvious flaw in your "argument" against him.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2010-04-04 02:38
David said:
"I'll bet even Sarah P. reads it......."
Wow, I didn't know that they had an easy reader edition!
;-)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2010-04-04 18:59
David Blumberg wrote:
Quote:
Beejay - my sister in law would argue that point with you.
She's their managing editor.
John Moses wrote:
Quote:
Since Lenny and I were room-mates at Juilliard.... I also lived near the "old Juilliard" on Claremont Ave. with Lenny's brother Freddie Slatkin (now Zlotkin)
Well, I got both you guys beat....'cause I actually AM Mike Nichols!
(well, OK, not THAT Mike Nichols.... I've had enough people "ask about Elaine," though, that I just couldn't resist)
Seriously, though, the degrees of separation here are shorter than you think. I don't read the NYT, but I have nothing but respect for their associate managing editor, who just happens to play the clarinet. (hint, hint)
Slatkin probably just had a bad night. It happens to everyone...even to the best. Opera's pretty unpredictable, anyway--it's a whole different world from symphonic music, and much more difficult to rehearse thoroughly.
When I was an undergraduate, the St. Louis Symphony put on a concert at our university. Slatkin conducted half of it and Peter Maxwell Davies the other half (conducting his own pieces). It was a great concert--probably the best that season (I had season tickets from the university's performing arts society). We in the audience not only enjoyed the music, but we learned a lot from both maestros, who took time to talk about each piece they played.
Come to think of it, it was probably one of the very last ones he conducted as music director in St. Louis, because it was about that time he left St. Louis to conduct the National Symphony.
Post Edited (2010-04-04 19:04)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-04-05 12:07
This morning's Washington Post Style section has a brief report, titled "Slatkin replaced on Met podium." The first sentence says that >>...conductor Leonard Slatkin was given the boot. The former National Symphony Orchestra director was replaced by Marco Armillato after his disastrous debut Moday: Slatkin was savaged in the opening-night reviews....>>
That's crappy reporting (aside from the incorrect pronoun reference...), because it indicates, incorrectly, that the Met fired Slatkin, when in fact he quit. Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger wrote this short "Reliable Source" item. Apparently they based it on something reported by the Post's classical music critic, Anne Midgette. (How? Where?) The article says nothing whatsoever about the fact that Mr. Slatkin took the job on the premise that he was being hired to conduct John Corigliano's "Ghosts of Versailles."
I'm not the biggest fan of Mr. Slatkin. He wasn't altogether successful here in Washington, D.C.. Still, I'm a critic myself (currently, I review movies, books and DVDs and write feature articles for Scarlet and for Van Helsing's Journal) and I know unfair reporting when I see it. That Post article stinks.
None of the reporting I've seen has revealed *when* Mr. Slatkin found out about the substitution of La Traviata. It seems to me that's crucial information. I wouldn't expect anybody to conduct a full-length, demanding, verissimo opera brilliantly on short notice. But was it short notice? Days? Weeks? Months? A year? If the reports don't tell readers how long Mr. Slatkin had to prepare, then it's impossible to know whether or not these other critics are being fair to him.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2010-04-05 12:11)
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Author: JJAlbrecht
Date: 2010-04-05 14:10
I can't imagine that the Met simply decided three days or so before the curtain was to go up, that they were changing the opera to perform for that part of the season. After all, there is casting, rehearsal, costuming, set design and construction, publicity, program printing... the list goes on. And they all take time to accomplish!
While I have no doubt the Times (and other news outlets) did Slatkin a disservice, nobody has yet indicated how much notice the Met gave Slatkin to prepare for the change of program. It would be inexcusable NOT to inform him as soon as they had made the decision.
Jeff
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-04-05 19:32
>>I can't imagine that the Met simply decided three days or so before the curtain was to go up, that they were changing the opera to perform for that part of the season. After all, there is casting, rehearsal, costuming, set design and construction, publicity, program printing... the list goes on. And they all take time to accomplish!
>>
All true, but one of the reasons the Met selected this particular production of La Traviata was because it's a re-run. The Met has performed this Franco Zeffirelli production of Traviata before. The company already owned outright or owned the licenses on the costumes and sets, and could recycle much of the artwork and ballyhoo for publicity. Re-using all that stuff saves a great big wad of money, not only for the materials but for many hours of labor at union wages.
I don't know how long it takes to pull the Zeffirelli Traviata out of the basement, but if the singers and musicians have performed the work before, they can mount a revival production in a shockingly short time. When I worked as a temporary employee (from Echelons Office Temporaries) at the Metropolitan Opera in 1966, the Hamburg Statsoper came to town with Wagner's Lohengrin packed up in crates (okay, the singers probably didn't come in the crates, but...), unpacked the lot and gave one of the best opera performances I've ever attended, on a spectacularly-appointed stage, less than two weeks after landing in New York. Oh, and they followed that with a similarly excellent performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and another opera in the same series. (I was a lowly gofer, what we called a "Girl Friday" in those days, hand-schlepping messages back and forth between the Hamburg people and the National Council fundraising offices. A fringe benefit: employees could stand in line for the unsold tickets, free of charge, handed out a few minutes before the curtain.) Staging those productions from scratch would've taken months.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2010-04-05 21:40
This isn't the place for me to argue my (long-held) views about what I think is the sheer awfulness of the New York Times. I confine myself to the article in question. The writer failed to obtain a quote from Slatkin, and failed to obtain an explanation from the Met, which I assume has a spokesman available at any hour.
There were two sides to this story, and Lelia has pointed out some of the unanswered questions. The fact that the reporter didn't even begin to dig beneath the surface is merely a further example among dozens of why I dislike the Times.
And David, your sister-in-law could start the argument by explaining why the Times writes half its headlines backwards.
BJ
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Author: awm34
Date: 2010-04-05 23:48
I've followed Tommasini's criticism for several years and don't remember any similar denigration. My wife and I have fond memories of a program he presented on Virgil Thomson at BAM 8-10 years ago -- a mixture of personal anecdotes (Tommasini had worked for Thomson) and music.
Alan Messer
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Author: mrn
Date: 2010-04-06 00:17
beejay wrote:
Quote:
I confine myself to the article in question. The writer failed to obtain a quote from Slatkin, and failed to obtain an explanation from the Met, which I assume has a spokesman available at any hour.
But it wasn't a news article--it was a music review. The only purpose to the piece was to present the music critic's opinion, not to report about the news.
In this case, it just so happened that the critic thought Slatkin appeared as unprepared for the performance as the blog suggested he might be. But, in both cases, that's the critic's opinion, which is really the only thing that matters in a music review. The whole point of a review is to present the reviewer's subjective experience.
In fact, I can't say I've ever heard of a music critic (in any publication) interviewing a musician or an opera company about what went wrong in a bad performance. It's probably a good way to get punched in the face.
Post Edited (2010-04-06 00:18)
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2010-04-06 17:34
The upshot of alot artistic problems is when a conductor come to a score with different ideas.
Sometimes so different because the group or ensemble has never learnt the piece this way.
In opera I am completely disgusted with how world over there is what called"standard" interpretations. Ie. Alot of Italian operas are played this way.
Years and years of this has gone on. This may not be the fault here, but some groups can't take it when a new interpretation come along..meaning instead of three in one..no rits..larger dynamics etc. This means having to be flexible etc..maybe some of is both..Slatkin and the Met. I will say one thing..Leonard Slatkin is a very fine musician and does not deserve to be the butt of this either.
When Harnoncourt started conducting modern instrument groups in Europe some orchestras could not get the hang of it all. Style is such a big part of the art of music.
It is possible there is artistic impasses from time to time. Karajan in Vienna in the early 60s did not work..not because of one thing but because of huge differences on artistic matters. In fact the Vienna State Opera has had alot of difficulty with conductors is an historical fact.
I also think Slatkin is a superb conductor..if not one the best American born conductors about these days. How much personal health figures into one can guess. But I would add I think there are two sides to this one and we have yet to hear both.
David Dow
Post Edited (2010-04-06 17:43)
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Author: beejay
Date: 2010-04-06 22:02
I think a good critic -- like Alex Ross of the New Yorker -- informs the reader as well as giving his or her opinion. The Times article contained no useful information.
A critic is -- or should be -- a variety of reporter, and if he or she pans a good artist who has dedicated a lifetime to music, the public is at least owed a constructive and informed argument. That's the way its done at good news organizations
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Author: JJAlbrecht
Date: 2010-04-06 23:08
>>That's the way its done at good news organizations
But we're dealing with the NY Times, here. Not a real news organization. At least not for the past 20 or so years
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2010-04-06 23:37
There is always alot more to these stories than the headline. I think it makes for good shock reading. It does nothing to undermine Slatkin whatsoever, who is one of the finest conductors about these days. He took St. Louis and made it into a world class orchestra very quickly. His work with the London Philharmonic and various other groups is consistent..on the excellent side of consistent.
If anything it points to an internal problem with the production itself and the forces involved. Am I a Slatkin fan ...not really but when someone yields such excellent results where ever he goes I cannot but have deepest respect. If anything Slatkin may come out the winner over time on this one.
David Dow
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Author: Mcgillab
Date: 2010-04-23 20:30
Hi Everyone,
Inside info!! I meant to respond to this post a while ago. Funny enough most of what Tommasini wrote was actually correct. It was like he was a member of the staff and orchestra with all of the info he had. I won't go into to much negative detail because I also have a lot of respect for one of great American conductors. I'm not sure about the exact timing but we knew long before the season and long before these Traviatas that Ghost of Versailles had been cancelled. Time wasn't the issue I don't think. Who knows the reasons but I'm shocked that it even made it to opening night because we all knew, from the orchestra to the singers, to the staff, what the result would be. Sometimes we end up saying yes to things that maybe we should have thought about a bit longer. So in that case I will definitely think twice about playing unnamed difficult clarinet concerto, with unnamed symphony orchestra, after having never played said piece, at the last minute.
Anthony McGill
Principal Met Opera
anthonymcgill.com
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-04-23 20:47
Quote:
Sometimes we end up saying yes to things that maybe we should have thought about a bit longer. So in that case I will definitely think twice about playing unnamed difficult clarinet concerto, with unnamed symphony orchestra, after having never played said piece, at the last minute.
But aren't these imponderabilities what makes a live performance a more adventurous, rewarding in its own way, project (for both the players and the audience) than say take #37 on some recording, however, uhm, original the first or however excellent the latter may be?
--
Ben
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Author: Mcgillab
Date: 2010-04-28 05:06
I think you are absolutely correct tictactux. I think that it is important to have performances that are in the moment, not striving for perfection, just enjoying the performance. But on the other hand being caught off guard and being in a situation that does not produce a quality of music making that is desirable should not be the goal, at least in my opinion. I don't perform perfectly every single time but I strive to be better each time and present a performance that I will be pleased with, the emotional content will be clear and the listeners will enjoy. Like I said, this was probably just a scheduling mishap for him and does not reflect on his musicianship but if the goal is to maintain a high standard of art and provide a high level of enjoyment for the audience then shouldn't it be important to try to be prepared for the project.
Also to mention this was not an amateur operation where everyone is there to just have fun on a project. It is something that people pay lots of money to hear and see and that the conductors performers and musicians get paid a lot of money to present to the public. Part of the reason critics are important (albeit not always correct) is the they help to comment on this subjective standard. Yes everyone should have fun but if it isn't fun for the audience or artists because of the quality then it probably should not be advertised as high art and organizations have to regroup and figure out other options as they did in this case.
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