Criticultura em Portugal

Oddly, I had never before been to a Metropolitan Opera Live in HD performance until this month. This is mainly because I could see them live when I lived in the USA. I finally corrected this lapse, snagging the last remaining seat (!) in the 1200 seat Gulbenkian Auditorium for Verdi's  La Forza del Destino , the first new Met production in over 30 years, and only their 10th performance this century. More on that in a minute. First I will share my experience of seeing the Met live, but at a distance.  As you arrive in the auditorium the screen is showing slides of upcoming Met performances, rather like at a movie theater.    What you hear is the buzz of arriving guests at the Metropolitan Opera house in NYC, which is kind of a cool way of building excitement. The Gulbenkian auditorium filled, largely with older Portuguese people (seats cost about 20 euros) dressed as they would for any concert. You then see the orchestra arrive into the pit, and hear some interviews backstage, here

 The Oscars have come and gone, with a predictable blockbuster winning best picture. Hollywood seemed excited to have finally put COVID limitations aside, and was thrilled to have the summer hit "Barbenheimer" surgically-joined twins that got people into theaters (these twins need to be forevermore separated). But was it a good year for film, really? I don't think so. Of the 10 films nominated for best picture, I only really want to see a few again, and one excellent film didn't even get nominated. So here are my thoughts, with the 10 nominees grouped into clusters. At the end I will list these in my order of preference. What's your order? Ponderous, "Important" Movies: Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon Guys, I like many long movies. I was gripped by long movies as different as Lanzmann's  Shoah   (7+hours), Scarface ( 3 hours), and Titanic ( 2 hours, 40 minutes), and by the operas of Wagner, often clocking in at over 3 1/2 hours. The issue is

 Two recent concerts gave me mixed feelings about our premier local professional orchestra, the Gulbenkian. I continue to be impressed with the excellent ensemble and sonority, especially in the brass section. But one thing I am noticing is that unlike, say, the Vienna Philharmonic, this orchestra is not immune to conductor quality, and can be made to play in a meh or even shaky way when the conductor is deficient. So on the good nights, they are fantastic, and can equal my experience listening to world class orchestras. On bad nights, not so much.  This week's performance of the Mahler Symphony #1   in D major (1888) and the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor  (1866) was a good example. There are some idiosyncrasies of the Gulbenkian Auditorium and the Orchestra that many conductors manage to overcome. For example, the woodwinds and brass commonly overpower the strings, or a soloist. In the lovely Bruch concerto, the excellent soloist Karen Goymo, who plays regularly with orch

 In the past week I sampled some interesting and varied cultural fare in the area during the lead up to the Carnaval season here. Here are some quick impressions.  Theater: The best English language theater company in town is the Lisbon Players. Their most recent effort was Pussycat: in Memory of Darkness , a 70 minute monologue by Ukrainian playwright Neda Nezhdana (seen below), written to show the perspective of residents of eastern Ukraine during the devastating 2014 Russian invasion. This play was performed last year in London, and the Lisbon players imported the solo performer Kristen Milward for these shows. This playwright is seeing her plays performed around the world as companies seek to present the Ukrainian perspective of the ongoing war against Russia. This play was harrowing, and unrelievedly angry. Ms. Milward ably held the stage with a range of intense emotions, with text derived from interviews from real victims of the invasion. Unfortunately I eventually grew weary of

Last week I saw the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 ( Vespro della Beata Vergine) , done in an exciting performance at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon. I got to know this piece well when I performed it in the 1990s with the San Francisco Bach Choir. It was a thrilling experience then and now.  Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) needs to be better known and more performed in the general classical world. Among other things, this innovative genius wrote the first opera still in active performance ( L'Orfeo, 1607), is credited with transitioning music from the Renaissance to Baroque periods, and was the most important composer to establish through bass (basso continuo) as the basis of subsequent musical harmony and composition, replacing renaissance polyphony. His music wasn't performed much after his death (at least until its 20th century resurrection), but his influence continued in Italy, culminating a century later with Corelli and Vivaldi, and also in Germany, from Heinrich Schütz all the way

 Last week I survived a marathon listening experience, hearing six different ensembles play string quartets at the Gulbenkian String Quartet Festival over two afternoons. The quality was high, the hall full (mostly), and the price low (about 6 euros per concert). My brain was a bit scrambled by the end of concert #6, but I really enjoyed the playing overall, and heard some new pieces. I won't summarize each concert  in detail, but will instead try to group my impressions.  Who Played? In order of seniority, I  heard Minguett Quartet (Germany/Austria) founded 1988, 33 recordings Danel Quartet (Manchester), founded 1991, 23 recordings Jerusalem Quartet (Israel), founded 1993, 20 recordings Belcea Quartet (London), founded 1994, 14 recordings Simply Quartet (Vienna), founded 2010, no recordings Van Kuijk Quartet (Paris), founded 2012, 7 recordings Nicely, there was a range of ages and international presence. Most quartets had members from multiple countries, often with a common cente

 The concert by Lisbon's Gulbenkian orchestra last week featured three early twentieth century works of diverse affect, conducted by US guest conductor Robert Treviño. The contrasts made for a really enjoyable concert. The Faure Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) is a compilation from his incidental music to the symbolist Maeterlink play being premiered in London in 1898. The music is pleasant enough, more like a backdrop to an atmospheric video game. It nicely evokes the lovers wandering around in the mist, and most famous for the popsy flute-heavy  Sicilienne .  In this performance the flutist's tone did not quite have the depth and projection of the best performances. A pleasant opener, but better music on this subject is to be found in Debussy's 1902 opera. Completely different was the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand  by Ravel (1930). This is vigorous piece was composed for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein (brother of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig). Wittgenstein&#

The Christmas/New Years holiday is generally a boom period for choruses, one in which many see their largest audiences (and, in the US, income). Repertory varies. Besides the usual carols and regional songs, Handel's Messiah is the go-to piece in the USA, even though 2/3 of it has to do with death and resurrection, not Christmas. In much of Europe, Bach's Christmas Oratorio  is used instead, even though it is essentially six back-to-back cantatas with a tenor narrator, and makes for a very long evening. This season I saw two choral concerts which remarkably featured neither of the above. On my German trip, I took a daytrip from my base in  Hamburg to the old trading town of Lübeck, famed as the birthplace of novelist Thomas Mann, and where he set my favorite of his novels, Buddenbrooks (BTW, read it in the translation by John E. Woods). It's a charming old town with signs of its past wealth as a Hanseatic trading port--especially its four large churches, several damaged sev

On a recent trip, I had two Strauss opera experiences that could not have been more different: Johann's  Die Fledermaus  in Nürnberg, then Richard's Elektra in Vienna. Both were dynamic and entertaining, but in very different ways.  Johann Strauss II's  Die Fledermaus  ( The Bat) from 1874 is the most popular example of Viennese operetta, composed in an era when the Strauss family (and others) provided the frothy musical backdrop for Viennese society, including its new craze: the waltz. The title refers rather obscurely to a practical joke played in the past on one of the main characters, leaving him eager to get back at the perpetrator, thus driving the operetta's silly plot, which is replete with confused identity, gender-bending gestures, and lots of partying. I think a good production should be heavy on the fun, with a dollop of whipped cream..it's an operetta that influenced Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as American operetta composers of the 20th century. Unfor