The time is right, says opera mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, seen here in the Richard Tucker Gala, to put women composers in the spotlight. Photo by Dario Acosta
“Being able to do a brilliant piece by a female composer written in my own language — it feels very much like home,” said mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton.
Barton, a young American opera singer whose sumptuous voice is being compared to that of legends such as Kirsten Flagstad, was discussing the recital program that she will sing for Matinée Musicale next week. Cincinnati is a stop in her five-concert tour that began in December at Carnegie Hall.
Notably, half of her selections are by women: Elinor Remick Warren, Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Amy Beach and Libby Larsen. Even though women are gaining more recognition in classical music than perhaps ever before in history, it’s still remarkable to find concert programs that include very much, if any, music by women.
The time was right, Barton felt, to put women in the spotlight.Read More »
James Levine. Photo courtesy of the Met Orchestra.
The Cincinnati May Festival has canceled the appearance of James Levine this May following allegations over the weekend of sexual misconduct that began in the 1960s.
The festival announced on Monday that the performance of Verdi’s Requiem will take place as scheduled on May 18, 2018. A replacement conductor will be announced at a future date.
The festival’s decision followed news that the Metropolitan Opera has suspended Levine after reports surfaced that he had allegedly molested at least three young men for years, according to the New York Times.
Levine, now 74 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is a native of Cincinnati, where he began his musical training and was a graduate of Walnut Hills High School. He was scheduled to open the festival on May 18 with Verdi’s Requiem, a work that he conducted in New York on Saturday, which was broadcast live over public radio from the Met.
Levine was May Festival music director from 1973 to 1978. His last appearance at the festival was in 2005. His appearance was to have celebrated the return of the May Festival to Music Hall after its $143 million renovation.
The New York Post broke the news on Dec. 2 about a 2016 Illinois police report detailing the allegations of sexual abuse of a then-teenage musician in 1986, while Levine was music director at the Ravinia Festival outside of Chicago. Peter Gelb, general director of the Met, told the New York Times that, at the time, Levine had denied the accusation and the Lake Forest Police Department did not follow up.
However, in graphic accounts reported by Michael Cooper in the Times online edition on Sunday, two more men have come forward to allege sexual misconduct with Levine when they were teenagers.
Levine is one of the most celebrated conductors in America. Salacious rumors have swirled around his private life for decades, but he has consistently denied any wrongdoing. According the Times, Gelb said that the Met had investigated allegations twice previously during Levine’s 40-year tenure at America’s most important opera house.
Levine has been a beloved figure at the Met, where he has conducted more than 2,500 performances. Now confined to a motorized wheelchair after widely-publicized health problems, he stepped down to become music director emeritus last year.
The Met has canceled his upcoming conducting engagements.
Juanjo Mena leads his first season as May Festival principal conductor this May.James Levine. Photo courtesy of the Met Orchestra.
Maestro James Levine, a Cincinnati native, will return to conduct Verdi’s Requiem for the Cincinnati May Festival opening night in May, as part of principal conductor Juanjo Mena’s first season. It will be Levine’s his first appearance in Cincinnati’s Music Hall since he conducted at the festival in 2005.
In addition, the season will feature tributes to Leonard Bernstein, whose centennial is being observed around the world in 2018. The celebrated countertenor David Daniels, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, will be featured in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms in one of the programs.
Mena’s debut festival, to take place May 18-26 in the newly renovated Music Hall, was announced on Monday via Facebook Live — a first for the festival. Dr. Rollo Dilworth, a Temple University conductor composer and choral music champion, will serve as Mena’s creative partner, as part of the festival’s new artistic model. The third member of the creative team is Robert Porco, longtime director of choruses.Read More »
It’s been a privilege. I can truthfully say I have loved every minute of writing about the arts in Cincinnati for the Cincinnati Enquirer. I am thankful to you, the readers of both print and digital, the people who have called me, written letters, followed me on social media, come up to me at Music Hall to say hello or to talk about music, and who have taken my OLLI class, “Behind the Scenes in the Arts.”
It has been a wonderful, totally unexpected ride that became 26 years almost overnight.
From the first day that I walked into the newsroom, never having taken a journalism course, I was starstruck by the people who worked there. What talent and creativity! In those days, I filed a review right after the symphony concert on Friday nights, which meant I raced to my car behind Music Hall, tore Downtown to the Enquirer building while forming the opening lines in my head, and wrote on a deadline of 45 minutes with a copy desk editor barking, “Where’s that review?” Loved those late-night editors, who would fix my typos and write the headlines. The best one described a pianist, to be nameless here, who slogged through a bizarre performance of Rach 2: “(Pianist) phones it in — From Mars.” I was usually home by 2 a.m. and the review was in the morning paper.
With James Conlon and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and May Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall, May 2014; photo provided by Spring for Music, Steve Sherman
But besides the reviews, I have loved writing stories about people. Sometimes I think that the whole artistic world has passed through Cincinnati. I’ve interviewed and met opera stars, violin legends, conductors, composers, crooners, rockers and movie stars. I couldn’t believe going backstage at the Met to interview Cincinnati’s own James Levine, who had pictures of his childhood home behind his desk. He knew everything happening in the Queen City. His mother, Helen, it turned out, had been sending him all of my clippings.
Then there was Rosemary Clooney. Driving down to Augusta, Kentucky, with photographer Craig Ruttle to spend time in her home was unforgettable. Later, John Kiesewetter, Jim Knippenberg and I covered her funeral. Yes, there were Hollywood stars. But more touching were the folks of Maysville who came out to bring their “girl singer” back home.
With rocker Peter Frampton in his studio at his Indian Hill home talking about his gig with the Pops.With Rosemary Clooney and her husband, Dante DiPaolo
When Erich Kunzel died in 2009, I was proud that Reds announcer Marty Brennaman mentioned during the game the next day that The Enquirer had done a nice job on his obituary. Early that morning, I was interviewed on NPR about the Cincinnati Pops maestro, and the force of nature that he was. And about a week later, I was on tour in Japan with the CSO. On a day off at the mountainous shrine of Nikko, a man in my tour group said as we ate lunch, “Cincinnati. I heard you just lost a conductor there.” He’d heard my interview, 6,000 miles away.Read More »
I can’t believe the fall season is upon us. I am getting season lineups daily in my inbox, and I’m going to try to post many of them on this blog.
First up is the 104th season of the venerable Matinee Musicale, which has launched the Cincinnati debuts of hundreds of major artists. Mark your calendars:
Sept. 18: Cellist Amit Peled performs a Tribute to Casals. The Israeli musician will perform two recitals on his historic Gofriller cello (1733) that once belonged to the eminent Pablo Casals, loaned to him by Casals’ widow Marta. His program features music the legendary cellist frequently performed in recitals. Sunday, Sept. 18, 3 p.m., at Anderson Town Center (7850 Five Mile Road, Cincinnati 45230),
On Monday, Sept. 19, the personable Peled will offer a lecture/recital, “Journey with My Jewishness,” discussing his personal, musical and spiritual evolution. His program will include traditional numbers as well as Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei,” Mark Kopytman’s “Kaddish” and Ernest Bloch’s three scenes “From Jewish Life.” Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m., a program presented jointly with the Isaac M. Wise Center (8329 Ridge Road, Cincinnati 45236), Read More »
Soprano Nadine Sierra made her Cincinnati debut in recital at Matinee Musicale. Bryan Wagorn at the piano. Photo by Gayna Bassin.
Soprano Nadine Sierra had won the hearts of everyone in the room even before she sang her encores in Sunday’s recital for Cincinnati’s Matinée Musicale. Then she gave such a ravishing account of Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro,” that no one in the audience dared to breathe.
How lucky that Matinee Musicale, Cincinnati’s distinguished, 103-year-old daytime music series, was able to book Sierra, a stunning singer who seems poised on the brink of a major career. The 27-year-old made her Metropolitan Opera debut this year as Gilda in “Rigoletto.” Perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that she was the youngest ever to win the grand finals of both the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Marilyn Horne Competition.
So there was great anticipation for her recital, which she performed with an accomplished pianist Bryan Wagorn, who is an assistant conductor to James Levine at the Met, in the radiant surroundings of the Westwood First Presbyterian Church. Read More »
You probably saw the news that James Levine, 72, is stepping down as music director of the Metropolitan Opera after 40 years, for health reasons. He will finish the remainder of his very busy season, and continue as music director emeritus, the first ever position at the Met. He has struggled with Parkinson’s Disease for some time, and has had other severe health issues, as well.
Levine is a Cincinnati native, and having lived in Cincinnati for most of my adult life, I have learned that just about everyone here a) knew his parents b) heard him play piano as a child, or c) went to Walnut Hills High School with him. Read More »
