Adams Girls of the Golden West
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February 2018 Adams Girls of the Golden West The latest collaboration between John Adams and Peter Sellars opened at San Francisco Opera in November and travels onwards to Dallas Opera and Dutch National Opera. “Girls of the Golden West is our state and our Sellars’s favoured approach of assembling a libretto country two centuries ago and now”. So wrote the from documentary and existing materials gives an Los Angeles Times, summing up the fusion of authenticity to the voices in the opera, whether locality and topicality in the new Californian opera Dame Shirley, the fugitive slave Ned, the Latina by John Adams, recently unveiled in San Josefa or the Chinese prostitute Ah Sing, though Francisco. With a title that echoes Puccini’s Gold the conscious distancing of action and interaction Rush opera, the new work plays out scenes only proved controversial for some reviewers. Positive a few hundred miles from modern Silicon Valley. responses included Limelight magazine which Featuring libretto and staging by Peter Sellars, the praised Sellars for his “dramatically cohesive and production saw a cast of emerging star vocalists searingly effective libretto… providing a poetic and including Julia Bullock, Davóne Tines and spicy text for Adams”. J’Nai Bridges. “Much of the opera, especially the first act, suggests that Adams is moving in a different direction in his “…a sweeping tale of the theatre writing. The orchestration seems lighter, the mad quest for fortune…” harmonies more transparent. The use of percussion and folk instruments lends a unique quality… Adams is New York Times second to none in his word-setting. As in earlier works, Adams’s choral writing finds the composer at his best.” Adams and Sellars researched the female and Financial Times racial perspectives missing from the usual Gold Rush narrative and, as noted by the Financial “Act II of Golden West is a juggernaut of cumulative Photo: San Francisco Opera/Cory Weaver Times, discovered parallels with our “era that menace – a structure similar to the transfixing countdown condones the soul-corroding search for wealth. in Doctor Atomic… choruses of restless miners, already John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West at San Francisco Opera, staged by Peter Sellars Sellars turned to documents of the period, ominous in Act I, become fully demonic… When this principally The Shirley Letters” written by Louise braying mob fixes its attention on Josefa, Ned, “…exciting stretches, conducted with crackling energy music for this haunting [final] scene – misty, restrained, Clappe in 1852 that “provide a detailed description and other people of color, it recalls the vengeful crowd and colour by Grant Gershon, certainly convey the yet swirling with inner intensity. Poignant and of the miners’ life in rural California, which yielded in The Gospel According to the Other Mary, Adams’s teeming wildness, racial animosity and lawless violence captivating... a bold attempt to write the great California wealth and despair in unequal measure”. Crucifixion oratorio.” The New Yorker that roiled the West… Adams has written extraordinary opera.” New York Times Rautavaara Gruber “A brand new concerto was the main event at the Borowski opening concert, written for the celebrated American In the Beginning 75th celebrations pianist Emanuel Ax. According to HK Gruber, the and Barenboim classic ‘Brahmspianist’ is something that does not When Finnish composer seem to particularly inspire him. Rather, it would be Einojuhani Rautavaara a barpianist from distant nightclubs vibrating with died in 2016, his final mesmerizing saxophones and strange rhythms. completed orchestral The concerto is charming and compassionate, work was awaiting its relaxing to stillness then building again to a joyous premiere. The seven- and sparkling finale… minute concert-opener “HK Gruber is the complete musician, from his start in In the Beginning was The Vienna Boys Choir and his years as a double bassist written at the request of to his successful transformation into composer, Photo: Priska Ketterer Pietari Inkinen and the conductor and cabaret singer.” Dagens Nyheter conductor is travelling Daniel Barenboim celebrated his 75th birthday with this season for first Further performances of the Piano Concerto are a new piano concerto by Johannes Boris Borowski. performances by scheduled next month in Paris with the Orchestre The maestro was at the keyboard for the first the international Philharmonique de Radio France under Joshua performance of the 20-minute score entitled Stretta, co-commissioners. Weilerstein and in Gruber’s home city with the with the Berlin Staatskapelle conducted by Zubin Vienna Symphony and Louis Langrée, both with Mehta. The new Borowski commission follows that of The world premiere took Ax at the keyboard. Encore, premiered under Barenboim’s baton in May place in Kaiserslautern Photo: Maarit Kytöharju/FIMIC Photo: Jon Super within opening events at the Boulez Concert Hall of in September with the Viennese celebrations of the composer’s 75th last the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken, month included a special concert with Gruber at Austrian composer HK Gruber, who celebrated the helm of the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra revealing a luxuriantly orchestrated miniature with Reviewing Stretta, the Berliner Morgenpost observed his 75th last month, has been enjoying a full diary at the Konzerthaus. The programme crossed a clear trajectory from veiled opening to blazing that “there’s no doubting the composer has used all of performances this season. The most extensive generations of composers most closely sunlight. The Asian and Finnish premieres followed the shades of colour this orchestra is capable of, as birthday feature has been the Composer Festival associated with Gruber – his teacher Gottfried von in November with the Japan Philharmonic well as each instrumental group’s potential for sonic at Stockholm’s Konserthuset in November, with Einem to launch his centenary year, colleagues Orchestra and Kymi Sinfonietta, next month sees and gestural attack.” nine of his works programmed including three Kurt Schwertsik and Friedrich Cerha and the the German premiere with the Gürzenich Swedish premieres. Reviewing the concerts, younger Bernd Richard Deutsch – plus Gruber’s “His compositional understanding is what distinguishes Orchestra in Cologne, and the Prague Symphony Expressen summed Gruber up wittily as “a own Aerial with star trumpeter Håkan Stretta, as demonstrated by the rich percussion writing gives the Czech premiere in June. chameleon whose stylistically fractured music Hardenberger as soloist. right up to a wind machine. Playfulness, tradition and the ranges from entertaining cabaret to explosive “From mysteriously dark string surfaces bright rays rise grotesque lead to a meditative soliloquy for the piano”. symphonic sound, often with a political Next month sees Gruber collaborating with up as if at the dawn of a sunny day. It is irresistible in its Der Tagesspiegel growth like Ravel’s Bolero and similarly abrupt in its final underbelly and ears pricked up.” Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt in a programme bar. The orchestral strings are so dense, so intricately featuring the Cello Concerto, Zeitfluren and the “Borowski’s 20-minute piece sometimes sounds filigree, interwoven by Inkinen, that In the Beginning could last German premiere of Deutsch’s Mad Dog. Back sometimes violent … The calm central point is the piano forever.” Saarbrücker Zeitung “…a colourful composer at home Gruber leads the Vienna Chamber from which, with runs, trills and powerfully concentrated Orchestra in two performances of Frankenstein!! single notes, Barenboim intervenes in the action, sometimes “A mystical piece that makes one think of the who writes colourful in April at the Konzerthaus. jumping up like a jazz pianist from his stool.” Der Neue Merker Representation of Chaos in Joseph Haydn’s Creation, music.” Aftonbladet but which also seems to shine light upon the Finnish natural world.” Opus Kulturmagazin The composer was joined on the rostrum by Inside this issue… The premiere recording of Rautavaara’s Sakari Oramo and Thomas Dausgaard, with Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra has been soloists Emanuel Ax, Colin Currie and Matthew released on the Avie label by its dedicatee Anne Barley and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Akiko Meyers and the Philharmonia Orchestra Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra and the Swedish conducted by Kristjan Järvi. Another late work, Chamber Orchestra. Repertoire ranged from his Into the Heart of Light for strings, has been classic Pandemonium for chansonnier and rapidly taken up by chamber orchestras with orchestra, Frankenstein!! to recent works including over 20 performances in seven countries to the percussion concerto into the open…, the Turnage Lindberg Willems Dean date and has been released on an Ondine orchestral suite Northwind Pictures drawn from his Interview explores Orchestral work Performances of Hamlet tours UK recording featuring the Helsinki Philharmonic 2005 opera Der Herr Nordwind and his Piano his new opera TEMPUS FUGIT ballet scores for and travels to and John Storgårds. Concerto, premiered last year in New York. Coraline in Helsinki William Forsythe Adelaide Festival B&H_QN_Feb_2018pp1234_V11_AB.indd 1 23/01/2018 10:07 Turnage Coraline opera takes the stage Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new operatic adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Kids will see it as an exciting adventure that can anyone better to grab together all of these themes trigger their imaginations