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Sibelius in the Sahara
Re “Sibelius in the Sahara,” by Beeri Moalem—
What a great story! The clear vision of splendor and pain provides me all the pleasure without the airfare and makes my armchair a magic carpet.
Reed Stevens
Campbell, Calif.
May 21, 2008
When I read Beeri Moalem’s sentence about listening to Dylan in an art museum, this lyric from Visions of Johanna came to mind:
"Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles....;"
Dan Coren
Queen Village
May 25, 2008
WPRB in Princeton
Re “WPRB: My favorite radio station,” by Dan Coren—
WPRB is the best station in the region. I only wish I could tune it in at my current house. The Broad Street Review is a great publication. I’ll definitely keep reading. Best of luck!
Marilyn Bess
Philadelphia
May 26, 2008
Eschenbach’s mysterious failure
Re “Eschenbach’s mysterious failure,” by Dan Coren—
Thanks for writing about this mystery, as I know how many people it confounds.
I will miss Christoph Eschenbach. He was a true artist and gentleman, especially when Peter Dobrin and the whiney musicians ganged up on him.
Karen Mauch
Philadelphia
May 22, 2008
Editor’s note: For another perspective on Eschenbach’s departure by Robert Zaller, click here. Also see my Editor’s Notebook.
Vanity House’s Phèdre
Thank you so much for Jim Rutter’s review of Vanity House Theater’s production of Phèdre. However, I must correct one thing. My husband, William, and I are merely auxiliaries to, and avid supporters of, the work at Vanity House, although William did direct Phèdre. Kristi Good and Chris Braak are the theater’s co-artistic directors and the ones who will, undoubtedly, move it forward successfully.
Deborah Braak
E. Norriton, Pa.
May 20, 2008
Eurydice
Re “Eurydice at the Wilma”—
While I agree wholeheartedly with Anne Fabbri in her praise of Toby Twining’s music, I think she is accidentally misleading in her comment that Blanka Zizka "added this element to the original off-Broadway production." The phrase is misleading for two reasons.
First and most important, it seems to indicate confusion on Fabbri’s part between "production" and "script." In the theater, "production" refers to what the French named mise en scène, the physical actualization of the play’s text-- direction, design, acting. The Wilma is not presenting the Second Stage production with added music; it is producing a new envisioning of the play, which has nothing in common with the Second Stage production except Sarah Ruhl’s words.
A secondary question comes with Ms. Fabbri’s use of the word "original" itself. The Second Stage production was not the first production of the play: that credit goes to Madison Rep in Wisconsin, last summer. And Second Stage was not the first place where that production of Eurydice last summer was staged: The excellent production directed by Les Waters had previously been performed in Berkeley and at Yale. Waters, the designers and most of the cast continued through to the Second Stage production, with the role of Orpheus changing at Yale and continuing through the New York run.
By referring to "the original off-Broadway production," Ms. Fabbri gives Blanka Zizka too little credit for originality and Second Stage far too much.
Walter Bilderback
Dramaturg, Wilma Theater
Center City
May 14, 2008
Anne R. Fabbri replies: Isn’t it usually the New York production that counts? Also, having read the script and having seen it performed in New York, I was taken aback by the Wilma’s version: Two hours seemed like twelve. I didn’t want to make a blanket condemnation because there were some praiseworthy elements as well.
Symphony of a Thousand… hypes?
Thank you so much, Steve Cohen, for speaking the truth (or at least what I too believe to be the truth) about the Mahler Eighth, aka the Symphony of a Thousand. Far from exaggerating, I think you exercised remarkable restraint.
When Leonard Bernstein introduced Mahler’s music to New York audiences in 1960, he changed my life. The Mahler Second remains near the very top of my list of pieces I never tire of hearing in live performance. The same for the Fourth, Ninth and Das Lied von der Erde. However, having just heard Saturday’s masterful Philadelphia Orchestra performance of the Eighth— and there’s no denying that the performance itself was a spectacular success— I must say my worst fears about the Eighth were realized. It’s an hour and a half of unrelenting psychic desperation and falseness, a long parade of recycled clichés. I don’t think Mahler, in his heart of hearts, believed any of the ecstatic bullshit he wrote about this symphony.
And then there were the supertitles. The text of the second half is hopelessly obscure. (How many people in the audience had any idea what the end of Goethe’s Faust is about? I myself had only the vaguest idea.) And the translation read as if it had been rendered by one of those comical language-to-language applications you find on the Internet.
It gives me little pleasure to write all this. Many folks, including the friends we were with, loved everything about the work, both the performance and the music alike. Nevertheless, I thank you, Steve, for giving me the license to vent.
Dan Coren
Queen Village
May 5, 2008
Steve Cohen replies: Dan raises a good point about the supertitles, which reminds me that earlier audiences had little idea of the words. Even some singers. In the ’70s I spoke to women who sang in the Mahler Eighth chorus under Stokowski in 1916— they were teenagers at the time— and they said no one taught them the meaning of the words. They were coached in how to mold phrases but they didn’t know what they were singing. This lack of specificity made the experience more enjoyable.
Also, that generation reveled in bigness for bigness’s sake. Think of the Titanic, the annexations of territory to enlarge the United States, the expansion of the British Empire, and the huge early compositions of Stravinsky and Richard Strauss, as opposed to their more intimate works after the Great War (whose name itself denotes an obsession with size).
Great musical minds of many temperaments-- Solti, Bernstein, Abbado, Chailly, Davis, many more-- have turned repeatedly to complex works such as the Mahler Eighth. But I’m sure Steve Cohen, whoever that is, knows so much more than they do— surely his is the judgment we should trust.
Mark Germer
Center City
May 7, 2008
It’s always fun to read some review by a very local yokel and his opinions on something like the Mahler Eighth. This guy really represents the “cultural trash” that has kept Philly in the artistic garbage can for so many decades.
Marcus Holly
Center City
May 8, 2007
Steve Cohen replies: Mark Germer’s mention of Leonard Bernstein reminds me of an incident when he and the New York Philharmonic came to Philadelphia in September 1966 for concerts at the Academy of Music and Villanova. I spent much of those two days with the conductor for an NPR radio program. Backstage after the Villanova concert, a student told Bernstein that he didn’t like the Mahler First Symphony, which had been on the program. "Tell me why you dislike it," Bernstein replied. "I don’t mind that you have an opinion contrary to mine. I love a good argument."
Dan Coren replies: Philly has been “in the artistic garbage can” for decades? Really? Who put it there, I wonder? Ormandy? Muti? Sawallisch? The Curtis Institute? Terry Gross? The University of Pennsylvania? Dan Rottenberg? All Steve Cohen (and I) did was express an opinion about a piece of music.
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