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      Schubert’s Operas Were Failures. Is Their Music Worth Saving?

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      “I feel myself the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world,” Franz Schubert, suffering from syphilis and reeling from professional failures, wrote in March 1824 to his friend, the painter Leopold Kupelwieser. Imagine a man, he said, who will never be healthy again, and “whose most brilliant hopes have perished.”In the same breath, Schubert expressed sorrow over the fate of his attempt at a grand Romantic opera, “Fierrabras,” which had been canceled in Vienna, and that of another stage work, “Die Verschworenen,” which didn’t make it past a private performance. “I seem once again,” Schubert, then 27, wrote in his letter, “to have composed two operas for nothing.”He wouldn’t return to the genre again. And even after his death in 1828, at 31, when many of his works enjoyed posthumous adulation and were performed widely, none of his theatrical undertakings entered the standard repertoire.It’s surprising that opera eluded Schubert, who by most counts started about 20 stage works, completed fewer than a dozen and saw the premieres of just two. After all, he wrote some of the most beautiful vocal music in the repertoire: the song cycles “Die Schöne Müllerin” and “Winterreise,” and hundreds of beloved lieder like “Gretchen am Spinnrade” and “Ave Maria.”And yet the operas remain curiosities better heard than seen, often composed to clumsy librettos and denied the revisions that could have accompanied rehearsals.A scene from “L’Autre Voyage” at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Stéphane Degout, left, and Siobhan Stagg.Stefan BrionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, the Diva of ‘Diva,’ Dies at 75

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      A soprano who rose from South Philadelphia to the opera houses of Europe, she was memorably seen and heard in a 1981 film considered a paragon of cinematic style.Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, a South Philadelphia-bred soprano who sang in the opera houses of Europe and gained even more fame for playing the title role in the style-soaked 1981 French thriller “Diva,” died on Feb. 2 at her home in Lexington, Ky. She was 75.Her daughter and only immediate survivor, Sheena M. Fernandez, said the cause was cancer.Trained at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and later at the Juilliard School in New York City, Ms. Fernandez made her mark in the 1970s as Bess in the Houston Grand Opera’s international traveling production of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” The tour took her to Europe, where she caught the eye of Rolf Liebermann, the impresario known for reviving the Paris Opera. He offered her a two-year contract.It was in a 1980 performance as Musetta in “La Bohème” alongside Plácido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa that she caught the attention of the French director Jean-Jacques Beineix, who was looking for a figure radiant enough to serve as the diva at the heart of his forthcoming film.“Diva” was considered a high-water mark in the movement known as the cinéma du look, a high-sheen school of French film often centered on stylish, disaffected youth in the France of the 1980s and ’90s. A film with all the saturated color and gloss of a 1980s music video, it was an art-house hit that became a cult favorite for the initiated.The story revolves around a young opera fan named Jules (played by Frédéric Andréi) who grows so infatuated with an American opera star named Cynthia Hawkins that he surreptitiously tapes one of her performances — despite her well-known decree that none of her work be recorded, since it would capture only a part of the power and immediacy of her grandeur.Ms. Fernandez in “Diva” with Frédéric Andréi, who played an infatuated fan.Rialto PicturesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Model for Modern ‘Ring’ Operas Is Unfolding in Brussels

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      Romeo Castellucci’s production of Wagner’s “Ring” at La Monnaie embodies ideas that the Metropolitan Opera should take note of for its own staging.Before Act II of Romeo Castellucci’s new staging of Wagner’s “Die Walküre,” at La Monnaie in Brussels, a note projected onto the curtain reads: “This production respects animals and takes care of their well-being as a priority.”At a recent performance, the message seemed like a follow-up to the first act, a way to explain the presence of a wolflike dog that stalked Sigmund and Sieglinde like an angel of death. But then the animals kept coming: at least 15 birds, then a horse for each of the nine Valkyries at the start of Act III.The use of animals is impressive on its own. Their entrances, though, are coups de théâtre on top of the already impressive stage magic in this high-risk, high-payoff “Walküre” — the latest installment in Castellucci’s “Ring” cycle at La Monnaie. (“Das Rheingold,” which I watched on video, opened last fall; “Siegfried” premieres in September, followed by “Götterdämmerung” in January.)As the Metropolitan Opera in New York shops around for its own “Ring” production later this decade (basically next week in the industry’s long planning cycles), its leaders might take notes from La Monnaie. Castellucci’s staging is a reminder that spectacle can have substance, that a “Ring” can be both abstract and theatrical and, above all, that an audience can handle intelligence — beliefs that the Met lost sight of with its most recent “Ring.”A bird, one of many used in “Die Walküre,” flying over Bretz, left, and Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Fricka.Monika RittershausCastellucci is an auteurist director who makes the extraordinary seem natural, who conjures surprises that baffle and amaze, sometimes self-indulgently, but often brilliantly. Driven more by imagery than plot, he has been best suited to staging oratorios or concert works like Mozart’s Requiem and Mahler’s Second Symphony. When it was announced that he would direct his first “Ring” in Brussels, there were scattered groans among opera fans who wondered whether his non-narrative style could sustain 15 hours of music.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Critic Who Strives to Hit the Right Note

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      Zachary Woolfe, the classical music critic for The New York Times, shared how he endeavors to make his writing accessible to both neophytes and experts.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Zachary Woolfe grew up in a musical household. His parents were big fans of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, and often played their music throughout their Long Island, N.Y., home.So when he, as a teenager, hung a picture of the dramatic soprano Birgit Nilsson above his bed, they were supportive, he said, if a bit confused.“I was a serious cellist from elementary school through high school,” said Mr. Woolfe, 39, the classical music critic for The New York Times. He began taking private lessons when he was about 9 and played in all-county and all-Long Island orchestras, and his love of the genre has only grown.Now, 13 years into a career as a music critic at The Times — he began as a freelance critic in 2011 — Mr. Woolfe has carved out a niche among classical music critics. His goal is to make the genre accessible to readers new to the art form, as well as interesting to aficionados who may be attending their 25th performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.“I think what people are interested in is passion,” Mr. Woolfe said. “Even if you didn’t understand every word, my goal is for you to be drawn into my pieces because you can tell that I really care about what I’m writing about.”In a recent phone conversation, shortly before he attended a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Mr. Woolfe reflected on the importance of covering classical music across the globe and the future of the genre. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert Spano to Lead Washington National Opera as Music Director

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      The veteran conductor, who won acclaim as a champion of new music at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will begin a three-year term in 2025.The conductor Robert Spano, who won acclaim as a champion of contemporary music during his two decades at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will serve as Washington National Opera’s next music director, the company announced on Tuesday.Spano, 62, will become music director designate effectively immediately and begin a three-year term with the company in 2025, succeeding Philippe Auguin, who stepped down in 2018 after his contract was not renewed.Spano, who serves as music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in Texas, said in an interview that he had been eager to do more opera since leaving his post as music director in Atlanta in 2021. He said that he wanted to “carry opera into the future” and that he planned to promote contemporary works, as he did in Atlanta.“New work and masterpieces — they go hand in hand,” he said. “I’ve lived my life in music feeling like the works of living composers inform our understanding of the works of the past. They keep reinvigorating our understanding of these masterpieces.”Timothy O’Leary, the general director of Washington National Opera, said in an interview that he was impressed by Spano’s experience and fresh perspective on opera.“He’s got this track record of conducting the major standard works in the opera repertoire,” he said, “but he’s also really identified with championing new music and the next generation of creators.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Last Days,’ Opera Inspired by Kurt Cobain Film, Heads to L.A.

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      Oliver Leith’s opera, based on the Gus Van Sant film that fictionalized the end of Kurt Cobain’s life, has its U.S. premiere in Los Angeles.It can feel easy to cast a swift judgment on the composer Oliver Leith. First, there are his titles, such as “Uh huh, Yeah,” “Bendy Broken Telemann No.3,” and “yhyhyhyhyh.” Then, there is the inspiration for his sounds, in which everyday objects like glass bottles and cereal bowls are considered intensely, becoming weird instruments themselves.But if Leith seems flippant, he rejects that characterization entirely.“People talk about irony in society all the time now, and I find that a little dull,” Leith said in an interview. “It’s a very British way of looking at things. Like, ‘Oh, are you being serious or are you not?’ No; I am deadly serious when I’m doing these things. I’m just chasing this strange feeling.”Leith’s way of talking about music is a lot like his actual music: blurry and discursive, but also precisely evocative. That strange feeling he’s chasing, for example, is one he compared to being at a wake, where “outward joy and outward sadness” are possible at the same time.Listen to his works, and you’ll see what he means. Take his opera “Last Days,” which receives its U.S. premiere on Feb. 6 in Los Angeles as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series. (The opera’s first recording will also be released on the Platoon label on April 5.) It is adapted from Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film of the same name, which fictionalizes the final days of Kurt Cobain.During its premiere run in London, in 2022, the opera garnered a lot of attention based on the assumption that it was a biographical work. “It’s so not about Kurt Cobain,” Leith said. “It couldn’t have more distance from its subjects than it has, I think.”Instead, Leith and the opera’s librettist, Matt Copson, wanted to write archetypes — like characters in a genre film, in which the magic lies in how far they stray from their stock expectations. Formally, “Last Days” also mirrors “the way that oral histories or myths are transmitted, where every iteration keeps the soul of a story, but changes skin,” said Caroline Polachek, who sings a prerecorded aria in the show.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: The Boston Symphony Plays a Sober ‘Lady Macbeth’

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      The orchestra, under Andris Nelsons, gave a clear and controlled concert performance of Shostakovich’s crushing opera at Carnegie Hall.The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is a garish explosion, its imagery drawn from cartoons and the Keystone Kops, its madcap energy never-ending. It’s fabulous, but the score can feel whooshed into a blender’s whirlwind.That was very much not the case on Tuesday at Carnegie Hall, when the Boston Symphony Orchestra played “Lady Macbeth” in concert. Even with some bits of staging, Boston’s performance under its music director, Andris Nelsons, was undistracted: firmly, soberly clear and controlled.Shostakovich has been a yearslong focus of this ensemble and conductor. They approach the composer with a poise that reveals just how much of this opera’s score is sheerly lovely, tender and melancholy; the frenetic, exaggerated jokiness for which it became best known is less omnipresent than you might have recalled.“Lady Macbeth,” about a 19th-century housewife in the Russian provinces who is surrounded by boorish men and turns to murder, was written in the early 1930s, when Shostakovich was still a budding brilliance. The work’s initial good fortunes — and its composer’s bright future — were infamously derailed in 1936, when Joseph Stalin walked out of a production in Moscow and an unsigned editorial appeared in Pravda, condemning the “stream of deliberately discordant sounds” and the “fidgeting, screaming neurasthenic music.”Often you can listen to the work and nod along to those words, even if today we may mean the judgment as praise. But on Tuesday, remarkably little sounded discordant, fidgeting, screaming or neurasthenic. Even a notorious effect at the end of Shostakovich’s raucous sonic depiction of sex, a slow trombone slide to evoke — well, you can decide what it evokes — was so understated that it didn’t arouse the usual audience laughter.Instead, the most memorable moments were quiet ones. Mellow strings and an almost pastoral flute combining under the protagonist’s father-in-law’s warning against workers trying to seduce her. A timpani’s rumble rising softly off growling cellos.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Met Opera Taps Its Endowment Again to Weather Downturn

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      The company has withdrawn nearly $40 million in additional funds from its endowment to cover expenses, but sees signs it may be emerging from its post-pandemic woes.The Metropolitan Opera, still reeling from the disruption brought by the pandemic, said on Thursday that it had withdrawn nearly $40 million in additional emergency funds from its endowment as it works to survive one of the most trying periods in its 141-year history.The move came after the Met took $30 million from its endowment fund last season to help cover operating expenses amid weak ticket sales and a cash shortfall. Nonprofits usually try to avoid drawing down their endowments, which are meant to grow over time while producing investment income. The Met’s endowment fund is now worth about $255 million, down from $309 million in July.“For most people the pandemic is over. For arts institutions, we’re still in it,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “But we see a way out. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”The company pointed to several signs that it may be turning the corner.Paid attendance has risen to about 73 percent so far this season from roughly 63 percent at the same point last season, and is nearly back to what it was just before the pandemic hit. The Met’s Live in HD cinema broadcasts — which contributed more than $15 million to the company’s bottom line before the pandemic, but are currently only breaking even — are beginning to draw larger crowds. And as the Met presents more contemporary opera, it is attracting younger audiences: The average age of single-ticket buyers for in-person performances has fallen to 44 from 50 before the pandemic.The Met expects cash gifts of more than $100 million to help replenish the endowment over the next few years. The company is also working to land a “transformative” gift, Gelb said. He declined to provide details, saying only that he hoped it would come “sooner rather than later.”Gelb said that the Met “obviously can’t make a habit” of dipping into its endowment, but that the withdrawal would help the company while ticket revenues recover and as it waits for expected donations.Victor Ryan Robertson, left, and Will Liverman, right, in Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” a contemporary opera that attracted an audience this season. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Under the extraordinary financial challenges and circumstances that we’re facing we believed it was the prudent thing to do,” he said. “The alternative would be not to perform.”The Met is hardly the only performing arts organization still struggling to emerge from the pandemic. Across the United States, regional theaters are staging fewer shows, giving fewer performances, laying off staff and, in some cases, shutting down. Orchestras and dance and opera companies have in recent months slashed budgets, sold real estate and trimmed their seasons to try to stay afloat.But the Met faces acute challenges. Mounting live opera is expensive, requiring lavish sets, star singers and a much larger orchestra and chorus than the biggest Broadway shows can boast. Inflation has added to the opera company’s burden, with the costs of shipping and materials increasing sharply. And ticket revenues last season from in-person performances and movie-theater broadcasts were down by about $25 million from before the pandemic.In addition to tapping its endowment, the Met said it would institute measures to cut costs and increase revenues that were suggested by Boston Consulting Group, which conducted a study of the company’s operations on a pro bono basis.The Met has already begun giving fewer performances: 194 this season, down from 215 last season. It plans to change its scheduling over the next few years so that each opera has a more condensed run; they currently can have two or three short runs that may be spread out in the fall, winter and spring. Doing so will allow the company, which sometimes presents as many as four different operas in the course of a week, to have fewer operas in rotation at any given moment. And the plans call for scheduling more of the Met’s most popular titles, like Puccini’s “La Bohème,” on weekends, when they tend to bring in substantially more revenue than less familiar works. These changes, along with other cost-cutting measures and more targeted marketing efforts, are expected to net the company about $25 million to $40 million each year.Even before the pandemic, the Met, the largest performing arts organization in the United States, with an annual budget of about $312 million, faced existential questions, as the old model in which subscribers would buy tickets to many productions each year faded.The pandemic, which forced the company to shut down for more than a year and a half, exacerbated those troubles. Many of the Met’s patrons, who are older, stopped attending live performances and cinema broadcasts as frequently, leaving the company looking for new audiences.This season, the Met accelerated its embrace of contemporary works, which have made up a greater share of the repertory in recent seasons.Modern operas have proved over the past few years to be more of a box-office draw on average than the classics. In December, Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” ended an eight-performance run with 78 percent attendance — outselling “La Bohème,” which had 74 percent attendance. Others fared less well: Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” which was promoted heavily and given the coveted spot to open the 2023-24 season, ended its nine-performance run in October with 62 percent attendance.Later this season the Met will bring back Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours,” hoping to replicate their success in earlier seasons, when they drew sellout crowds.Next season, the Met will present four contemporary operas, down from six this season. “Grounded,” about the toll of drone warfare by Jeanine Tesori and George Brant, will open the season in September. John Adams will conduct the Met premiere of his latest opera, “Antony and Cleopatra.” And Heggie’s “Moby Dick” and Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” will also be on the agenda.Gelb said he was confident that the Met’s bet on contemporary opera would pay off, adding that ticket sales could surpass prepandemic levels next season. “We’re demonstrating that accessible, new work that is emotionally impactful can be as successful or more successful than revivals of classics,” he said.While works like “La Bohème” and Bizet’s “Carmen” continue to draw crowds, and a holiday version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” had 87 percent attendance over 13 performances in December, there has been less interest in other staples of the repertory. A nine-performance revival of Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera” ended in November with 56 percent attendance; an eight-performance run of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” with a starry international cast, finished with 64 percent attendance.Gelb said that the company would continue to present an array of classics and revivals: Richard Strauss’s fairy tale opera “Die Frau ohne Schatten,” for one, will be staged in the 2024-25 season.The recent withdrawals have undone some of the Met’s halting attempts to rebuild its endowment, which has long been seen as too small for an institution of its size, and meant that the smaller fund did not benefit as much from the recent stock market rally. The Met, which has been authorized to draw an additional $40 million from the endowment, has withdrawn $36 million so far.Asked if he was concerned about the dwindling endowment, Gelb said: “It’s what keeps me up at night.” He said the latest withdrawals were necessary because the company was “fighting for our survival.”“The endowment is there certainly not to be raided,” he said, “but to be used in a time of crisis rather than going out of business.”Across the country, opera companies of all sizes are still grappling with the effects of the pandemic as they face smaller audiences because of shifting habits and lifestyles, rising costs and the loss of government aid that kept many alive during the pandemic.Opera Philadelphia eliminated five staff positions this season and slashed its budget by about 15 percent. Seattle Opera, seeing a steep drop in subscriptions, has significantly reduced its slate of performances, and Portland Opera recently said it would sell its headquarters to help pay off debt and replenish its endowment. Tulsa Opera scaled back its season, moving some performances to smaller venues. And Syracuse Opera, facing ticket sales that were still more than 40 percent below prepandemic levels and difficulties securing sponsors, announced in November that it was canceling the rest of its season and furloughing staff.“We’re competing with traveling Broadway shows and popular concerts,” said Camille Tisdel, the chair of Syracuse Opera’s board. “Families have only so much money to spend, and during the pandemic, people really got used to being at home.”The Met has so far avoided serious disruptions to its operations. But there are still fears that without a significant infusion of cash in the near future, there could be more turbulence.“I believe ultimately we are going to find a winning path,” Gelb said. “We have very loyal audiences and very loyal new audiences who believe the Met is a thrilling and exciting cultural institution. And ultimately that is how we’re going to fight our way out of this difficult hole that the pandemic has helped put us in.” More