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      The World Is Still Catching Up to the Music of Hector Berlioz

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      Hector Berlioz did not have the twilight of a great composer.In his memoirs, he described himself in his 60s as “past hopes, past illusions, past high thoughts and lofty conceptions.” His extraordinary but unusual music was unloved and unplayed; a widower two times over, he was lonely, and hated people more than ever. He wrote, with a shake of his fist at the sky: “I say hourly to Death, ‘When you will.’ Why does he delay?”He felt wronged by the public and his fellow composers, who even when they admired him didn’t know what to do with his music, or his personality. Wagner wrote that Berlioz didn’t trust anyone’s opinion, and seemed to enjoy isolation, dooming him to “remain forever incomplete and perhaps really shine only as a transient, marvelous exception.”Berlioz had faith that his time would come, though. By his estimate, things would pick up for him if he could just live to 140. He made it to 65.But he wasn’t wrong. After his death, in 1869, some of his works, like the “Symphonie Fantastique,” became firmly entrenched in the canon, and he is the subject of this year’s Bard Music Festival, which begins on Aug. 9. Still, two weeks’ worth of concerts and panel discussions, as well as a companion collection of essays, can only begin to capture the breadth of Berlioz’s artistry.There is Berlioz the composer, of course, but also Berlioz the critic, the conductor, the impresario, the philosopher and the literary author. A focus on his music alone is just as dizzying: Nearly every work defies conventional analysis and taxonomy, and must be approached on its own terms.His idiosyncratic music didn’t truly catch on until the mid-20th century, and even then fitfully. His operas remain too difficult to stage regularly, and many of his concert works are too strange to program or market to audiences. It feels as though we are still catching up to Berlioz’s pipe-dream visions of musical possibility.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 Death-Driven ‘Tristan und Isolde’ at the Bayreuth Festival

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      Thorleifur Orn Arnarsson’s production of “Tristan und Isolde” at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany is an excellently conducted puzzle of grim symbols.Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” is not a love story. It’s a death story.It’s an opera in which the central duet is an ecstatic, philosophical declaration of love through a pledge of mutual death. Tristan, his name itself rooted in sadness, welcomes his end as a release; the greatest act of devotion, for Isolde, would be to join him in a state of love transfigured.OK, maybe “Tristan” is both a love story and a death story.Thorleifur Orn Arnarsson’s new production, at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, emphasizes the death part more. (People in the country can stream it on BR Klassik.) He sets the opera in a purgatorial space and, instead of spiritual transformation, portrays a scarcely transcendent suicide, an act of self-destruction in service of love.It’s a bleak but still Romantic outlook, conveyed with stubborn opacity and a loose grip of the dramaturgy. A director’s vision, though, is just one reason to visit Bayreuth, the pilgrimage-like festival that Wagner founded nearly 150 years ago.This “Tristan” belongs, above all, to the conductor Semyon Bychkov. He previously led “Parsifal” at Bayreuth with shocking speed, but he did something like the opposite here: not necessarily stretching the score, but relishing key moments to guide the audience’s emotions as commandingly as Wagner intended. At times, the passion was tidal; at others, teeming with anticipation.(Bychkov is in good company. The festival has had its share of conductor missteps in recent years, but the evening before I saw “Tristan,” Simone Young led a masterly “Götterdämmerung”; elsewhere at Bayreuth, Pablo Heras-Casado is returning for “Parsifal”; Nathalie Stutzmann is picking up a “Tannhäuser” once botched by Valery Gergiev; and Oksana Lyniv continues her fiery “Der Fliegende Holländer.” With three female conductors out of five total, Bayreuth’s gender distribution is applaudably better than many in classical music and opera.)Thorleifur Orn Arnarsson’s production abstracts parts of a ruined ship that, by the third act, is broken up and scattered around the stage.Enrico Nawrath/Bayreuther FestspieleWe 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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      Benjamin Luxon, British Baritone Thwarted by Hearing Loss, Dies at 87

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      A favorite of Benjamin Britten, he won acclaim in roles like Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and Falstaff until his affliction forced him to largely give up singing.Benjamin Luxon, a warm-voiced British baritone who was admired for his singing of German and British song and his robust opera performances, but whose flourishing career was cut short by encroaching deafness, died on July 25 at his home in Sandisfield, Mass. He was 87.His son Daniel said the cause was colon cancer.At the height of his career, in the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Luxon was one of the most sought-after singers on British, American and continental operatic stages, in roles like Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and Falstaff, as well as in the operas of Benjamin Britten.Mr. Britten created the title role of the 1971 television opera “Owen Wingrave,” based on a Henry James short story, specifically for Mr. Luxon. Mr. Luxon’s thoughtful singing of Schubert, Hugo Wolf and English song was praised by critics in England and the U.S. for its subtlety.Mr. Luxon in the English National Opera’s production of “Falstaff” in 1994, around the time he was forced to largely give up singing. “The problem is that most of my high-frequency hearing has gone,” he said at the time.Robbie Jack/Corbis, via Getty ImagesHe moved with ease among folk song, art song and even English music hall favorites, explaining to interviewers that he had grown up singing in church and school choirs in his native Cornwall in England. “It was like breathing, it was like second nature to me,” he said.But his singing days were curtailed when, in the late 1980s, he developed a hearing affliction that led to partial deafness and some disastrous misfires on the recital stage. He bore the condition stoically, but by the mid-1990s he was forced to largely give up singing despite using a hearing aid.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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      Anna Netrebko, Shunned in U.S. Over Putin Support, to Sing in Palm Beach

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      The star soprano, who lost work at American opera companies after Russia invaded Ukraine, will sing at a gala for Palm Beach Opera, her first American engagement since 2019.Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the superstar soprano Anna Netrebko has been persona non grata at cultural institutions in the United States, shunned for her past support of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.But in February, Ms. Netrebko will make her first appearance in the United States since 2019: She will perform in Florida at a gala concert at the Breakers Palm Beach hotel to benefit Palm Beach Opera, the company announced on Wednesday.Ms. Netrebko, one of the biggest stars in classical music, has in recent months returned to many top concert halls and opera houses in Paris, Milan, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe, prompting some protests but also winning ovations and strong reviews.But most American institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, where she reigned as a prima donna for two decades, have continued to refuse to engage her because of her past support for Mr. Putin and her unwillingness to criticize him now. Her last performance in the United States was before the pandemic, when she headlined a gala New Year’s Eve performance at the Met Opera.In a statement, Ms. Netrebko said she was looking forward to singing in Florida.“I am honored to be lending my voice to the Palm Beach Opera’s annual gala,” she said. “I am excited to spend time in this beautiful community.”James Barbato, who leads the Palm Beach Opera, said in a statement that Ms. Netrebko was “more than a great artist with a magnetic stage presence and a voice of breathtaking beauty and power.”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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      Lyric Opera of Chicago Appoints Orchestra Veteran as New Leader

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      John Mangum, who helped guide the Houston Symphony through the turmoil of the pandemic, will serve as the company’s next general director.John Mangum, a veteran orchestra manager who helped guide the Houston Symphony through the turmoil of the pandemic, will serve as the next general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago starting this fall, the company announced on Wednesday.Mangum, 49, will take the reins of Lyric, one of the premier opera companies in the United States, as it faces a series of challenges, including rising costs, cuts to programming and changes in audience behavior.Mangum said in an interview that he was joining Lyric because it is “one of the great opera companies in the country and really in the world.” He said he was confident that Lyric could find ways to expand its base of fans and donors.“Opera is about storytelling,” he said. “We have to remind people that this is what opera is built from, and there are ways for them to connect.”Mangum has not worked in opera before, but he is a veteran of the classical music industry. He has held posts at a number of institutions, including the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic. Since 2018, he has led the Houston Symphony, helping increase fund-raising and expand community programs.Sylvia Neil, chair of Lyric’s board, said Mangum’s experience in the orchestral world would help the company as it works to broaden its audience.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: Grand Opera Makes a Comeback With ‘Le Prophète’

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      Meyerbeer, one of the 19th century’s most popular composers, is out of fashion today. But his work is receiving a rare revival at Bard College.Giacomo Meyerbeer was the toast of Paris in the 19th century. Nowadays, when he’s mentioned at all, he’s the object of backhanded compliments.“The man may not have been a genius, but he was a craftsman,” the critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote in The New York Times when one of Meyerbeer’s grand operas, “Le Prophète,” came to the Metropolitan Opera in 1977.Long on spectacle and long on length, “Le Prophète” has five acts with ballets and choruses galore; a coronation scene; and a grand finale in which an entire palace goes up in flames and kills, well, everyone. Based on a historical event, it tells the story of an Anabaptist uprising in 16th-century Germany led by Jean of Leiden, who is declared a prophet and king. The world premiere is remembered for its coups de théâtre, which included ice-skating (indicated with roller skates) and a sunrise (the first use of electricity on the Paris Opera stage).The notion of Meyerbeer’s exploitation of the public’s taste for dazzle persists. To give you an idea of how severely he has fallen out of fashion, the Met performed three — yes, three — of his operas in its first six months of operation in 1883-84, and hasn’t staged any of them since 1979.Fortunately, there are opera die-hards like Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College and the music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, who has a penchant for reappraisal. He mounted a persuasive argument for “Le Prophète” at the Fisher Center at Bard College on Friday. Because of modest resources, the spotlight was less on the staging and more on an often-overlooked element of Meyerbeer’s art: his fantastic instincts for vocal writing.For nearly all of Act IV, the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein held the stage as Fidès, the pious mother of the false prophet Jean (John) and the opera’s richest role. Mad with anguish and thinking her son dead, Feinstein’s Fidès stitches together an unforced, just-hefty-enough sound from a mellow bottom to a ringing top in writing that was vocally gracious and terrifically exciting.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 Righteous’ Brings Stirring Prayer to Santa Fe Opera

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      Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith’s new work about an ambitious minister’s rise in the 1980s is that rarity in contemporary music: an original story.We’ve had “The Shining” and “Cold Mountain,” “The Hours” and “Dead Man Walking,” and works based on the lives of Steve Jobs, Malcolm X and Frida Kahlo. “Lincoln in the Bardo” and “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” are coming soon.Opera audiences, traditionalists even before the pandemic, have ventured back warier than ever about buying tickets for anything other than the standards. So as companies try to present contemporary pieces alongside “Aida” and “La Bohème,” they bank on familiar titles and subjects.Many classic operas were adaptations; “Bohème,” for example, was inspired by a collection of stories. But lately the results have tended to feel less like great art than like bending over backward to coax a cautious public. Something special comes from being truly original: It’s no coincidence that perhaps the best opera of our time, Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” (2021), was that rarity, a brand-new story.So is “The Righteous,” commissioned by Santa Fe Opera from the composer Gregory Spears and the poet Tracy K. Smith. Spears and Smith also created from scratch their first full-length collaboration, “Castor and Patience” (2022). They deserve great credit for this. These days it’s remarkable to sit at a premiere and be able to think, with admiration, “Here are imaginations at work” instead of “I’d rather be watching the movie.”Taking place over a few weeks, “Castor and Patience” was an intimate family drama — though one with larger societal implications. While a family is also at the center of “The Righteous,” which opened on July 13, the new opera is in every way a more sprawling piece, stretching from 1979 through the early 1990s, with a large cast and chorus and booming climaxes to match its impassioned lyricism.At its core is a man’s progress from youthful idealism to profound moral compromise. The main character, David, is a talented, devoted preacher who’s grown up close to a wealthy, well-connected oil family in the American Southwest. He marries the family’s daughter and, as his scrappy ministry grows in size and influence, he’s tempted more and more by the prospect of political power. As he climbs, he leaves betrayals both personal and ideological in his wake.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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      Klaus Florian Vogt’s Strange, Essential Voice in Opera

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      Klaus Florian Vogt, a Wagner specialist with an ethereal yet mighty sound, is returning to the Bayreuth Festival to sing in the “Ring.”Klaus Florian Vogt’s voice is a phenomenon that even he has had trouble grasping. In the early days of his career, he would hear recordings of himself singing and be surprised by the timbre. He knew his tenor was bright, but outside his head it sounded even brighter.He wasn’t the only one unsure of what to make of his voice. Lithe, polished and powerful, it continues to divide listeners. Some critics find it youthful; others, immature. At 54, Vogt is one of the most essential performers in opera. But “there is no voice that divides fans so much,” the music critic Markus Thiel wrote in a review. “‘Ethereal,’ ‘otherworldly,’ some cheer. ‘Boyish,’ ‘Wagner wish-wash,’ others complain.”These days, Vogt isn’t so surprised by his sound. “It’s continually grown closer, what my imagination is of how I want to sing and what the actual result is,” he said in an interview.He has also accepted that his voice is not for everybody. “What I never wanted,” he said, “was to pretend to be something I’m not. That’s what’s dangerous for vocal technique and for a voice in general — when you don’t sing with your own voice.”Vogt is a Wagner specialist, with all of the composer’s major tenor roles in his repertoire as of last year, when he performed as Siegfried in the final two operas of the “Ring” cycle at the Zurich Opera House. On July 31, he will sing the role for the first time at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany.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