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      Gustavo Dudamel, superestrella de la música clásica, dirigirá la Ópera de París

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      En una jugada maestra, la venerable compañía ha contratado como su próximo director musical al excepcional artista clásico que también ha conquistado la fama en la cultura popular.En un golpe maestro de la venerable Ópera de París, fundada en 1669 por Luis XIV, la compañía anunció el viernes que el conductor superestrella Gustavo Dudamel será su próximo director musical.Dudamel, líder musical de la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles desde 2009 e inusual artista clásico que ha cosechado un estatus de celebridad de la cultura pop, solo ha dirigido una única producción en París: La Bohème en 2017. Y, aunque en Los Ángeles ha jugueteado con el repertorio operístico, tanto en la Ópera Metropolitana como en otros escenarios, es más conocido como conductor sinfónico.Pero para quienes han seguido de cerca el ascenso constante de Dudamel en los últimos 15 años, no será sorpresa otro gran nombramiento. El nuevo puesto es un hito en la magnífica carrera de un artista que se hizo renombre como niño prodigio con las orquestas en Norte y Sudamérica y que ahora, a los 40 años, tomará las riendas de una de las compañías de ópera más antiguas de Europa. Ocupará el cargo a partir de agosto, en principio por seis años, superpuestos en gran parte con su trabajo en Los Ángeles, donde su contrato actual llega hasta la temporada 2025-26.Dudamel —nacido en Venezuela en 1981 y formado ahí por El Sistema, el programa gratuito subsidiado por el gobierno que enseña música a los niños en las zonas más pobres— ocupa una posición única en el mundo de la música. Lo asedian las principales orquestas, entre ellas la Filarmónica de Berlín y la Filarmónica de Viena.Pero también ha actuado en un espectáculo de medio tiempo del Súper Bowl, apareció como Trollzart en el filme animado Trolls Gira Mundial, dirige la música en la próxima versión fílmica de Steven Spielberg de West Side Story e inspiró un personaje desmelenado en la serie de Amazon Mozart en la Jungla. En 2019 recibió una estrella en el Paseo de la Fama de Hollywood.Sin duda, su renombre será una inyección de energía para la Ópera de París que, como otras organizaciones artísticas, contempla cautelosamente volver a presentarse ante su audiencia tradicional tras el largo cierre pandémico al tiempo que busca captar nuevos asistentes. Con un generoso subsidio del gobierno francés, la compañía —cuyo director Alexander Neef, asumió el cargo el otoño pasado— ha expandido su audiencia en los últimos años, pero aún enfrenta la presión de los agitados debates sobre la representación racial y la relevancia de las costosas formas artísticas clásicas.Ya no se acostumbra —especialmente fuera de los países germanohablantes— que los directores musicales de ópera inicien como pianistas y entrenadores de voz y asciendan el escalafón de la compañía, tal como hizo el antecesor de Dudamel en París, Philippe Jordan, de 46 años. Aunque Dudamel no cuenta con esa preparación, no es un desconocido para las principales casas operísticas. Debutó en la Scala en Milán en 2006, cuando tenía veintitantos años y al año siguiente se presentó en la Ópera Estatal de Berlín. Su primera actuación en la Ópera del Estado de Viena fue en 2016 y en la Met en 2018 con Otello de Verdi. El miércoles concluyó una temporada con Otello en Barcelona.Durante su trabajo en Los Ángeles, ha contribuido al sólido programa educativo de compromiso con la comunidad, en especial con la Orquesta Juvenil de Los Ángeles, un programa inspirado en El Sistema que se fundó en 2007. También sigue ocupando el cargo de director musical de la Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, pero después de criticar al gobierno de Venezuela en 2017, el gobierno canceló la gira internacional que estaba programada. A pesar de que no ha podido actuar con la Simón Bolívar desde entonces, aún trabaja de forma remota con la agrupación y, en ocasiones, se ha reunido fuera de Venezuela con grupos de sus integrantes.El nombramiento de Dudamel sucede dos meses después de que se dio a conocer un reporte sobre la discriminación y la diversidad en la Ópera de París, enfocado en los cambios al repertorio, el proceso de admisión de la escuela y la composición racial y étnica de su compañía interna de ballet.Pero alrededor del mundo, las compañías de ópera también han sido llamadas a diversificar su personal, elenco artístico y repertorios. Junto con Ching-Lien Wu, la recién nombrada maestra del coro de la Ópera de París, la contratación de Dudamel forma parte de un esfuerzo por cambiar el rostro de las filas ejecutivas de la compañía y su enfoque hacia la diversidad y la igualdad.Zachary Woolfe ha sido el editor de música clásica desde 2015. Antes fue crítico de la ópera en The New York Observer. @zwoolfe More

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      Members of the Paris Opera Take Their Talents to a Different Stage

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      The singers, dancers and musicians played on, serenading their phones, pirouetting in masks and performing, faceless, on the radio.PARIS — For the past year, opera lovers worldwide have had little choice but to revisit favorite productions and performances via their screens at home, but the singers, musicians and dancers at the Paris Opera have continued, all while making their peace with pandemic life. Three members of the company described their experiences.The Chorus MasterFor José Luis Basso, chorus master at the Paris Opera since 2014, not even France’s penchant for strikes had prepared him for the government-ordered lockdown imposed here on March 17 last year.“From one day to the next, we found ourselves stuck at home,” he recalled in a telephone conversation. “It was dramatic. A singer needs to practice and vocalize every day, and that’s not so easy in a city like Paris where you have neighbors and building rules. So out of a certain despair, they did these little videos as a way of expressing their anguish about being without work.”For the most ambitious video, Mr. Basso, who rehearses and sometimes directs the group, brought together 52 of the chorus’s 110 members to record individual videos of “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot.” The performances were spliced together, renamed “To Say Thank You” and dedicated to health and other frontline workers. Then, in September, following a temporary reduction of infections in France, the chorus was called back to the company’s two theaters, the Palais Garnier and the Opéra Bastille.“At first there was real fear, almost hysteria, about passing on the virus,” Mr. Basso said, “but people are more relaxed now. No operas were programmed in the fall, so we began preparing for the new productions of ‘Aïda’ and ‘Faust,’ which involved a lot of work since the chorus plays a big role in both operas.”Despite a second wave of infections, which began in the fall and continues, “Aïda” and “Faust” have now been staged and streamed, with all but the lead singers wearing masks. “At first we didn’t know what masks to use,” Mr. Basso said, “but eventually we opted for two — one for walking around the theater and another for singing that allows projection of the voice and understanding of words.”Yet, with some medical experts saying that we must learn to live with Covid, even when “normal” opera performances resume, masks onstage and in the orchestra pit may not be disappearing soon. “I’ve asked myself,” said Mr. Basso, 55, who in June returns to the San Carlo opera house in Naples, Italy, to become chorus master, “in the future will our choral work have to be like this?”l’Opéra de ParisValentine Colasante, a prima ballerina at the Paris Opera Ballet, performing a passage from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” in her kitchen. The dance became part of a video to thank frontline workers.l’Opéra de ParisThe BallerinaValentine Colasante, 32, a prima ballerina at the Paris Opera Ballet, was greatly relieved when lessons from her usual teachers resumed, albeit online, as soon as the lockdown began. “This enabled us to keep up our routines,” she explained in a telephone interview, “with morning classes for coaching, dancing, muscle strengthening, and in the afternoon more specific exercises. This also meant we were in good physical condition when we could resume work.”That came in September when the ballet corps returned to its home at the Palais Garnier, although it is still not allowed to perform before a full house. Rather, as with opera productions, performances of “La Bayadère” in December, the annual gala in January and “Le Parc” this month were recorded for rebroadcast. “One is very aware that there’s no one there,” Ms. Colasante said, “But you try to adapt like everyone else who’s having to work online.”Covid precautions have also required wearing masks for rehearsals and for the gala’s “Ballet Parade.” “It’s the only solution we have if we want to keep on training,” she said. “When some very intense effort is called for, we can remove the mask, but we keep them on most of the time. It’s restricting, but it means we can return to the Palais Garnier to train. We are artists and we have to be ready when things return to normal.”Like members of the Paris Opera chorus and orchestra, the ballet company found its own way of saying “merci” to health and other frontline workers. In this case, some 60 dancers were invited to improvise at home — in kitchens, halls or gardens — to a passage from Prokofiev’s ballet “Romeo and Juliet.” Using smartphones, they recorded themselves or, as in Ms. Colasante’s case, were recorded by a partner. The movie director Cédric Klapisch then edited their moves into a charming four-minute, 39-second video.“Everyone was very enthusiastic about doing this as a sincere homage to health workers,” said Ms. Colasante, who appears briefly in a red dressing gown. “I think we all wanted to convey our emotions, to share what we were living through, to tell a story with our bodies. And I have my own four minutes as a permanent record for myself.”Members of the Paris Opera orchestra performing “After the Storm.” The final video that was created included images of nurses, doctors, hospital wards and ambulances. l’Opéra national de ParisThe MusicianWith last March’s lockdown coming soon after a lengthy strike at the Paris Opera, “we were already spending too much time at home,” Nicolas Chatenet recalled. Still, resigned to a new stoppage of perhaps three months, as the opera’s first solo trumpeter he decided to make good use of the time “to do what I couldn’t do when I was in the orchestra.”So when orchestra members decided that they, too, would make a video dedicated to health workers, he was eager to participate. “We wanted to do something that would convey musically and emotionally how we at home were feeling about those who were working,” Mr. Chatenet, 35, explained.The question of what to play was resolved when the orchestra welcomed a short piece called “Storm” that Mr. Chatenet had composed in 2014 for a brass ensemble. After a colleague orchestrated and trimmed the score, there came the challenge of recording 71 instrumentalists live on smartphones.“I thought we’d have to help the sound, but we were astonished that it sounded really good,” he said. Images of nurses, doctors, hospital wards and ambulances were then spliced into the final video called “After the Storm.”In the summer, restrictions on movements were relaxed, and Mr. Chatenet joined the opera orchestra for a live Bach concert in September and two concerts of Richard Strauss and Schönberg in October before a limited audience and under the baton of the company’s outgoing music director, Philippe Jordan.The orchestra’s main scheduled event for the 2020-21 season, however, was Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. When a planned stage production directed by Calixto Bieito was canceled by Covid, the cycle was broadcast on the radio, again conducted by Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chatenet’s bad luck was to catch the virus at the music conservatory where he teaches, and he was forced into isolation just when his trumpet should have been sounding the “Ride of the Valkyries.”His chance to rejoin his orchestra came last month with “Aïda.” “It was strange to be together again,” he said, “to recapture the feeling that we had when we played together every week.” But even though Mr. Chatenet never stopped practicing, the break brought an unexpected plus. “We have a 7-month-old baby,” he said, “so it’s given me a lot of time to get to know her. I was pretty lucky about that.” More

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      A New ‘Aida’ Lands in the Middle of France’s Culture Wars

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA New ‘Aida’ Lands in the Middle of France’s Culture WarsThe production, which examines the work’s colonial legacy, opened after the far right accused the Paris Opera of “antiracism gone mad.”In Lotte de Beer’s new staging of “Aida,” the famous Triumphal March scene becomes a series of tableaux vivants inspired by Western art history.Credit…Vincent PontetMarch 10, 2021, 1:47 p.m. ETWhen Lotte de Beer’s new production of Verdi’s “Aida” recently premiered at the Paris Opera — not to a full house, but to an audience online — she was just relieved it was happening.“This might have been my hardest project ever,” de Beer said in a video interview. “We had crisis after crisis after crisis.”The development of her staging, which is streaming on Arte.tv through Aug. 20, came amid a labor dispute at the Paris Opera that was quickly followed by a full pandemic shutdown and an earlier than expected transfer of power in the company’s leadership. She was working with multiple casts at once, including star singers like the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, whose busy schedules made them less than ideally available for rehearsals. And the production had to be continually adapted to coronavirus restrictions.And then there is the ideological quagmire into which this “Aida” was born. The Paris Opera, like many other institutions, has during the past year been forced, even by its own employees, to come to terms with its poor track record of racial representation, as well as practices like blackface and Orientalist caricature.In doing so, it has become a target of far-right leaders — including Marine Le Pen, who decried comments by the Paris Opera’s new director, Alexander Neef, as “antiracism gone mad.” In the pages of Le Monde, Neef, who is German but has held posts at the Canadian Opera Company and Santa Fe Opera, was accused of soaking up “la culture américaine.”“These operas are part of our history, part of what makes us who we are,” said de Beer, whose “Aida” wrestles with the work’s problematic past.Credit…David Payr for The New York TimesPlanning for the new “Aida” predated Neef’s tenure, but it fits squarely in this moment of the Paris Opera’s history. Verdi’s 1871 tragedy, a love story set in a time of war between ancient Egypt and Ethiopia, is often given the treatment of a “Cleopatra”-like costume drama. But de Beer, who will become the director of the Vienna Volksoper next year, has offered a version so unusual that its Aida, the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, pleaded on Instagram before opening night for her fans to “open your minds to something completely different.”De Beer’s production is set in the 19th century, around the time of the opera’s premiere. Yet that sounds more specific than it comes across in practice. Her staging exists in a flexible, metaphor-heavy space that acts, by turns, as a colonial museum of ancient artifacts and natural history, including a prominently displayed skull that recalls pseudoscientific justifications of white supremacy; a frantic stage of tableaux vivants inspired by double-edged images of Western superiority, like Americans raising the flag on Iwo Jima; and the chilling depths of the Suez Canal, which opened two years before “Aida.”With an occasionally chaotic blend of aesthetics — a winking embrace of kitsch, Bunraku-style puppetry, and designs by the artist Virginia Chihota, who is based in Ethiopia — de Beer examines the work’s Orientalist undertones and legacy in a world of changing sensibilities.The soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, left, as Aida. She sings the role alongside a Bunraku-style puppet.Credit…Vincent PontetAcknowledging that her approach eschews literal interpretation at almost every turn, de Beer said: “I do understand that if you’re expecting a one-to-one ‘Aida,’ where she is an Ethiopian slave and he is an Egyptian army leader, you’re not getting exactly what you expected. And yeah, what can I say about that?”In fact, she had plenty to say — about the ideas behind her production and what it means to love an art form with a problematic past. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.How was your production influenced by its casting of mostly white singers?I think they first did the casting, and then they asked a couple of directors, who all said no. So in a late phase for a house like this, I was asked.It’s a challenge. It’s a piece that I love, but also a piece that I’m critical of. It was clear that race needed to be discussed, but couldn’t be discussed by way of casting. I also knew that I wanted a non-Western and preferably African view, which is why I asked Virginia Chihota to be, as a visual artist, my partner in making this show. I didn’t just want to use her visuals; I wanted her take on the piece.And what did you come up with?I wanted to portray the piece on two levels. I wanted to give the story inside the piece, which is a very strong story: It has a political line; it’s about war; it’s about patriotism; it’s about loyalty; it’s about status and the loss of status. But it’s also a love story.I also knew I wanted to portray the story of the piece itself. The music is beautiful; I love it. But it has borrowed a lot of other cultures’s musics and turned them into Orientalist clichés — in brilliant ways, but it’s problematic seen from our times. And its premiere coincided with the opening of the Suez Canal, which itself was a colonial tool.I thought it would be interesting to create the metaphor of the colonial art museum where looted art objects are being exhibited, because right now in France, that’s a big discussion going on: Do we give these artifacts back? Who do they belong to?From left, Ksenia Dudnikova as Amneris, Jonas Kaufmann as Radamès, and Soloman Howard as the King in the production, whose wide-ranging aesthetic includes a winking embrace of kitsch.Credit…Vincent PontetYour ambivalence about “Aida” could apply to a lot of operas.You fall in love with these characters — feel with them, cry with them, die with them. But on a certain level, you can detach from that and think about these pieces and the representation of the characters. What I hope is that it’s like reading your own diary 10 years after you’ve written it, and you can look at yourself and go: My God, what a crazy teenager I was, but of course this turned me into who I am.These operas are part of our history, part of what makes us who we are — both in the completely positive and the completely negative senses. I think if we can embrace both and acknowledge both, that might actually teach us something about our future.How would you feel as an audience member at a more traditional “Aida”?For me it’s boring, but it’s also offensive. I think if we continue in that way, we give people such good ammunition to say: Why are we sponsoring these big opera houses?The irony, of course, is that a production like yours makes some people ask that same question.Quite a lot, I’ve noticed. I have to say that the negative reviews didn’t affect me as much as some negative reviews have affected me in the past, because it’s been almost an ideological argument. Those are also people who really love this art form. And I will soon be leading my own opera house, where I’m sure a large part of the audience might think that way. It’s my job to reach out to them and take their worries seriously.It’s a matter of mind-set, because opera is music theater. Music, you don’t need to update; it is an abstract language. If you hear music that was composed 400 years ago, it communicates in the same way to your soul. But theater is about ideas, texts, jokes. It’s about interpersonal relationships. And those change. That’s why the spoken theater tradition is very different from the music tradition. And in opera, those will always rub up against each other. That’s why I love it.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Stéphane Lissner on Guiding Italy's Oldest Opera House Through a Pandemic and Beyond

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Man Guiding Italy’s Oldest Opera House Through the PandemicAfter warring with powerful unions in Paris, Stéphane Lissner has moved to Naples to run the Teatro di San Carlo.Stéphane Lissner in the auditorium of the Teatro di San Carlo, which is presenting its first staged production of the season.Credit…Francesco SquegliaBy More