Odd birds and strange goings-on in classical music worldBy Melinda Bargreen
Monday, December 26, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Seattle Times music critic
Classical music has a rather staid reputation in some circles, but a look at the worldwide news items from the past year suggests the "longhairs" are just as crazy as everyone else. Once again, it's time for ... Melinda's Believe It or Not, an assemblage of real music news from the past 12 months. As you read on, you will find ample proof that truth is indeed stranger than fiction — even on the classical side.
Pavarotti Plans Three Tenors Reunion: Despite repeated "retirements," superannuated supertenor Luciano Pavarotti hasn't really retired yet. Before he does, he plans to have "one or two" reunions with the two other Three Tenors (Plácido Domingo and José Carreras), possibly even this summer in conjunction with the Football World Cup, the sporting event that first spawned the trio in 1990. The 70-year-old singer (who had to be assisted onto the stage to make the above announcement) says he's going to tour for "a year or two" more before stepping down to spend more time with his 2-year-old daughter.
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Nancy and Tonya: The Opera": Darned if the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding figure-skating scandal isn't destined for an opera house near you. (Not too near, we hope.) The 11-year-old story, in which Harding's henchman clobbered the more successful Kerrigan in the knee before the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, is the basis for a libretto by Elizabeth Searle. Tufts University grad student Abigail Al Dorry is writing the music, and the opera will be performed at Tufts next spring. Stay tuned.
Ulysses S. Grant: The Opera: Washington National Opera's training program has commissioned a new opera by composer Scott Wheeler about Ulysses S. Grant ("Democracy: An American Comedy"), and it opens with President Grant and his wife Julia in the White House celebrating their 25th anniversary. Frankly, Nancy and Tonya are starting to sound pretty good.
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Jerry Springer: The Opera": The BBC received 40,000 complaints before it even began the broadcast of "Jerry Springer: The Opera" last January, after church groups requested that the musical not be aired. Based on Springer's talk show, the work features such titles as "Pregnant by a Transsexual" and "Here Come the Hookers," plus a hefty barrage of a reported 8,000 expletives. The most controversial scene reportedly has Jesus wearing a diaper and declaring he's "a bit gay."
Moammar Gaddafi: The Rap Opera: The English National Opera announced that it will open its 2006-07 season with a new opera about the Libyan dictator by the dance/hip-hop collective Asian Dub Foundation, with a rapper playing Gaddafi and an all-female chorus of bodyguards. The mind boggles. And also at the English National ...
Brünnhilde Was a Suicide Bomber: Controversy ruled this year at the English National Opera's "Ring," where the staging of Wagner's four-opera masterpiece included scenes of pole dancing, gang rape and multiple stabbings. The culminating coup was at the end of the fourth opera, when Brünnhilde straps explosives to her body and detonates herself (a scene described as "utterly crass" in The Guardian).
There's Cocaine in My Opera Set: We knew "La Traviata" has a big party scene, but who would have figured that British customs agents would find 11 kilos of cocaine hidden in the sets and costumes of Opera Ireland's production of that opera? The production was being trucked from Germany to Dublin when the white stuff was discovered.
Let's Re-Bury Rachmaninoff: Folks just can't let those composers rest in piece. Last year, it was Mozart's relatives who were being exhumed for DNA testing. This year, Oscar-winning Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov called for the return of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's remains (1873-1943) from the U.S. for burial in Russia. Rachmaninoff, who fled the Russian Revolution in 1917, is buried — for now — in Valhalla, N.Y.
Tough Year for Mozart: On the eve of the composer's 250th birth anniversary in 2006, thieves and vandals have been unusually active. A life-size wax head of Mozart worth $18,400 was stolen from a Salzburg museum, and in the same city, a statue of Mozart was defaced by one Martin Humer, 60, who admitted tossing paint and feathers at the statue last August.
You Don't Want to Lip-Sync in Turkmenistan: The president of Turkmenistan since 1985, Saparmurat Niyazov, banned lip-syncing in his country because of its "negative effect on the development of singing and musical art." (Ashlee Simpson, beware.) The ban extends to TV, concerts and private parties. Niyazov earlier banned opera and ballet because they did not "correspond with the national mentality."
Rocker Patti Smith Covers Wagnerian Opera: Acting as a journalist, Smith went to the Wagnerian holy city of Bayreuth to review "Tannhäuser" and "Parsifal" for the German publication "Die Zeit." Among her findings: "It's very exciting and interesting," and "The Bratwurst sausages are excellent."
Let's Hire the Whole Orchestra: As a romantic gesture, this is one of the more expensive possibilities. English businessman John Barker hired London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a private Royal Festival Hall concert honoring girlfriend Heather Axelson, featuring her favorite work: the Janacek Sinfonietta. It cost 100,000 pounds (about $175,000). Her comment: "John is the most romantic man alive."
The Papal Piano Gets Stuck: The new Pope Benedict XVI, a piano fan, was temporarily frustrated when piano movers couldn't get his instrument through the windows of his papal apartment. According to the German magazine "Der Spiegel," the new pope uses the piano to relax in times of stress, and sometimes irked his previous neighbors by playing Mozart, Bach and Palestrina too loudly.
Calendar Girls at the Symphony: Eighteen women of the Canton (Ohio) Symphony (including staff, board members and supporters) have posed for an 18-month "provocative calendar" designed to change the minds of those who "think the Canton Symphony is stuffy." We wouldn't dream of thinking that, especially after viewing their Web site (
www.cantonsymphony.org/morethanyouexpect.htm). The calendar is yours for a $15 donation.
Composer Eats Swan, Gets into Trouble: The well-known English composer Peter Maxwell Davies, who discovered an electrocuted whooper swan near his home in the Orkney Islands, informed the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds — and then ate the swan. He declared that the leg meat "made a delicious terrine." The Society was not amused.
Ice Orchestra Melts Away: A Stockholm concert by an orchestra of instruments made entirely from ice — including clarinets, guitars, trumpets and cellos carved by New Mexico artist Tim Linhart — was abruptly canceled when Linhart decided the student musicians weren't doing a good enough job playing his instruments. Guests in the 100-seat igloo concert hall gave Linhart the cold shoulder for insulting the musicians.
The Prowler Played Beethoven: New Riegel, Ohio's police chief, one Steve Swartzmiller, was awakened in the middle of the night last February by a man playing Beethoven on his piano. It was 19-year-old Shawn Chadwell, who was drunk and wandered into the wrong house by accident. Swartzmiller charged him with underage drinking and burglary, but added that he "played perfect Beethoven."
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