Baroque issues

This is something that has been with me all my professional life in opera - now just a few weeks short of 46 years.  So I feel pretty cool about it all having witnessed so many twists and turns along the way.  And I have years ago realized that its all about the music and the musicians when all is said and done.  Just take it from the wise old Ibis seen here.

I am prompted to write a few words about this because of the heartfelt and candid comments from a young baroque enthusiast.  And who can complain about such a thing?  But nothing is ever as simple as right and wrong.  So his strictures can be discussed!

I grew up at a time when Handel/Harty and Bach/Stokowski were a principal access to Bach and Handel.  In the 1950's little Handel opera and almost no Monteverdi was performed in London.  But the shining exception was the work of the Handel Opera Society in London where I heard Joan Sutherland in Alcina and Rodelinda as a teenager in the late 1950s.  Monteverdi waited until Aix-en-Provence in 1961 where I heard Bruno Bartoletti conducting Malipiero's version of Poppea.  And then in 1962, my first year in my first job, at Glyndebourne, Raymond Leppard's famous edition of Poppea changed everything for Monteverdi.  He opened things up and made enemies amongst the purists who had achieved nothing practical.

But the purists will never be content.  And they all fight each other anyway.  Hogwood was at first the state of the art; at that time those who used original instruments and adopted "historically informed performance practice" were called "Vegetarians" and Christopher Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music was dubbed "The Academy of Ancient Muesli" by the celebrated English director Jonathan Miller!   Nikolaus Harnoncout was the top flavor for a number of years, then came William Christie and so many others.  And now we have Emmanuelle Haim doing a fine job with her own orchestra but also a fine job with such modern instrument orchestra's as Chicago's Lyric Opera Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic!

So please let us not get so stressed out with the idea of "authenticity". Its all about the music making please.  I in the meantime have covered all the bases recently at COT with Jane Glover and Emmanuelle Haim, and am delighted to have a great Handelian, Raymond Leppard, conducting Orlando for us this coming season.  But this does not preclude some radical steps in the opposite direction in the coming seasons.  I am intrigued by the efforts of Gary Clarke and his Baroque Band here in Chicago.  They must do some opera one day soon.  Of course there are many difficult issues here.  Europe's early music scene is mature - our is not.  We have a good way to go to catch up.  Maybe COT can play a small part in making that happen.

We certainly intend to do something different again in 2010.

So it is now good night from Sanibel.  We are back in Chicago tomorrow.

Comments

[Gianna]

I agree with you. Art cannot be confined by rules as to what is allowed and what is not allowed when it comes to re-examination... especially opera, which is such a high-risk, huge-reward experience.

[Jordan Friedman]

To Gianna:

Despite my apparent "strictures", as Mr. Dickie would call them, I can easily love any good, tasteful performance of Baroque and earlier music, regardless of the type of instruments used. I am surely NOT a purist in that respect. I care more about HOW the instruments are played than I do about whether the stings are metal or gut, or the angle of the fingerboard. There are some that will not even read a review of a modern instrument performance of Händel or Bach, let alone attend one. I am irritated by those people. Although I have a personal preference for the use of authentic instruments whenever possible, I know from experience that this is not required to make the music sound beautiful. Interestingly, much of the most recent scholarship on 17th century performance practice seems to indicate that it resembled modern techniques and sonorities more than was previously thought. The most cutting-edge performances of baroque music include more vibrato in stringed instruments and singing than one could have ever heard a few years ago. My point is that the music must be played in the correct style to speak for itself in the way that baroque music can do so well, and that while authentic instruments help immensely, they are not essential for an outstanding performance. This was clearly evidenced by Emmanuelle Haïm and the Lyric players back in December, as I'm sure it will also do by Jane Glover and her orchestra at Don Giovanni this Spring. My tickets arrived yesterday, and I can't wait for that one. Perhaps if the finances are in order, I'll splurge for Orlando as well. I just hope that Leppard has the compassion to exclude the electric organ from the continuo section this time : )

[Brian]

This all makes total sense. And Emmanuelle Haim has proved, as has Jane Glover on many occasions, that working with modern instruments works also. And then we get to the question of pitch.....another can of worms entirely!

As far as the organ is concerned - no surely no electric organ. We are grateful to our friends at Music of the Baroque for the loan when needed of a delectable pipe organ of the right specifications. Of course the wind is provided by electricity - no organ grinder monkeys anymore alas.

[Jerry Fuller]

We at ArsAnitugaPresents.com, a free monthly audio webcast of early music, have a strong belief in the reasons for using period instruments. Our thoughts on this issue can be found at http://arsantiguapresents.com/about-2/.

I also believe that one of the most wonderful things about aesthetics is that a certain point of view does not invalidate another.

I do hope that COT will continue to deliver top quality baroque opera with world-class conductors and directors; fine young singers; and period instrument orchestras for many years to come.

[Tara Faircloth]

"It's all about the music making please." I couldn't agree more!
It is thrilling that we even have the opportunity to hear and see different interpretations, when just a short time ago, this music was not being heard at all.
Thanks to COT for adventurous programming.... I look forward to seeing what you will bring us next!

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