Before he was tricky...

Alex Ross rounds up the reviews coming out of Chicago for Chicago Opera Theater's run of Nixon in China by John Adams. Cincinnati Opera will put on the same production next summer (2007). I am looking forward to it; somehow this will be the first 20th century opera I've ever seen on stage.

Link to photo: Nixon whispers sweet nothings into the ear of a pouty Kissinger.

Miscellany

For about 15 mins. this morning, I planned a trip to Sante Fe to catch the American premiere of Adès's The Tempest and the premiere of a commission by Magnus Lindberg at the SF Chamber Music Festival. This was before I remembered that I'm still in grad school. Even hitchhiking would cost too much. The first job I get, though, I'm establishing a travel budget for just this kind of thing. Thankfully the blogosphere should produce a variety of reactions.

Esa-Pekka Salonen's piano piece Dichotomie isn't available on a CD, but I recently discovered a performance by Yefim Bronfman that was released as an iTunes bonus track to the Wing on Wing album.

DG Concerts has released a third LA Philharmonic performance of Beethoven and Lutoslawski via iTunes. Unfortunately, you can't just purchase the Lutoslawski Symphony #4. I'm a little miffed by this - do I really want to download Beethoven's 5th and Leonore #2? As yet undecided.

The home team is picking up some good reviews for a new CD of the Concertos for Orchestra by Lutosławski & Bartók with Music Director Paavo Järvi.

Googling "kill bernard holland" doesn't yield much, but change "kill" to "die" and an old thread from Opera-l appears with the subject "Bernard Holland must die." This search was prompted by his latest groaner, reviewing a concert by Mitsuko Uchida.

A Visit from Mr. Noise

Many thanks to Alex Ross for swinging through the Queen City last weekend. Hope we didn't scare you too much, Alex. And let me know what you think of The Beastmaster so I can pass it along to everyone else who was at dinner Friday. (Oh my, there's a Wikipedia entry for The Beastmaster. Yippee.)