July 6th, 2008

by: Randy Kinkel

July 06, 2008

( Phoenix, AZ )
•La Scala Workers threaten Strike
•Why Strads sound so great?
•"The Fly" now opera

It's this week in classical music, an update on what's happenning in the classical music world; I'm Randy Kinkel.

Workers at Milan's venerable La Scala Opera house are threatening to strike this week, possibly cancelling the first three performances of Franco Zefferelli's production of "La Boheme" by Puccini. Union spokesman Giancarlo Albori said Wednesday that talks with management were continuing.The strike, if it goes ahead, would be the third to hit La Scala in the last four years. Last year, a strike cancelled a performance of Verdi's Rigoletto, after some 800 workers, in cluding musicians and chorus members, walked out in a disoute about pay and conditions.

More research is underway to try and find out why Stradivarius violins sound so good. One of the latest conclusions is that Growth rings in the wood used to make Stradivarius violins in the 1700s may hold the explanation for their unparalleled sound. Scientists at the Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, who put the instruments through a computed tomographic (CT) scanner, published their research Wednesday in the online journal PLoS ONE. The scientists, who tweaked a computer program used to analyze scans measuring lung density in patients with emphysema, said that may be because of important differences in wood from the 1600s and wood today.

Antonio Stradivari built more than 1,000 instruments in his lifetime, about 650 of which survive today. In addition to the famous violins, there are 13 violas, 63 cellos, two 10-string guitars, two mandolins and an arpetta, a small ornamental harp. Lead author and violinist, Dr. Berend Stoel, put five of the ancient instruments and seven modern violins through the scanner, and found that the ancient violins had more even wood density, possibly the result of even growth rings in the summer and winter. The researchers speculated that this difference might influence how vibrations travel through the wood. Other scientists say that a mini European ice age in the 1600s might have something to do with the quality of wood in the Stradivarius violins. Trees - at least those outside the tropics - have growth rings of dense wood during the winter when the tree grows slowly, and less dense wood in the summer when they grow faster. But colder temperatures in Europe during the 1600s likely led trees to grow more evenly, producing even seasonal growth rings. "Climate difference could explain part of it, but treatment of the wood could be another explanation. A third answer could simply be the aging of the wood over the past 300 years," according to Stoel.

"Be Afraid. Be VERY Afraid." that was the catch phrase for David Cronenberg's 1986 film, "The Fly", about a scientist who accidentally turns himself into a fly. Cronenberg's friend Howard Shore, who did the music for the original film, is onboard for the Opera as well; I love the characters," Shore said. "I wanted to write for a drama that I was familiar with, and that I had a certain inside view of." The plot sticks to the same basic lines as the film, which starred Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum. Placodo Domingo has signed on as the conductor of the opera, and the libretto is being written by David Henry Hwang, who wrote "M Butterfly". The world premiere of the opera was last week in Paris, and the US premiere will be September 7th in Los Angeles.

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org, be listening each week at this time for another update, and join me every weekday at noon for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I'm Randy Kinkel, for KBAQ's This Week in Classical Music", on 89-5 KBAQ phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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