This Week in Classical Music - August 31, 2008

by: Randy KInkel

August 31, 2008

Gergiev
Gergiev

( Phoenix,AZ )
•Gergiev leads pro-Russian concert near Georgia
•Wainwright withdraws Opera from Met

This week in Classical Music 8/31/08

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world, I’m Randy Kinkel.

Conductor Valery Gergiev led the St. Petersburg Marinsky orchestra 10 days ago in a pro-Russian Concert in South Ossetia, near the site of recent hostilities in Georgia. Gergiev is Ossetia’s most famous son and also an outspoken supporter of the Putin regime; He is godfather to Putin’s Child. 0ver 300 Ossetians in attendance waved Russian flags as they listened to Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, originally written on orders from Stalin to rouse Russian to resist Nazi invasions, and the “Pathetique” Symphony by Tchaikovsky. Before the concert, Gergiev said, “"The world doesn't know the truth about what happened in Tskhinvali, there is a huge manipulation of public opinion happening now," he said. I am a musician and I am also an Ossetian and what makes me tense is I have friends in Georgia ... but the Georgians do not know the truth." There was no sign of a meaningful withdrawal by Russian troops from Georgian territory. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, had promised that a withdrawal of all but 500 troops would be completed by last Friday night.
Pop singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has dropped his plans to compose an opera for the Metropolitan Opera over a dispute about the language of the libretto. Wainwright, who was raised in Montreal, insists it be in French, the Met wants it to be in English. Wainwright said he was originally open to the idea of translating the text into English, but that as he continued writing the opera, the French words became “too entrenched in the music”. Wainwright thanked the Met and Peter Gelb for supporting the work in it’s early stages, he said, “I wouldn’t be writing if it weren’t for them.” The Met’s GM Peter Gelb said ““I hoped he would switch over, but he was determined to do it in French, presenting a new opera that is not in English at the Met, when it could be in English, is an immediate impediment to its potential success with audiences…It was obvious it wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “It happens.” Wainwright said the opera, about a day in the life of an aging soprano in 1970s Paris, would have its premiere next July at the Manchester International Festival in England.

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 of Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel for “This Week in Classical Music, on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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