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The Cultural Tourist

• Maestro Muti
  

  Many years ago I attended a Philadelphia Orchestra concert in Carnegie Hall that was supposed to begin with a Rossini Sonata for Strings. The first pieces in symphonic programs are often throwaways, allowing latecomers not to miss the meat and potatoes.

  On this occasion, however, there was a sign pasted over the program outside the Hall. Instead of the Sonata we would hear another Rossini piece, the overture to his opera "William Tell." At the time I thought this was a precautionary measure. The overture had been tainted by its long association with the Lone Ranger TV show and to announce it in advance might have scared off more serious concertgoers.

  The conductor was Riccardo Muti, who made that all too familiar piece of music absolutely hair-raising. It is one of the most thrilling things I have ever heard, and the roar of the audience at its conclusion suggested I was not the only one.

  Needless to say over the years I have heard Maestro conduct many more substantial works with similar power -- I look forward to his debut at the Met in February conducting Verdi's "Attila" -- but the memory of that performance remains very special. It was brought back Monday night at the cocktail party in the Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center given by Musical America, the classical music magazine, for its annual awards.

  The composer of the year, the Dutchman Louis Andriessen, spoke charmingly of the experiences of his older brother, also a composer, who came to New York in the '40s to study with Aaron Copland and Lennie. He romanced a ballerina who was taken from him by her boss, Mr. Balanchine, after which he returned to Holland.

  Joshua Bell, the instrumentalist of the year, recalled that at 14 he won a contest entitling him to appear with the Philadelphia Orchestra and its then new music director, Signor Muti. Muti, he noted, could have given the assignment to an underling. Instead he worked closely with the young violinist, who attributed much of the rest of his career to the success of that concert.

  The vocalist of the year was mezzo Elina Garanca. She noted that she is the first Latvian to sing Carmen at the Met. She will play the role in the new production directed by British director Richard Eyre, which will have its premiere on New Year's Eve. Despite her blond hair and Nordic features, she promised to be "hot and spicy."

  To its great credit Musical America gives an annual award to an accompanist, though, as the editor of the magazine, our evening's eloquent host Sedgwick Clark pointed out, the proper term is now "collaborative artist." The recipient this year was Warren Jones, who has performed with such artists as Marilyn Horne and Kathleen Battle.

  When it was time for Maestro Muti to accept his award as Musician of the Year he began by acknowledging that conducting is the least concrete of musical practices. The composer creates something on paper. The violinist and accompanist work on an instrument. The vocalist presents her voice. He waves his arms.

  He spoke of a conversation with a policeman bemoaning his economic state. "Come to my house," he told the cop. "I will teach you how to conduct Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, and you will earn more in one night than you now do in a year."

  The Schubert, he pointed out, is a relatively easy piece to conduct in part because it only has two movements, both of which are three beats to the bar. He demonstrated the simple movements to his student -- in effect, you outline a triangle. You mount the podium, bow to the audience and when you see the violinists put their instruments under their chins you begin making triangles.

  At the end of the first movement, he said, the musicians will stop playing and you stop waving your arms. During the pause between the movements, he advised, look heavenward, as if you are experiencing lofty emotions.

  When the laughter subsided he recalled as a young conductor in Milan meeting one of the major conductors of the last century, Vittorio Gui. At the time he was 27, Gui 90. Gui lamented that he was just beginning to understand his craft.

  Muti modestly declared he felt like Gui. The waving of the arms is not so hard. From it you get the notes. The challenge is to reach into the musicians in front of you and bring out the music. Behind the notes is "the Infinite -- God," he said, bringing his audience flawlessly from hearty laughter to a reminder of the ineffable art that had governed all their lives.

  It was yet another moment when I realized what a privileged life I have led.Nee

• Les Violons du Roy
  

  One of the great things about the performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio by Les Violons du Roy at Carnegie Hall Saturday night was how youthful both the performers and much of the audience were. Yes, there were plenty of people around me with hair as gray as mine, but there were an unusual number of people much younger, not a common sight at classical concerts these days.

  In some sense it was essential that the performers be (largely) young because the work was a test of endurance. It consists of six separate cantatas written for six different feast days before and just after Christmas. Although Bach's audience was used to marathon performances -- the St. Matthew Passion, for example, they heard these works in installments.

  Les Violons du Roy, which was founded in Quebec 25 years ago, performs on modern instruments but in this case they used copies of 18th century bows, which gave the music a sound more period than modern.

  Bach demanded virtuosic skill of his musicians, and these performers made a formidable impression. Concertmistress Nicole Trotier and Maud Langlois did a two-part violin accompaniment to an aria with astonishing power -- I hope sometime they come back and perform Bach's double violin concerto. Benjamin Raymond's trumpet obliggato in the last part was absolutely dazzling -- I wish I could have heard him the night before in Handel's "Messiah." Similarly, Marie-Andree Benny's flute solo was sublime. I can't imagine Bach's original performers had this much polish and verve.

  The chorus, La Chapelle de Quebec, sang with luminous clarity and force. Here, too, I couldn't help but think how thrilled Bach -- whose chorus consisted of teenage boys -- would have been to hear them.

  The soloists came from many countries. This was the first time I have heard countertenor David Daniels in sacred music. The purity of his voice seemed ideal for this music. His singing was lustrous and thrilling, German tenor Jan Kobow showed a consummate understanding of the difficult style of this music. Welsh soprano Rosemary Joshua and American baritone Joshua Hopkins were similarly impressive.

  The performance was under the direction of conductor Bernard Labadie, who founded both Les Violons and La Chapelle, is clearly a musician who combines the most scrupulous historical understanding with a tremendous sense of musical drama. In his hands the work caught fire..

• Tales of Hoffmann
  

  In many ways Jacques Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann" is like an old friend. It is often one of the first operas you get to know and thus full of familiar and wonderful tunes. As a result, it's easy to overlook the complexity of its narrative and its underlying darkness. Bartlett Sher's new production for the Met has the effect of seeing someone after many years and realizing he's more complicated -- twisted, perhaps -- than you'd remembered.

  The opera is based on the work of a turn-of-the-19th century German fantasist E.T.A. Hoffmann, whose stories are also the source of Tschaikowsky's "The Nutcracker" and Delibes' "Coppelia." (He was also a very serious music critic -- Beethoven wrote him a thank you letter for his perceptive analysis of his work.)

  Hoffmann has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe, though his stories are not nearly so dark. Sher has compared him to Kafka, whose work is also far darker. He is one of those authors we are likely to see through the prism of Freud. The overall impression Hoffmann's three loves -- a mechanical doll, a Venetian courtesan and a consumptive singer -- makes on us is negative, sometimes evey misogynistic. Each love frustrates Hoffmann in a different way, though we also see his own shortsightedness, even foolishness, in pursuing them.

  Sher has chosen to set this "Hoffmann" in the Germany of the '20s. HOffmann sits at an old-fashioned typewriter rather than with pen in hand. The decadence of the tavern he frequents, with its lean women in leotards and pasties, evokes Weimar rather than the Germany of, say, Caspar David Friedrich, which is to say, tacky and decadent rather than Romantic.

  Much of the production, designed by Sher's longtime associate Michael Yeargan, falls under the heading of ungepatchkit, overly busy. The toy shop in which he courts the doll Olympia has a spiraling green serpent whose constant motion is a constant distraction. Yeargan's Venice has a vulgar quality, not at odds with the scene itself but rather dispiriting.

  The exception is the Antonia scene, which uses a backdrop of stylized, elegant trees and also features a haunting silhouette of a horse and carriage. I'm not sure how it fit in with the actual scene, which takes place in Antonia's father's house, but its striking simplicity would have been welcome throughout.

  Since the work was unfinished at Offenbach's death the