Practice Makes Perfect-A Tale of Multiple Conductors and Great Orchestras

One advantage of attending so many musical productions is that I am slowly learning more about the art and business of classical music.  Last week the big news in the opera world was the disappointing performance by the conductor Leonard Slatkin in La Traviata. Apparently he even admitted on his blog that he didn't know the entire score so that at the first performance that he conducted he had his principal stars, Angelina Gheorgiu and Thomas Hampson desperately looking back at the orchestra to try to understand why he was wreaking havoc with the tempo.  "I have seldom heard such faulty coordination between a conductor and a cast at the Met" said the Times critic Anthony Tommasini .  That was enough for Greg, who promptly decided to back out of going to La Traviata with me...or perhaps the fact that the Final Four was on the same evening that he used this as an excuse.  So once again I was able to take a more appreciative Beth to our favorite 3 handkerchief romantic opera.  That first performance was on Monday evening (3/29).  Slatkin withdrew from future productions and so on Saturday (4/3) Beth and I were able to see a good production conducted by the workhorse Marco Armiliato who had to conduct Aida that same day. Since I was paying attention to the drama behind the change in conductors,  I was able to appreciate how difficult it must be to conduct La Traviata and how carefully the conductor must balance Verdi's music, which can have an Oom-pah-pah quality, with the dramatic arias that make this opera so famous.  Apparently this event got Thommasini to also ponder how one's Verdi "chops" can be tested by La Traviata in an intriguing follow-up article. 

Perhaps Antonio Pappano wanted to ensure that he didn't suffer the same fate that befell Slatkin for he was intensively demanding at the New York Philharmonic Open Rehearsal that I attended Wednesday (4/7)  This was the fourth open rehearsal I've attended this year (and the fourth conductor) and Pappano was by far the most particular as he worked through the piece with the members of the orchestra.  Pappano is the principal conductor for the Royal Covent Opera and has an excellent reputation.  He continually challenged the orchestra and made them stop and repeat sections over and over again.  This meant that the audience didn't get to hear a full, uninterrupted performance but in many ways this was a fuller experience for me because I could hear important sections repeated.  And since this was Brahm's Symphony #4 in E minor I loved to hear it repeated over and over again.  But I marvelled at the orchestra.  How they could pick up at "Bar 115"  or "Bar 142" and have all the instruments in sync with each other?  You'd think someone would miss a beat or hit the wrong note.  But I sure didn't hear it.  Pappano was pushing for subtleties in expression and sound that one could expect from a world class orchestra and,  as I later learned from the review,  for an operatic lyricism.  I wish I could have seen the actual performance but was happy to have heard this rehearsal.

And then, the other news was that James Levine, one of our favorite conductors, is once again waylaid with a bad back and will have to cancel numerous performances, including I fear the opening night at Tanglewood to which we had just purchased tickets.  Reading about the details of his contract with both the Met and the Boston Symphony, and about how they are now scrambling for substitute conductors, emphasized for me how each performance that I see requires the efforts of many performers and administrators.  I will think very carefully about going to a concert to see one performer in the future; I will make my decision based on multiple factors to protect against disappointment when a specific performer is a no-show.  But I've also learned that these great musical institutions (The Met, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony) are so professional that they can survive these setbacks.