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Deceptive Cadence
12:20 pm
Thu May 9, 2013

Moms In Opera: Women On The Edge

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Mozart's Queen of the Night (portrayed here by soprano Diana Damrau), in his The Magic Flute, is one of opera's more intense mothers.
Credit Sony
Credit DG
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Credit EMI
Maria Callas in Bellini's Norma.
Credit Decca
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Originally published on Thu May 9, 2013 1:43 pm

We love mothers for all the Hallmark reasons: for their compassion and patience, not to mention giving birth. But some moms aren't exactly greeting card friendly — and none less so than those who live in the opera house.

This is opera, after all, so we expect the outrageous. But operatic moms seem to be disproportionately portrayed as murderers, harpies or generally women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Your Normas, Medeas, Butterflies, Queens of the Night and Clytemnestras.

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2013 Summer Book Series
5:00 am
Wed May 8, 2013

WNIJ Announces 2013 Summer Book Series

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Four books. Four author interviews. One great summer of reading  -- and it begins just four weeks from today.

This year's Summer Book Series starts Wednesday, June 5, with Marnie Mamminga's memoir of summer vacations in northwest Wisconsin.

Mamminga lives in suburban Chicago. Her book, Return to Wake Robin: One Cabin in the Heyday of Northwoods Resorts, recounts her family's annual trips to Wake Robin, a log cabin built by her grandfather in 1929.

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Classics in Concert
5:40 pm
Tue May 7, 2013

Spring for Music: National Symphony Orchestra

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Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Conductor Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra gave the final performance in this year's Spring for Music Festival at Carnegie Hall on May 11, 2013. The program was of all 20th-century Russian music: Shchedrin's Slava, Slava; Schnittke's Viola Concerto; and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Schnittke wrote his viola concerto for Carpenter's teacher, Russian violist Yuri Bashmet — and Bashmet's name forms the melodic kernel for the entire 40-minute work.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Conductor Christoph Eschenbach's baton case for the evening.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
In acknowledging listeners' applause, Eschenbach and the NSO musicians returned the audience's warmth.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Conductor Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra gave the final performance in this year's Spring for Music Festival at Carnegie Hall on May 11, 2013. The program was of all 20th-century Russian music: Shchedrin's Slava, Slava; Schnittke's Viola Concerto; and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
The superb, rising American violist David Aaron Carpenter made his Carnegie Hall debut this evening in Alfred Schnittke's Viola Concerto.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Eschenbach took the final minutes of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony far more slowly than most conductors — about twice as slow, by his own reckoning.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Backstage, a helpful sign to guide the out-of-town musicians find their way through the warrens of Carnegie Hall.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
In an interview with WQXR, Christoph Eschenbach called Rostropovich "a great idol of mine since my youth," and explained how each of the three pieces on this Spring for Music program was meant to reflect a facet of Rostropovich's lifework.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
Carpenter bore down deep into this technically and emotionally demanding work.
Credit Torsten Kjellstrand for NPR
The performance, which was presented as a tribute to the NSO's late leader, conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, opened with Rodion Shchedrin's Slava, Slava: an brilliant and clangorous 5-minute piece that features tubular bells.
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Originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 9:33 am

Program:

  • SHCHEDRIN: Slava, Slava

  • SCHNITTKE: Viola Concerto

  • SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 5

  • National Symphony Orchestra

  • Christoph Eschenbach, music director

  • David Aaron Carpenter, viola

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