Events Calendar
In This Section
Most Read Stories
Blogs:
Pets:
Summit teams up with Rescue Waggin' to save dogs
The Heldenfiles:
Songs for an American Day
Patrick McManamon:
For your Saturday entertainment …
Akron Zips:
Opponent outlook: Northern Illinois
Browns Bulletin:
Single-game ticket sales begin July 11
Tribe Matters:
Laffey making it tough on self
Cleveland Browns:
Stallworth test showed marijuana
Kent State Sports:
Men's Basketball Scheduling update
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Updated: Free Agency: Another Gone - Apparently
All Da King's Men:
IPCC Already Wrong About Global Warming
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Wow….Sarah Palin Resigns Governorship
Akron Law Café:
Abraham Lincoln and the Fourth of July
Varsity Letters:
Highland senior receives honor
See Jane Style:
Picnic Wear
Car Chase:
Where do We Go from Here?
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Hate Crime in Fort Worth Texas: "That F***t had it Coming"
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Linda asks-where is the Ohio Chautauqua?
Sound Check:
Rundgren fans rejoice!: Second night of AWATS at The Civic added
HRLite House:
Morscruethal Behaviors or Just Lip Service?
Akron Gamer:
Hot link: Best of Nintendo at E3
Critics abroad praise unity of director, musicians
By Elaine Guregian
Beacon Journal arts and culture writer
POSTED: 11:52 a.m. EDT, Aug 20, 2008
The Cleveland Orchestra makes a fabulous pit orchestra, according to European critics. Here are excerpts from their comments about the orchestra's playing for the Salzburg Festival's first production of Dvorak's opera Rusalka. In total, the orchestra will play five sold-out performances of the opera, in addition to giving three concerts at the festival as part of its current European tour.
• ''Under Franz Welser-Moest's meticulous and moving direction, the Cleveland Orchestra, playing in the same pit that the Vienna Philharmonic had occupied a week earlier for Don Giovanni, proved just how much better it could sound than its Austrian counterpart. Perhaps comparison is unfair. . . . Still, it made a pleasant change to hear musicians who cared so much about every note, and could create a sound so homogeneous and lovingly crafted. This was the Cleveland Orchestra's first opera production in 20 years. They should not wait two decades until the next.'' — Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times, Tuesday
• ''If this last opera premiere finally gave this year's season in Salzburg's Haus fuer Mozart a festival-worthy production, that is due to the wonderfully precise, transparent and excellent players of the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Moest. From the very first note it unfolded into an electric, never-diminishing performance in its dramatic intensity. Wonderfully silky and supernatural sounded the homogeneous string playing, whilst the woodwinds were beautifully differentiated.'' — Julia Spinola, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Tuesday
• ''One has rarely experienced Welser-Moest in Austria so romantically and emotionally charged. The unity with the Cleveland Orchestra, which was already demonstrated in a concert performance in June, is perfect.'' — Gert Korentschnig, Kurier, Tuesday
• ''Here rules a luxurious blooming, brilliant, and above all refined structural color, in which the solo voices themselves in full tutti remain audible. And for the dramatic 'give and take' this top orchestra from the USA shows their increasing potential to such an extent that the performance could also have worked in the larger Festspielhaus. Yet Welser-Moest holds back on the fortissimo passages with strict control and allows for the delicate soft passages to grow so that, with absorbing dramatical flow, the lyrical elements take center place.'' — Marianne Zelger-Vogt, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Tuesday
Review translations were provided by the Cleveland Orchestra.
Writing in the International Herald Tribune, George Loomis covered the orchestra's Music and the Brain conference, presented in Salzburg with the Cleveland Clinic and an international panel of doctors, along with the orchestra's performance of Rusalka. To read Loomis' article, visit http://www.iht.com/.
Videos of the orchestra are available at http://www.youtube.com/user/clevelandorchestra. For more information on the tour, visit http://www.clevelandorchestra.com.
Elaine Guregian can be reached at 330-996-3574 or eguregian@thebeaconjournal.com
The Cleveland Orchestra makes a fabulous pit orchestra, according to European critics. Here are excerpts from their comments about the orchestra's playing for the Salzburg Festival's first production of Dvorak's opera Rusalka. In total, the orchestra will play five sold-out performances of the opera, in addition to giving three concerts at the festival as part of its current European tour.
• ''Under Franz Welser-Moest's meticulous and moving direction, the Cleveland Orchestra, playing in the same pit that the Vienna Philharmonic had occupied a week earlier for Don Giovanni, proved just how much better it could sound than its Austrian counterpart. Perhaps comparison is unfair. . . . Still, it made a pleasant change to hear musicians who cared so much about every note, and could create a sound so homogeneous and lovingly crafted. This was the Cleveland Orchestra's first opera production in 20 years. They should not wait two decades until the next.'' — Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times, Tuesday
• ''If this last opera premiere finally gave this year's season in Salzburg's Haus fuer Mozart a festival-worthy production, that is due to the wonderfully precise, transparent and excellent players of the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Moest. From the very first note it unfolded into an electric, never-diminishing performance in its dramatic intensity. Wonderfully silky and supernatural sounded the homogeneous string playing, whilst the woodwinds were beautifully differentiated.'' — Julia Spinola, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Tuesday
• ''One has rarely experienced Welser-Moest in Austria so romantically and emotionally charged. The unity with the Cleveland Orchestra, which was already demonstrated in a concert performance in June, is perfect.'' — Gert Korentschnig, Kurier, Tuesday
• ''Here rules a luxurious blooming, brilliant, and above all refined structural color, in which the solo voices themselves in full tutti remain audible. And for the dramatic 'give and take' this top orchestra from the USA shows their increasing potential to such an extent that the performance could also have worked in the larger Festspielhaus. Yet Welser-Moest holds back on the fortissimo passages with strict control and allows for the delicate soft passages to grow so that, with absorbing dramatical flow, the lyrical elements take center place.'' — Marianne Zelger-Vogt, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Tuesday
Review translations were provided by the Cleveland Orchestra.
Writing in the International Herald Tribune, George Loomis covered the orchestra's Music and the Brain conference, presented in Salzburg with the Cleveland Clinic and an international panel of doctors, along with the orchestra's performance of Rusalka. To read Loomis' article, visit http://www.iht.com/.
Videos of the orchestra are available at http://www.youtube.com/user/clevelandorchestra. For more information on the tour, visit http://www.clevelandorchestra.com.
Elaine Guregian can be reached at 330-996-3574 or eguregian@thebeaconjournal.com
Comments
Click here to post your comments
