Podcast appearances and mentions of Anne Midgette

I was delighted to have the opportunity to sit down with Anne Midgette and Greg Sandow together. Both are influential thinkers and leaders in the world of music, each boasting remarkable careers. Anne served as the music critic for The Washington Post for 12 years, following her tenure at The New York Times. She has co-authored two captivating but distinctly different books: My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music with Leon Fleisher, and The King and I: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti with Herbert Breslin. Currently, she is working on an exciting new project—a book about Nanette Streicher, the innovative woman who built pianos for Beethoven.Greg Sandow has an equally impressive background, having taught at Juilliard for 25 years and currently teaching at the Peabody Conservatory. His courses at Juilliard included "How to Talk About Music" and "Classical Music in an Age of Pop." Greg has written for a range of prestigious publications, such as The Village Voice, The New York Times Book Review, Opera News, and The Wall Street Journal. Notably, he was the first music critic for Entertainment Weekly and spent three years as the chief pop critic for The Los Angeles Herald Examiner. And here's an interesting detail—Anne Midgette and Greg Sandow are married!In Part 1, we begin by exploring how Anne and Greg first met. From there, the conversation shifts to pop music with Greg offering his unique perspective, including why he believes Taylor Swift holds such significant cultural importance. This leads us into a thoughtful discussion on the relationship between art and commerce. A substantial segment of this part of the interview is devoted to their insights on how orchestras, opera companies, and musicians have evolved over the years and what orchestras can do to build and engage their audiences effectively.[Subscriber Content] In Part 2, we delve into the demanding schedules of successful conductors and musicians, touching on how the greatest artists need space and time to mature their interpretations. Following that, Anne and Greg share their individual writing habits, providing a glimpse into their creative processes. We conclude our conversation by examining revealing differences in how classical music is critiqued compared to pop and rock music.Would you like more inspirational stories, suggestions, insights, and a place to continue the conversations with other listeners? Visit anthonyplog-on-music.supercast.com to learn more! As a Contributing Listener of "Anthony Plog on Music," you'll have access to extra premium content and benefits including: Extra Audio Content: Only available to Contributing Listeners. Podcast Reflections: Tony's written recaps and thoughts on past interviews, including valuable tips and suggestions for students. Ask Me Anything: Both as written messages and occasional member-only Zoom sessions. The Show's Discord Server: Where conversations about interviews, show suggestions, and questions happen. It's a great place to meet other listeners and chat about all things music! Can I just donate instead of subscribing? Absolutely! Cancel at anytime and easily resubscribe when you want all that extra content again. Learn more about becoming a Contributing Listener @ anthonyplog-on-music.supercast.com!

When I first began the podcast,  producer Eddie Ludema and I thought our main goal would be to dig deeply into what makes a great musician, and we had many fascinating interviews in that vein. But as time progressed, we noticed that our interviews were with subjects that didn't concern themselves directly with performance and practice techniques (Hamido Fujita on A.I. and music, biographer Jan Swafford, Anne Midgette on music criticism), and so we have been expanding our interviews to explore as many different aspects of music as possible. And since I am a composer who uses an engraving system (first Sibelius and now Dorico, which sponsors the podcast), who better to ask about behind the scenes of working on engraving systems than Daniel Spreadbury?Daniel is product marketing manager for the Dorico Music Notation System (Music and Composition Software for macOS, Windows, and iPad). After graduating from Oxford, he worked for around 12 1/2 years at Sibelius, and when he and his team were let go by Avid, most of them moved to Steinberg and started work on Dorico. In Part 1 of our conversation, Daniel first talks about his beginnings in music and tech, and how that eventually led him to Oxford University, which then eventually led him to Sibelius. We end Part 1 with Daniel talking about his team leaving Avid and their move to Steinberg.Dorico Professional music notation and composition software from Steinberg. Download a free 30-trial today!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

In the Bonus Room we discuss the idea of using social media to build a career in music, and from there we move on to the subject of the interpretation of Baroque music... authentic instruments and phrasing vs. modern instruments and phrasing. And we end with Anne's optimistic take on the future of classical music... "The music is just fine."

Part 2 of our discussion deals with the books "The King and I", and "My Nine Lives". We talk about what it was like to work with Herbert Breslin and Leon Fleisher, both towering but very different figures in the music business. This leads to a short discussion about interpretation, and we end with Anne talking about her current project, a book of historical fiction about the person who built pianos for Beethoven, Nanette Streicher.

Anne Midgette was the music critic for the Washington Post for eleven years, and for seven years before that was a regular contributor to the New York Times. She is the author of two books on music, The King and I, about the relationship between Luciano Pavarotti and his manager, Herbert Breslin, and My Nine Lives, with the pianist Leon Fleisher. She is currently working on a historical novel about Nanette Streicher, the woman who built pianos for Beethoven. Oh, and she has also written some travel books! So who better to ask about what it is like to be a music critic and her life in the arts?We begin with my asking Anne Midgette about her (at least to me) unique view on the purpose of a music critic. We then talk about what a normal day might look like and about the pressure of writing music reviews with incredibly quick publishing deadlines. Ms. Midgette is well known for her articles having to do with the #MeToo problem in classical music, which we discuss in depth toward the end of this episode.

Anne Midgette, critic and writer on the arts and other important topics.  She wrote criticism for The New York Times and The Washington Post

Self-described voice junkie, Music Critic Anne Midgette shares insights into how the history of opera continues to feed ongoing racism, patriarchal systems, fat shaming, and the genius myth while still holding on to hope for the future of the opera field.

​Music Critic Anne Midgette shares her deeply personal passion for women in the classical music field through her knowledge of history, love of opera, and her painful experience in publicly breaking the #metoo stories that permeate the opera field.

Kate Molleson is joined by musicians in Kabul to discuss the new restrictions on women singing - the ban, from the Afghan Ministry of Education, has caused concern that the Taliban is increasing its influence in the Afghan government as western forces prepare to pull out of the country. With contributions from Ahmad Sarmast, Director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and pianist Maram Abdullah. Following the death earlier this month of the conductor James Levine, Kate hears from the American music critic Anne Midgette and conductor Kenneth Woods as they discuss the moral questions surrounding Levine’s recorded legacy in the light of the controversy over his personal life. Ahead of World Autism Awareness Week, Kate talks to Adam Ockleford, who has worked extensively in the field of autism and music, and to Joe Stollery, a composer who regards his own autism as both a help and a hindrance in his musical life. And, the broadcaster Jennifer Lucy Allan speaks about her new book 'The Foghorn's Lament', which documents the role this coastal 'music' has played in our life and culture.

Sometimes, the only thing that gets us through the darkest moments is knowing that the sun will rise again on a new day. Puccini's final opera, Turandot, is about courage in the face of adversity, and love triumphing over fear. In other words, it is exactly what the world needs right now.  The aria “Nessun dorma” is Prince Calaf’s declaration of love and resounding victory cry. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and three guests explore what makes this aria so popular even beyond the opera house, and how it became an anthem of resilience and hope during the COVID-19 pandemic. This episode features Italian tenor Franco Corelli in a Metropolitan Opera performance from the Before Times (a.k.a. 1966). The Guests: Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal.  He loves conducting Puccini’s biggest, most majestic opera, but his favorite moments are the intimate arias like “Nessun dorma.” Writer Anne Midgette is the former classical music critic for The Washington Post. She first heard the aria on a Book of the Month Club cassette tape in college, and thinks the secret sauce for “Nessun Dorma” is in its climactic underdog declaration of “Vincerò” -- “I will win.” Dr. Michael Cho is a pulmonary and critical care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and has been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s also a violist, and has been playing with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra for more than 15 years. Recently, he joined the National Virtual Medical Orchestra, a group that formed during COVID to give people in the medical field a chance to play together. Watch their performance of "Nessun Dorma." In April of 2020, 700 children sang a virtual performance of "Nessun Dorma," as a message of hope and solidarity to the world, from Europa InCanto.

Sponsor The Forte Podcast for as little as $0.99 a month - https://anchor.fm/thefortepodcast/support Anne Midgette was the classical music critic of The Washington Post for 11 years, from 2008 to 2019. Before that, she was for seven years a regular contributor of classical music and theater reviews to The New York Times. She has also written about music, the visual arts, dance, theater and film for The Wall Street Journal, Opera News, The Los Angeles Times, Town & Country, and many other publications, reviewing and interviewing everyone from Spike Lee to Twyla Tharp, Marina Abramovic to Plácido Domingo. At the Post, she oversaw every aspect of classical music coverage, offset her music writing with occasional visual art reviews, and posted online as The Classical Beat. A graduate of Yale University, where she majored in Classical Civilization, she lived in Germany for 11 years, writing for a range of publications about music, the visual arts, theater, dance and film; editing a monthly magazine; working as a translator; and writing several travel guidebooks. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thefortepodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thefortepodcast/support

Anne Midgette was for 11 years the classical music critic of The Washington Post, where she expanded her beat with a strong social-media presence and became known for her work on #MeToo. Before the Post, she spent seven years as a regular contributor of classical music and theater reviews to the New York Times, having earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first woman to review classical music regularly for that paper in 2001. She has also written frequently for The Wall Street Journal, Opera News, The Los Angeles Times, Town & Country, and many other publications. A graduate of Yale University, she started her career as a journalist during the 11 years she lived in Germany, where she wrote about the visual arts, opera, film, and dance, worked as a translator, edited a monthly magazine, and wrote several travel guidebooks. The co-author of The King and I, a candid book about Luciano Pavarotti written with his long-time manager, Herbert Breslin (2004), and of My Nine Lives, the memoir of the pianist Leon Fleisher (2010), she is currently working on a historical novel about the woman who built pianos for Beethoven.  In this talk Anne Midgette generously shares the vivid experience of the responsibilities of being a critic, and her thoughts about the current state of classical music in the light of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.     ---------- Make Monday Mine is hosted by Deborah Claire Procter and produced by Clear Insight Productions This is about conversations so we’d love to hear your thoughts and take-aways.  Email your questions and comments to: comments@makemondaymine.com If you enjoyed this episode then it would be wonderful if you can head over to Apple Podcasts and kindly leave us a rating, a review and subscribe! ----------

A big-topic chat with Anne Midgette, folks! For this episode, host Jenna Simeonov chats with the writer and critic with one of the most influential voices in today's music journalism. A little COVID closures, a little #metoo, a little opera racism... did I mention big topics? Oh, and please forgive the audio on Jenna's end. The conversation was too good to sacrifice to technology goblins. Original music by @natedouglasband. Original artwork by @danikalorenart. https://schmopera.com/

"The world lost one of its greatest musical minds and hearts on Sunday when the legendary pianist, conductor and teacher Leon Fleisher died of cancer at the age of 92. I was proud to be one of the many people around the world privileged to call Leon a friend. When I was working as a musician, I had the great honor of working with him at the Baltimore Opera Company and on several other projects. I also had the pleasure of interviewing him here on WYPR and at other public events over the years. He was a captivating artist, whose music making was suffused with unparalleled grace, and boundless passion. And he was a mensch. A funny, enlightening and wonderful guy whose company it was always a pleasure to keep. "He gave his first public performance as a pianist at the beginning of President Franklin Roosevelt’s second term, and he continued to perform for eight more decades. When a neurological disorder known as focal dystonia restricted the use of his right hand, he played concerts with his left hand, and he conducted. "And he coached young musicians. He taught at the Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute here in Baltimore for 59 years. I invited a few guests to be with us today to share their recollections of working with Leon Fleisher. First, Anne Midgette joins us. She is the former classical music critic for the Washington Post who collaborated with Leon on a book called My Nine Lives: A Musical Memoir. Then I speak with concert pianists Lura Johnson and Michael Sheppard, both of whom studied under Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute. "Thanks to all for sharing your recollections of this wonderful artist. Our hearts go out to Leon Fleisher's wife and pianistic collaborator, Katherine Jacobson, his sons Julian and Richard, and his daughters Deborah, Leah and Paula." -- Midday host Tom Hall

Anne Midgette was the chief classical music critic of The Washington Post for 11 years, until last November; before that, she was for seven years a regular contributor to The New York Times. Her writings on opera, music, theater, film and dance have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Opera News, Town & Country, and many other publications. A graduate of Yale University, she began her journalism career during the 11 years she lived in Munich, Germany, where she edited a monthly English-language magazine, traveled around Europe contributing articles to various publications, translated everything from technical manuals to film screenplays, and wrote several travel guidebooks. She has co-authored books on the tenor Luciano Pavarotti ("The King and I") and the pianist Leon Fleisher ("My Nine Lives"). She is currently working on a historical novel about the woman who built pianos for Beethoven.     In this episode, Karen and Anne discuss Anne’s 80x80 Movement - Milestones & Medals - Challenges for Life:  Was there something that happened to inspire you on this journey? If exercise were an over the counter drug, everyone would buy it.  Milestones and Medals along the way You can set your own medals and milestones.  What has been your greatest Movement Challenges? Getting out and running gives you time to allow yourself to pursue other interests, such as new books, music, places, etc. What has been one of your most memorable Challenges? Beginning running or other exercise programs can lead to other exciting life changes, such as taking leaps you hadn’t considered tangible before. What inspiration do you have for those new to the 80 x 80 Movement? You can do it to, if only you take the time.  What’s your next Challenge for Life?     "It is important to have motivation and a goal."- Anne Midgette     Connect with Anne Midgette:     Twitter: @classicalbeat Facebook: Anne Midgette Website: AnneMidgette.com Instagram: @classicalbeat     About the Podcast    Join host Karen Briscoe for 80x80 Movement Mondays each month to hear stories and inspirations for your 80x80 Movement journey! Tune in to hear guest’s share their Challenges for Life. Karen shares the ups and downs, Milestones and Medals, and Challenges for Life on her 80x80 Movement journey at 80x80Movment.com.   Here’s to your Challenges for Life!      Connect with Karen Briscoe:    Facebook: 80x80 Movement page  — 80x80 Movement group Instagram: 80x80Movement YouTube: 80x80 Movement Website: 80x80Movement.com  Email: Karen@80x80Movment.com   Subscribe to 5 Minute Success Podcast  Learn more about Karen’s books:  Flip Time / Love Life ~ Real Estate Success in 5 Minutes a Day Commit to Get Leads Success in 5 Minutes a Day - 66 Day Challenge   Karen also recommends Moira Lethbridge's book "Savvy Woman in 5 Minutes a Day"    Spread the love and share the secrets of 5 Minute Success with your friends and colleagues!    Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it. 

Episode 49: TRUE STORIES: with John KORSRUD, Sally JAEGER, David JAEGER, Anne MIDGETTE, Rolf HIND, Alex MINCEK, Erin GEE, and Beverley JOHNSTON.

Anne Midgette resigned as classical music critic for the Washington Post a few months ago, but she is well placed to discuss the dangers facing live performances of classical music in The After. And she tells us about the historical novel she's writing about the woman who built pianos for Beethoven. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! Support The Next Track (https://www.patreon.com/thenexttrack). Guest: Anne Midgette (https://annemidgette.com) Anne Midgette's articles on the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/anne-midgette/) Show notes: Furloughed Musicians and A New Digital Frontier: Performing Arts in the COVID-19 Shutdown (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/04/performing-arts-in-the-covid-19-shutdown) Julliard Bolero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqzkn-jX-JU) A String Quartet Is Crushed by the Coronavirus (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/arts/music/string-quartet-coronavirus.html) Classical music in crisis - this what the future looks like (https://david-taylor.org/blog/classical-music-in-crisis-this-what-the-future-looks-like) Coronadämmerung (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ChqaZxLT4) Our next tracks: Bruce Springsteen: Greetings from Asbury Park N. J. (https://amzn.to/3bffPLU) Kraftwerk: Computer World (https://amzn.to/3bivDgS) If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-next-track/id1116242606) or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. Special Guest: Anne Midgette.

  Todays guest is an important voice in the world of classical music.  Currently the Chief Classical Music Critic for The Washington Post,  Anne Midgette is a graduate of Yale University. Over her career, she has reviewed opera, music, and art throughout Europe for The Wall Street Journal, Opera News, and other publications. Returning to the United States, she became the first woman to review classical music for The New York Times on a regular basis in 2001. She continued as a classical music critic, theater critic, and arts writer for the newspaper from 2001 to 2007. In 2008, Midgette landed at The Washington Post as the newspaper's chief classical music critic.  In this episode, Midgette reflects on her career as music critic and her decision to leave her position at The Washington Post and her plans for the future.  

Sometimes you get up in the middle of the night realizing that what is done can never be undone. For Lady Macbeth, no amount of handwringing (or hand-washing) can clear her conscience. She and her husband have done some really, really bad things in their pursuit of power, but it’s Lady Macbeth whose ambition drives her to midnight rantings about her crimes. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene – her final appearance in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera based on Shakespeare. It’s a rumination on ambition and the dangers of running too hard at the things we desire the most. Or at least the things we think we deserve. At the end of the show, soprano Anna Netrebko sings the complete aria “Una macchia è qui tuttora” – Out, damned spot! – from the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Guests Leading soprano Anna Netrebko started her career singing the sweet and innocent Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and now she’s completely at home playing Verdi’s murderous queen. She knows many highly ambitious people, but not one of them has ever killed a king (that she knows of). Netrebko debuted as Lady Macbeth at the Met in 2014.  Anne Midgette’s lifelong love of Giuseppe Verdi began with Macbeth. As the Washington Post’s classical music critic, she’s written on Verdi and much more over her 11-year tenure. Her husband recently caught her singing Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in the shower. They are still married. Tana Wojczuk is a writer and teacher at New York University. She’s the author of the forthcoming Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America's First Celebrity which tells the story of the 19th-century actress who changed how we look at the role of Lady Macbeth. Special appearance from Dame Judi Dench. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Dench made a name for herself performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and twice starred as Lady Macbeth.

Is classical music dying? No. But its institutions, artists and promoters took some hits in the past decade, from bankruptcies to sexual harassment. Still, along the way, we heard a lot of terrific music.On this episode of All Songs Considered, we look at the roller coaster ride of high points and derailments in classical music. Symphony Orchestras and opera companies floundered financially, some going belly up and others rebounding as newly created organizations flourished. Women seemed to take a few steps forward and a few backward: While five of the last ten music Pulitzers were awarded to women, their music was conspicuously absent from our symphony halls. And tragically, both women and men, in many facets of classical music, were victims of sexual abuse and harassment. Anne Midgette, the author and classical music critic for The Washington Post, joins NPR Music's Tom Huizenga for this discussion.

You hear the message over and over in pop culture: love overcomes everything. But when Don José sings “The Flower Song” in Bizet's Carmen, you're reminded that love has a dark side, too. In the Season 1 finale, host Rhiannon Giddens welcomes tenor Roberto Alagna, critic Anne Midgette and psychologist Andrew G. Marshall to consider the crazy, possessive side of love and the importance of experiencing art that doesn’t have a fairy-tale ending. Then, you’ll hear Alagna sing the role of the passionate and violent Don José onstage at the Metropolitan Opera. The Guests Tenor Roberto Alagna first performed as Don José when he was 35. Twenty years and many performances later, he thinks he “judged” José a little too harshly in the past and now feels more empathy for the character's misguided and obsessive love. As a teenager, Washington Post critic Anne Midgette dreamed of living in Europe with a boyfriend who sang opera. When she moved there after college and dated a tenor who sang “The Flower Song” on a train platform, she thought, “Oh my god, my dream came true.” When writer and marital therapist Andrew G Marshall took his parents to see Carmen, they expected to hear some familiar tunes and a sweet love story. Instead, they got “horror and bloodshed.” Pro tip: always read the program notes.

Anne Midgette, chief classical music critic at the Washington Post, recently wrote an article that caught our attention called, "A beginner’s guide to enjoying classical music. No snobs allowed." We figured that she must have been listening to Classical Classroom, so we invited her on to chat. In this episode, Midgette discusses the pointers in her article (gems such as, "Classical music can do things no other music can"), talks about her own circuitous path to classical music critic stardom, and recommends some pieces of music to get you on your way to learning to love classical music more. Music in this episode:   Special Thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerbourough.    

In this episode of INtune, In Series Artistic Director Timothy Nelson gives a short update of on the opening of "Viva V.E.R.D.I. - The Promised End" and talks about Anne Midgette's recent review in the Washington Post

Anne Midgette, chief classical music critic for the Washington Post, discusses her article about classical music for beginners. Guest: Anne Midgette (https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/anne-midgette/) Show notes: A beginner's guide to enjoying classical music. No snobs allowed (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/a-beginners-guide-to-enjoying-classic-music-no-snobs-allowed/2018/08/10/ca5e2c5c-998e-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html) El Sistema (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Sistema) Detroit Symphony Orchestra (https://www.dso.org) National Symphony Orchestra (http://www.kennedy-center.org/nso/index) Hilary Hahn (http://www.hilaryhahn.com) Hilary Hahn's encore project (http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20131105-grand-finales-the-encore-revived) Simone Dinnerstein (http://www.simonedinnerstein.com) New World Symphony (https://www.nws.edu) Glyndebourne (https://www.glyndebourne.com) Our next tracks: Hilary Hahn: In 27 Pieces (https://amzn.to/2nHg9N2) Iggy Pop and James Williamson: Kill City (https://amzn.to/2PdGoao) If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-next-track/id1116242606) or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast. Special Guest: Anne Midgette.

Oliver Camacho returns from a father and son-in-law concert at the Ravinia Festival for a double-header ‘Monday Evening Quarterback’ review... Matt Cummings offers up a family feud style ‘Pop Quiz’ with disastrous results... In the ‘Two Minute Drill’, Anne Midgette follows up on her sexual harassment expose with a classical music primer, "Bel Canto" rears its head again, and Kathleen Battle turns 70... www.facebook.com/OBSCHI1/

Matt Boresi returns as a guest co-host to help celebrate Leonard Bernstein's 100th birthday. Hear the team's favorite clips from the best of Bernstein and get an inside look at 'Mass', performed last weekend at the Ravinia Festival... But first, the crew react to an exhaustive -- and exhausting -- article by Anne Midgette in 'The Washington Post' detailing the stories of over fifty victims of sexual harassment within the classical music world... Then, find out the connection between baseball and opera, and who'll be stepping up to the plate at the Kennedy Center Honors... www.facebook.com/OBSCHI1/

We introduce our new segment ‘The OBS Hall of Fame’, in which one of our team shares stories and clips about the ways in which one artist -- or one opera -- changed their life. Weston Williams kicks things off. Find out who -- or what -- he chose... But first, we take a look at an article in last week’s Washington ‘Post’, in which music critic Anne Midgette wrote: “Every once in a while in the life of a critic, something one does on one’s beat comes to define them for some time to come. I had one such moment this spring. To the outside eye, the choice may not have seemed that momentous.” We’ll tell you what her decision was... Plus, it’s the ‘Two Minute Drill’: everything you need to know from the past week in Operaland, and our hot takes on those stories... www.facebook.com/OBSCHI1/

Die amerikanische Journalistin und Musikkritikerin Anne Midgette spricht im Interview über die Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegenüber James Levine: Es sei keine Überraschung gewesen, allerdings sehr gut verdeckt für ein offenes Gerücht.

Sophy and Kelly and joined by painter/illustrator Julia Mills, screenwriter Anna Siri, and Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette, in a free-ranging discussion about the relationship between politics and art.

Sophy and Kelly and joined by painter/illustrator Julia Mills, screenwriter Anna Siri, and Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette, in a free-ranging discussion about the relationship between politics and art.

Mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan goes ‘Inside the Huddle’ with Oliver. She’s a current Steans Vocal Fellow at Ravinia who just sang a premiere with the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas... But first, “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs”, an opera with music by Mason Bates and libretto by Mark Campbell, opened at the Santa Fe Opera Festival last month. Washington Post critic Anne Midgette took that as an opportunity to talk about the way opera is built, and to compare it to TV and other art forms. Oliver and George respond... And but of course you get all your opera headlines and our hot takes on them in ‘The Two Minute Drill’... https://www.facebook.com/OBSCHI1/

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra's decision to drop its piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa this week because of her Twitter comments about Ukrainians and other ethnic groups raises a crucial point: orchestras and arts organizations find themselves walking a fine line with protecting their brand when they engage an artist with controversial views. In this episode, Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette argues that the Toronto Symphony handled the Lisitsa situation poorly by not presenting its case properly to the public. "The orchestra decorously cited distasteful Tweets and Lisitsa, who is a very savvy social media person, went on the warpath and said 'free speech,'" Midgette said. "Because the Toronto Symphony didn't come out and cite the Tweets they were talking about – and because Lisitsa was able to marshal opinion on her side – this has developed into a kind of cause celebre and people are jumping to conclusions based on inadequate information." Peter Himler, a P.R. strategist who advises clients on crisis management, agrees that the TSO didn't get out ahead of the story. "There is not one Tweet from them bringing up this issue," he said. "I think they should be up front and continually communicating their point of view. That's one of the rules of thumb in crisis communication." [Listen to WQXR's interview with TSO president Jeff Melanson.] Himler believes that many of Lisitsa's social media supporters may in fact be paid trolls who operate on behalf of the Russian government. "Vladimir Putin has people that go out and bolster the posts that are in his court," he noted. Both Himler and Midgette agree that artists should be free to speak their minds, but orchestras should realize that guest soloists become the temporary representative of the symphony. "Your soloist is certainly your face that week in terms of marketing," said Midgette. "You are hiring somebody as an ambassador with the assumption that your organization is aligned with what they represent." Hear our guests' examples of successful crisis management in the full segment at the top of this page, and tell us what you think in the comments below.

A pianist recited Yiddish poetry during a Washington, DC recital, the Seattle Symphony premiered a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece about the environment, and Anna Netrebko made a surprising transformation as Lady Macbeth – these were a few of the high points of 2014, according to three top music critics. Joining host Naomi Lewin for this discussion of the year's highs and lows of classical music are Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post; David Patrick Stearns, classical music critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer and for WQXR's Operavore blog; and Zachary Woolfe, freelance classical music critic for the New York Times. Segment Highlights Midgette noted that Evgeny Kissin's poetry-infused recital was part of a larger trend of artists making more personal, introspective statements in concert halls. But she also lamented the way in which classical music in America seemed disconnected from broader national discussions of race and social change. And when debates did turn up in classical music, they proved one-dimensional. Midgette was particularly "saddened at the level of discourse" around John Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer, which drew protests at the Met. Our other panelists agreed. "I thought the [Klinghoffer] debate was such a straw man," said Stearns, "because most of the protesters didn't know much about the piece." All of the critics agreed that serious pros and cons about the opera needed to be raised but often weren't. The Met's eventful year also featured an epic struggle to cut costs and to reach contract deals with its unionized employees; the eventual outcomes didn't entirely solve the company's financial challenges, said Woolfe.  Poor labor-management relations were an ongoing national story in 2014. But the year saw many causes for optimism, say the panel, including some inventive programming at Philadelphia and Seattle orchestras (the latter of which premiered John Luther Adams's much-discussed Pulitzer Prize winner Become Ocean); new leadership at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; and the continued emergence of China on the orchestra landscape. Listen to the full discussion above and tell us in the comments below: What were your highs and lows of 2014? Bonus audio: Our guests consider the changing marketing of classical concerts:  

In 2010, the Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic played a recital in Washington, D.C., and got a mildly critical review. Somehow that stuck: It's the second item that comes up when you Google Lazic's name, after his own website. Now he wants it permanently removed from the search engine in Europe, citing the European Union's new "right to be forgotten" ruling as legal justification. The review, titled "Sparks But No Flame," is by Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette. It describes Lazic's performance as technically well-played but a little superficial. In this WQXR exclusive, the two parties involved – Anne Midgette and Dejan Lazic – join host Naomi Lewin to make their cases. Anne Midgette For his part, Lazic expresses his frustration that a four-year-old review ranks so high in Google search results, giving the public what he considers an unbalanced view of his musicianship. He calls Midgette's column "slightly defamatory" and argues that such criticism can have damaging effects beyond his own career. Midgette counters that she does not write reviews for musicians but for the benefit of her readers, and she hopes that her criticism will spark enlightened discussion. She notes that there is even one paragraph where she calls Lazic "prodigiously gifted" and says there's no way the Post itself would ever pull such a review. She and Lazic also come to some agreement. Listen to the above segment and tell us what you think in the comments box below: What do you think of Dejan Lazic's argument?

Many of us have posted things online that we wish we hadn’t. The question of how unfiltered classical musicians should be on Facebook and Twitter re-emerged recently with the controversy surrounding American bass-baritone Valerian Ruminski. His contract with Opera Lyra, a Canadian company, was cancelled after he posted a rant on Facebook about seeing a man on a bus with diamond-studded fingernails. The man turned out to be a drag queen and Ruminski's post – which was screen-grabbed by other social media users – attracted a barrage of criticism. Ruminski later apologized for his remarks but the damage was done. As he tells host Naomi Lewin in this podcast, "You are lulled into complacency after years and years of doing spur-of-the-moment posts. It's like you're in your living room talking to your friends. I thought these nails were worth commenting on. It turned into a conflagration." It's no secret that Facebook and Twitter can help classical musicians promote their work outside of traditional news media outlets. But when artists cross certain boundaries or get overly political, they can quickly find their careers at risk. Tamar Iveri, a Georgian soprano, was dropped from productions in Australia and Belgium earlier this year after she allegedly made homophobic remarks on Facebook about a gay rights parade. Another soprano, Deborah Voigt, received some angry responses after writing on Twitter and Facebook in July that she hoped a compromise could be reached in the Metropolitan Opera labor talks. In the second part of this podcast, guests Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post, and Michelle Paul, a director of product development at Patron Technology, offer advice on social media dos and don't's for those in the public eye. Listen to the segment above and weigh in by clicking on the gray bar below: What classical musicians do you enjoy following on Facebook or Twitter?

We're halfway into 2014 and opera has already worked its way into three of the year's biggest athletic events. For those keeping score, there was Renée Fleming's pop-tinged version of the national anthem at the Super Bowl; Anna Netrebko's take on the Olympic Anthem during the opening the Sochi Olympics; and on July 11th, two days before the finale of the World Cup, longtime soccer fan Placido Domingo will perform a concert in Rio de Janeiro with soprano Ana Maria Martinez (and pianist Lang Lang). This is reportedly Domingo's sixth World Cup appearance, the first being at the 1990 World Cup in Rome with the Three Tenors (with Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti). Other famous examples in the sporting canon include baritone Robert Merrill's regular anthem performances with the New York Yankees and soprano Montserrat Caballé's gaudy tribute to her hometown at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. So who gets the medal for best operatic performance in this year's stadium events? And just how did this happen? In this week's podcast we talk with two experts: Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post Joseph Horowitz, a veteran concert programmer and author of 10 books including Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall Segment Highlights On the Similarities Between Opera and Sports Fandom: Midgette: I would say opera and sports are a natural pairing. Being an opera fan is very much like being a sports fan: you're looking for the highs and lows, you're rooting for your favorites, you're waiting to see if they're going to trip up. There's a real element of fandom, as everyone who love opera knows.      Anna Netrebko at the Olympics vs. Renee Fleming at the Super Bowl: Horowitz: I was kind of surprised that [Fleming] sang with such exaggerated sincerity. I thought the whole thing was pretentious and over-the-top... I was reminded of seeing Pavarotti at Madison Square Garden. I thought they both sounded a little dutiful and self-conscious. Midgette: I was of two minds. In a way, [Fleming] pulled it off but in a way I do agree that it certainly wasn't her best self. Neither was an example of those singers at their vintage best. They were fine at what they did but neither struck a great blow for classical music.   The impact of the Three Tenors: Midgette: Whatever you thought of the Three Tenors phenomenon, it had a lot of spark and oomph and it was fun and irreverent and a little trashy. That's why the Three Tenors took off the way they did.   On whether televised sporting events can take over the role of promoting opera to the masses: Horowitz: There was a time when NBC and CBS had their own orchestras. NBC had an opera company, very different from what we associate with Great Performances on PBS. It did opera in English, it did adventurous stagings, it commissioned operas. So if you're looking back as far as the '40s and '50s, it's a different world and in many ways, a much more inspiring world for culture. Listen to the full segment above and tell us what you think: What's been the greatest stadium performance by an opera singer? Please leave your comments below.

When Sharleen Joynt, a coloratura soprano from Canada, was selected to be a contestant on ABC's reality dating show “The Bachelor," she knew it had the potential to be more bizarre than many opera plots. One of the show’s pivotal scenes, after all, has her stepping out of a limousine, dressed to the nines, to meet someone who ostensibly could propose to her within a few weeks. But, as she discusses on this edition of Conducting Business, there was a “fear of missing out” when the opportunity arose. "You know it's once-in-a-lifetime even if it's not highbrow once-in-a-lifetime." Joynt was among 27 women selected to move into a mansion and gear up to attract Juan Pablo Galavis, the titular bachelor of the show. She stayed through seven episodes before deciding he wasn't for her and – uncharacteristically for a contestant – left of her own accord. Besides being surreal – with cameras trailing her at every waking moment – the experience pointed to larger questions of how pop culture visibility can impact a career that's usually considered highbrow. And it illustrates the difficulties a young singer faces in balancing an all-consuming profession with extracurricular interests and a personal life. Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post, is among many observers who suggested that Joynt didn't fit the typical profile of the show's characters. “She seems to have made a splash on ‘The Bachelor’ by being kind of genuine and maintaining her dignity,” said Midgette, who recently wrote about Joynt. “She certainly didn’t hurt her career with the way she behaved on the show. She appears to have been completely dignified throughout.” "Taking a larger view of it, there are worse things in the world than getting a little mainstream exposure for the opera world,” Midgette added. But Midgette also thinks the singer may be viewed suspiciously by some casting directors and agents. Despite the fact that Joynt is currently an understudy at the Metropolitan Opera, and studied at the Mannes College of Music, Midgette notes that she was turned down for an audition at one “B-level American house” on the grounds that she was too “junior league.” Says Joynt, "I think that the opera world is very wary of me at the moment. It's not easy. Everything I've done so far in my life has been for [my opera career].” Joynt describes how she has sought to keep her opera career separate from the show, which was largely necessary during the filming itself. "When you're in 'The Bachelor' mansion, you're drinking a lot and staying up late a lot," she said. A few times she practiced in a bathroom with the door locked and the blinds shut. "Basically, I tried to keep it private, but it's really hard." The producers, however, wanted her to spotlight her singing. “I was like, 'I don't want to sing in interviews.' I was like, 'I'm not singing when I get out of the limo,'" said Joynt. (She did eventually sing a few bars in one scene, as Juan Pablo "wasn't taking no for an answer.") Would she do it again? "I would be lying if I said I didn't have moments where I said, 'maybe this was a huge mistake.' But it was a fun experience. I'm a 29-year-old girl. And honestly, the people I met were the best part – the girls in the house, the producers – many of whom I consider friends now. I only have good things to say about it overall." Listen to the full segment above and please share your reactions in the comments box below. (Photo: ABC)

Leonard Bernstein, Paul McCartney and Osvaldo Golijov all wrote high-profile music that wasn't entirely theirs. They used orchestrators (Bernstein in West Side Story), musical collaborators (McCartney's concert works) and assistant melodists (Golijov’s Sidereus) to help get their thoughts on paper. But while many composers farm out tasks to students and assistants with full transparency, the scandal surrounding the Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi goes far deeper. The man known as “Japan’s Beethoven” — because he supposedly continued to compose despite a profound hearing loss — admitted last week that he’d been paying someone else to write his music for nearly two decades. What’s more, his ghost writer also came forward to reveal how little he had been paid, and to claim that Samuragochi’s deafness was all an act (Samuragochi on Wednesday offered an apology and an explanation that his hearing had partially returned). And it’s not only Japanese musicians who have expressed outrage over the revelations. On this episode of Conducting Business, Francisco J. Núñez, director of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC), tells host Naomi Lewin that his chorus is currently in a bind, trying to determine whether to go ahead with a long-scheduled performance of Samuragochi’s choral piece Requiem Hiroshima on March 26, alongside two visiting Japanese choruses. The YPC, whose core program serves 1,300 New York City children from ages 7 to 18, performed the requiem in Tokyo last summer and briefly met with Samuragochi. “I was very sad,” Núñez said when asked about the revelations. “I’ve been receiving texts and snap-chats from all of our singers actually. He had won our hearts with the story. It seems to me, music is always about the way you paint the picture around the actual music and a picture was painted around Samuraguchi.” The piece in question is a choral tribute to a 15-year-old boy who died from the effects of radiation from the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. “If anyone else had given me this piece of music I would not say, ‘Wow, this is an incredible piece of music,’” Núñez admitted. “But it was because it came from someone who we thought couldn’t hear.” Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post, agrees that the outrage is not over his use of a ghostwriter, but the fictional persona he developed to create the ruse. “I feel the outrage is about the personal fraud – the deception, the pretending to be deaf, pretending to be a genius,” she said. “If he had been open about the collaboration, I think there would be no outrage at all because this kind of collaboration is a normal part of the artistic process these days.” The case comes as a culture of borrowing and collaboration has opened up new gray areas in music, says Richard Elliott, a cultural musicologist at the University of Sussex in England. “In popular music it’s become kind of accepted that what we’re hearing is a fabrication," he noted. "Authorship goes far beyond the composer and the lyricists and involves all kinds of technologists – engineers, mixers, producers." Núñez said his choir is still debating whether to perform the Requiem Hiroshima with a correct attribution – or pull it from the program altogether. “I have received many e-mails from Japan asking me to no longer perform this piece of music,” he noted. “Even I don’t understand what actually happened here – that someone is able to deceive so many people for so long.” Listen to the full segment above, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and share your own thoughts on this case in the comments box below. Photo: Takashi Niigaki, ghost writer of deaf composer Mamoru Samuragochi dubbed 'Japan's Beethoven,' leaves a press conference in Tokyo on February 6, 2014.

The year 2013 saw plenty of headline-making moments in classical music. Protesters came to the opening night of the Met, while a stagehands strike cancelled the opening night at Carnegie Hall. There were heated debates over women conductors and some complicated celebrations for Richard Wagner. It was another tough year for some orchestras but a good one for Benjamin Britten fans. In this edition of Conducting Business, three experts talk about the past year: Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post; Justin Davidson, classical music and architecture critic for New York magazine; and Heidi Waleson, a classical music critic for the Wall Street Journal. High Points: Anne: In the year that Van Cliburn died, Anne was particularly excited to hear the 22-year-old Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov: “Trifonov is a pianist whom I find totally exciting. I hear a lot of great concerts in the course of a year but I find that Trifonov has something really special and is a really interesting artist and somebody I look forward to hearing again and again.” Justin on Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra's staging of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the Mostly Mozart Festival: “One of things I really liked about it was it was one of these really portable productions. It was done in a concert hall with the orchestra on stage, no sets, minimal props, costumes that were taken off a clothes rack that was sitting on the stage…With minimal resources they produced one of the most effervescent and inventive productions I’ve seen of that opera. What it said to me is how much you can do with how little.” [Read more of Justin's picks at NYMag.com] Heidi: George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, given its U.S. premiere at Tanglewood in August: “So often you see these new operas and you think, ‘Why did they bother? Why did you turn this movie or this book into an opera?' This was a completely new piece of writing and it had a tension to it from beginning to end. It has a fantastically colorful and intricate orchestration, which includes a solo moment for the viola da gamba." Listen to Written on Skin on Q2 Music   Low Point: The closing of New York City Opera in October after a last-ditch campaign to raise funds for its 2014 season fell through. Anne: “It is not a sign that New York can’t support two opera companies. It is a sign that, due to poor decisions on behalf of the board and a whole sequence of events, this particular thing happened that really didn’t need to happen.” Justin: "One thing that you can take away from that is it is really the product of a classical music and operatic infrastructure that, over the years, got overextended. While we have learned how to expand, trying to do planned shrinkage and figure out how to contract” is tougher for the classical music business. "If you have union contracts and have a season that establishes a kind of baseline, it’s very, very difficult to say ‘we need this to be smaller.’” Heidi: “It was unable to come up with a convincing audience strategy, opera house strategy or even artistic strategy. They did try a few things that I thought were quite interesting – doing for example A Quiet Place, a Leonard Bernstein opera that had never been done in New York… They were in fact trying to reestablish themselves as something that was alternative to the Met, that was a little more forward-looking, and I think it’s really a shame that they couldn’t.” Trends: Anne: The spotlight in 2013 turned to women – women conductors, women composers. “Classical music has proven to have a particularly thick glass ceiling. People are looking at the situation and saying, ‘It’s been years people, why do we still not have very many female conductors on the podium? And when we do, why is it such a big deal?’ There’s still that funny ambivalence about how far we should look at this as a phenomenon and how far we should pretend we’ve all been equal all along.” Justin: The lack of women on major podiums is “a sign of the difficulty that the whole establishment has in adapting at all. What happens is these institutions are very rigid and brittle and when they come up against an obstacle they know that they’re going to splinter and so they avoid the obstacles. It’s a very inflexible set of relationships… Heidi: “The New York Philharmonic seems to be about 50 percent women these days – so why not on the podium?” Justin on the arrival of alternative opera and non-traditional performance venues, as seen in events like the Prototype Festival: “With the cost of real estate in New York, companies are finding cheaper venues and the technology has matured enough so all that you really need is a pretty small room and a fairly minimal investment in machinery to be able to put on a pretty sophisticated multimedia event." Heidi: “There are other organizations doing similar kinds of things: The Gotham Chamber Opera put on a Cavalli opera [Eliogabalo] in a burlesque club... It attracts a different kind of audience. You can break through some of the formality of going to the opera house and sitting in the velvet seat and watching the gold curtain go up."   Surprises: Justin: Caroline Shaw, a 30-year-old New York composer, violinist and singer (right), became the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music for her Partita for 8 Voices (heard at the start of this segment). “It has a quality that almost no contemporary music has, which is joy. It’s something that we’ve forgotten is part of the classical music tradition and an important one.”  Anne: “It’s interesting in that [Shaw] doesn’t even self-identify as a composer but as a violinist. The Pulitzer has been very eager to expand its reach and get outside of the norm of what had been deemed Pulitzer-worthy over the years and I think this is a sign that this is happening.” Heidi on Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s musical of “Fun Home” at the Public Theater: "I see a lot of new operas, and so many of them are overblown, trying so hard that they feel stillborn. 'Fun Home,' based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, tells the story of a critical juncture in Alison’s life: she came out as a lesbian in college, and several months later, her father, whom she had just found out was a closeted gay man, killed himself by walking in front of a truck. The piece uses music in the way that you wish these new operas would – to deeply explore feelings in a raw, immediate way." (Note: this "bonus pick" did not make it into the podcast.)   Listen to the full discussion above and tell us: what were your high and low points in classical music in 2013? Photo credits: Shutterstock; Caroline Shaw by Piotr Redliński, 2013

It’s that time of year again, when orchestras across the land are dusting off their holiday pops programs and choruses are warming up for Messiahs and sing-a-along carol extravaganzas. But for the recording industry, Christmas music has changed. The big orchestral albums of the sort that conductors like Arthur Fiedler or Eugene Ormandy used to make have fallen by the wayside. So have the grand star vehicles, with a sequined opera diva belting out Christmas songs backed up by a choir and orchestra. But as we hear in this edition of Conducting Business, what remains are plenty of smaller-scale recordings that either attempt to make a cozier or refined spiritual statement (as with many early-music groups), or round up a bunch of stars from different genres to perform the standards. The changes are partly driven by economics, said Anastasia Tscioulcas, who covers classical music for NPR Music. “Where did the recordings go? They’re very expensive to make,” she told host Naomi Lewin. “The big star-studded album with the full symphony orchestra behind them and maybe chorus thrown in for good measure is extremely expensive to produce.” The new realities are a reflection of changes in the classical music business. “The number of stars that have that sort of appeal has descended dramatically,” noted Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post. “Renee Fleming and Anna Netrebko are the only opera singers who have that sort of mass appeal.” Of course, Christmas is not a time for snobbery or strict adherence to high-minded artistic ideals, say the panelists. Nostalgia is a big part of what drives the business. Listeners are often attracted to a holiday album by their favorite star, which sticks with them later in life. Steven Epstein, a multi-Grammy Award-winning record producer, says a simpler aesthetic has come to dominate. “The most successful Christmas albums are those where the arrangements are not complex and that the melodies don’t get lost,” he said. Epstein’s imprint can be found on several albums that follow an increasingly popular template: gather together stars from different genres and try and capture some of their respective fan bases. The most recent recording of this sort is “Musical Gifts from Joshua Bell and Friends,” which was released last month, but Epstein cites a similar effort from back in 1989: "Crescent City Christmas," for which Wynton Marsalis was joined by singers like Jon Hendricks and Kathleen Battle. “That is what really brings in the consumer are the additional guest artists,” Epstein noted. Midgette sees no loss in the decline of the diva Christmas record. “Artistically these things are negligible – and I say that as somebody who has my favorite Christmas albums, which have been basically the same since I was about seven." Listen to the full podcast above and tell us below: What are your most and least favorite holiday albums? Sidebar: A Few of our favorite Christmas Recordings Anne Midgette:Christmas from a Golden Age (Naxos) (singers including Victoria de los Angeles, John McCormack, Rosa Ponselle and others)The Messiah Remix (Cantaloupe) (featuring remixed versions by Paul Lansky, Eve Beglarian, Phil Kline and others) Anastasia Tsioulcas:Vince Guaraldi: "A Charlie Brown Christmas"Robert Shaw Chorale: "The Many Moods of Christmas" Steven Epstein:Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Naomi Lewin:Britten's Ceremony of Carols (Philadelphia Singers, Benita Valente, Maureen Forrester, David Gordon)...And an honorable mention for worst Christmas collaboration: Michael Bolton and Placido Domingo sing "Ave Maria" from "Merry Christmas from Vienna" .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "which-piece-classical-holiday-music-most-overexpos", "survey_which-piece-classical-holiday-music-most-overexpos");

All the people clamoring to get into Broadway shows like "Wicked" and "The Book of Mormon" – or museum shows like the Rain Room at MoMa – are apparently the exception, rather than the rule. That's the conclusion of a new survey of public participation released last week by the National Endowment for the Arts. It shows an overall decline in arts consumption by Americans, with a particular drop-off in museum and theater attendance. There were smaller dips in classical music and ballet audiences too. But it wasn't all gloom and doom: Audiences are growing more racially and ethnically diverse.  And there are hints that technology is playing a larger role in how we consume culture. On Oct. 3, Conducting Business brought a group of prominent arts leaders to The Greene Space to explore these recent findings and their implications. Joining us were Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York’s Public Theater; Robert Battle, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater; Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras; Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post, and Graham Parker, general manager of WQXR. Naomi Lewin hosted the event, of which the archived video is below.   What do you think is behind the decline in audiences? What can arts organizations do to attract new patrons? Please leave your comments in the box at the bottom of this page, or Tweet us at @WQXR. Below are three salient findings from the NEA's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts: Please leave your questions in the comments box below, or Tweet us at @WQXR #NEASPPA.

Last week, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf cancelled a Nazi-themed production of Wagner's Tannhäuser, when the premiere performance prompted booing, mass walkouts and even reports of audience members getting sick. With scenes that reportedly showed Jews being murdered and dying in gas chambers, it certainly shocked — but it was hardly the first revisionist opera production. In this podcast, Naomi Lewin asks three prominent opera-watchers whether Düsseldorf was right to cancel the production, and what radical updates can bring to the art form. To some commentators, the Dusseldorf Tannhauser was a stretch: the opera is set in the Middle Ages and based on a ballad about a bard called Tannhäuser. Yet the intention of the director, Burkhard Kosminski, had a logic that many could understand. In the month of Wagner’s bicentennial, he wanted to link the opera to the Holocaust – an event which the composer’s own ardent anti-Semitism seemed to presage. John Berry, the artistic director of English National Opera, called the Düsseldorf company “extremely well established” and he praised its talented leadership. But a company should also prepare its audience for a provocative concept. "Usually, in an opera house, you receive a model and an outline of the ideas a year, two years, sometimes even longer [beforehand] so the Düsseldorf management would have had a good idea of the overall vision for the piece,” he said. “On the face of it, it does seem shocking that the whole production has been pulled due to the audience response," he continued. "I haven’t heard of that anywhere. But I haven’t seen the piece.” James Jorden, opera critic of the New York Post and editor of the blog Parterre Box, took a sterner view of the company’s cancellation. “The job of opera management is to present the vision of people who create opera – the director, the conductor and the singers,” said Jorden. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing and a cowardly thing to send the message to these artists that we’re not going to support you. If someone complains about your work, we’re out of here. We'll drop you like a hot potato." Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post, noted that Nazi references are not uncommon in German Wagner productions, typically as a way of exploring issues around German nationalism. But what may have ignited the Düsseldorf controversy was the fact that "it actually showed people being killed." Still, Midgette believes that opera has the power to confront and challenge. "You’re dealing with an art form that many, many people approach with a sense that it's safely distant," she said. “A production that puts people being gassed on stage is going in there wanting to grab the audience by the collar."  (In a statement, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein said that although it knew that the production would be "controversial" it did not expect the extreme reactions that followed the premiere.) But when does a strong directorial concept (aka "Regietheater," or "director's theater") lose focus and cross over into what detractors label “Eurotrash?" Berry believes modern updates can be highly successful if essential ingredients are in place. "In the end, whether it’s a modern updating or not, is it well-sung, is the director telling the story, does it have a dramatic and musical power?” Sometimes a concept will completely miss the mark. Jorden recalls seeing a Carmen in Stuttgart where the title character "died six or seven times in the course of the opera – but not at the end." Yet he also remembers Calixto Bieito’s staging of Wagner’s Parsifal, set in an apocalyptic landscape inspired by Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. "Not only did this make me question completely my ideas of what the opera was about, it still to this day has me wondering what the purpose of religion in human existence is," Jorden said. "I don't think you could ask for a more profound meaning in an operatic performance." Weigh in: What modern updates of operas have you seen that did or didn't work for you? Tell us about it in the comments box below. Photo: Piotr Beczala as the Duke and Oksana Volkova as Maddalena in the Met's "Vegas" Rigoletto (Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

The year 2012 supplied plenty of headline-making moments in classical music. There was the infamous marimba ring tone at the New York Philharmonic, the opera singer with the controversial tattoos, the composer accused of plagiarism, and cellos booted off airplanes. It was a tough year for American orchestras and a good year for entrepreneurship. In this podcast, three highly opinionated critics give us their reviews of 2012: Anne Midgette, classical music critic of the Washington Post; Steve Smith, a classical music critic for the New York Times and music editor at Time Out New York; and Heidi Waleson, a classical music critic for the Wall Street Journal. Below are excerpts of some of their comments. Surprises Heidi: David Lang's love fail, written for the female vocal quartet Anonymous 4 (right). “It was a beautifully haunting, Medieval-Modern, strange modern take on the Tristan Und Isolde story, which was semi-staged at BAM. It was actually a stunningly beautiful piece.” Anne: “One of my favorite moments was a very local moment...The University of Maryland [orchestra] came out dressed in street clothes with their instruments and began moving around the stage as they played Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun. It was a wonderful example of what could be done with orchestras if they think a little outside the box.” Steve: “The reason I categorized David T. Little’s opera Dog Days as a big surprise is frankly I didn’t know that he had this in him...He was out at Montclair State University’s Peak Performances series with a full evening-length opera based on an apocalyptic story by Judy Budnitz…There were terrifying things about it and absolutely joyous things about it but in the end I thought, here’s a team that has actually moved opera forward.” Listen to the opera on Q2 Music. Trends Heidi: On interesting new operas showing up outside of major producing companies: “I thought, maybe if people from the regular producing opera companies actually see [Dog Days], maybe somebody will get an idea that this is actually the sort of thing that can happen in the opera house.” Anne: “There’s no question that some of the most exciting stuff in opera is going on in smaller spaces – and some of the most innovative thinking." Steve: On entrepreneurship in classical music: “People confronted with a certain stodginess or intractability in major companies are just putting on the shows themselves, or doing the kind of programming they feel ought to exist. I’m thinking about ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble, whose founder Claire Chase won a MacArthur this year, which was richly deserved.” Disappointments & Low Points Heidi: “It was the Metropolitan Opera Ring – and I’m sure I’ll have a lot of company in that one. It took a lot of hits and for good reason. It was just a very big elaborate backdrop of a set for a not very stimulating concept.” [Right: A scene from Die Walküre (Photo: Ken Howard)] Anne: “The problem with some of the concepts that are applied to operas – and I’m a great defender of innovation in opera direction – but a lot of times you think up this great idea and a lot of times the opera isn’t actually about that there’s only so far you can go with the idea.” Steve: "What perturbed me is you basically still have to go out of town, even if it’s just crossing the river to New Jersey, to hear what’s really happening and what’s really interesting in the operatic sphere period." Anne: On American Orchestras: “While it’s both tragic and deplorable that there have been so many lockouts, strikes, seasons disrupted – the Minnesota Orchestra, really one of the exciting orchestras in the country is still not playing – all of this was foreseeable. The managements seem to be acting as if ‘oh my goodness, all of the sudden we’re having these financial crises.’ All of those difficult moments have come home to roost.” High Points Steve: What many of the year's most exciting productions this year had in common was the producer Beth Morrison, "who is enabling a lot of really exciting work that’s going on right now. Beth Morrison Productions is involved in a lot of these things – in staged concerts, in grassroots opera. She has been a real bolt of vitality and innovation that has been much needed and is having a great impact.” Anne: On the John Cage Centennial: “I’m not a big fan of artist centennials. In classical music they’re rammed down our throats, these anniversaries. But with all of the festivals and activities and concerts, it really allowed a new perspective on Cage...It was a centennial and an anniversary that for me really made a big difference.” Heidi: The Juilliard Historical Performance Program under its new director Robert Mealy (above): "You just don't get a big orchestra of American players playing who can play this in this really stylistically correct and distinct way" (after hearing a concert of excerpts from two Rameau ballets). BONUS TRACK: Predictions for 2013: Weigh in: Give us your reviews of the best and worst of 2012 below.

In the old days, opera singers were expected to just "park and bark," as the static style of performing on stage is referred to within the business. But that’s a thing of the past. Singers now not only have look to like their characters, but also bound across raised platforms, fly through the air and undertake graphic fight scenes. With this growing emphasis on HD-quality realism, what physical skills must an opera singer have to make it today? Is opera becoming too dangerous? Recent accidents in major opera houses have put a renewed focus on this question. In this podcast, we examine the question of physical risk-taking in opera with three experts: Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post Dale Girard, the director of stage combat studies at the North Carolina School of the Arts and a working stuntman Laura Lee Everett, the artistic services director at Opera America, a service organization representing opera houses in the US Weigh in: Do you think opera is becoming too dangerous? Or is some physical risk part of a singer's job? Take our poll and leave a comment below. .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "action-opera", "survey_action-opera");   On the physical risks of being an opera singer: Anne Midgette: As soon as you get a lot of hydraulic sets that move you get the risk of people’s legs getting caught in them or sets not being in place or people getting stuck up on top of sets...I don't see exactly what visions it serves to have singers that uncomfortable on opening night of a major work that needs a lot of singing. Dale Girard: [Opera companies] are designing productions that try and compete with the film industry in the expectation of action and movement and storytelling. In that sense, the fights on the operatic stage are becoming more and more dynamic, to match the scope of the music, and the expectations of newer, younger audiences. So that is where some of the challenges are in trying to get singers to actually go through that expectation but still be able to sing at the end of the fight. Laura Lee Everett: Shows are required to have a fight choreographer who comes in and does stage-safe training, so people are more likely to not injure themselves. Some of the onus is on the singers, more so than it was in the past. They’re going to be asked to do things physically and they need to be aware of how to do these so they don’t hurt themselves.

As almost anyone with a Facebook account knows, classical music criticism is going from spectator sport to participatory activity. Some people read the comments on articles or news feeds just as avidly as the actual reviews that precede them. Meanwhile, as newspaper arts coverage is cut back in many cities, blogs and Twitter feeds are a growing force in shaping conversations about the art form. But where does this leave classical music? Is the Internet giving us a more democratic form of commentary – or a more shrill, unfiltered one? This issue recently hit home for violinist Lara St. John, who publicly criticized Facebook commenters who were "piling on" by reposting and joking about a scathing New York Times review of a fellow violinist. In this podcast, St. John explains what she found so distressing. Also joining us is Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of the Washington Post, and Pete Matthews, the editor of the blog Feast of Music. Weigh in: What do you expect of a critic? Does the Internet make music criticism nastier — or simply more exuberant and democratic? Leave your thoughts below. On negative reviews and the online response they generate: Lara St. John: I have no problem with the review itself. That's what music critics do; they review concerts. But once I saw this happen for the third, fourth and finally the twelfth time, I got kind of angry. It was in a mean way that [Facebook friends] were re-posting this review. Pete Matthews: I don't think there's much to be gained from cutting down somebody who's just starting their career and trying to build up their cred -- unless your point is to build your name as a critic and get your name out there. Anne Midgette: I would object to the term cutting down. That propagates this idea that a negative review is about being mean to an artist. For me, the reason to write a negative review is you're trying to uphold standards...But the only way to make the field exciting is to call it sometimes when it's not working. Sometimes that requires a tough review.

Pianist Leon Fleisher appears at the 2011 National Book Festival. Speaker Biography: In what The New York Times calls "a candid and lively memoir," world-renowned pianist Leon Fleisher frankly discusses how his thoughts turned to suicide when, in 1965, his left hand became crippled by a disease that was not diagnosed until 1991. During that interval, unwilling to concede defeat, he immersed himself in the left-handed piano repertory and also became a conductor. By 1995, he was again able to play two-handed. "My Nine Lives: A Memory of Many Careers in Music" (Doubleday), which he wrote with Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette, is Fleisher's ode to perseverance. Midgette will interview Fleisher during his presentation. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5317.