The New Criterion
The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.
- The Times Literary Supplement
Music
The West has been known for some time for its inane opera productions.
The trick is to ignore called-for locales and stated stage directions in every
conceivable and inconceivable way, and thus keep mindless or ignorant audiences
awestruck, while getting egomaniacal directors hailed as geniuses. Until
recently the East tended to lag behind, sticking to conventional mountings that,
though often pedestrian, made sense; now westward-mobile, its productions,
instead of dragging their feet, are proudly putting their foot in it with the west
of them.
The Kirov Opera of the Mariinsky Theatre--an awkward moniker combining the company?s imperial and communist names--and its artistic director and chief conductor Valery Gergiev, brought over six productions from St. Petersburg, a major logistic, if not necessarily artistic, achievement. One of them, a mere concert version of The Demon by Anton Rubinstein, the one sporadic sur ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 21 July 2003, on page 0 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/kirov-simon-1708
rate this article for your user profile
E-mail to friend
|
view more >
Webcasts
Anthony Daniels on the Euro Crisis
Andrew C. McCarthy: The Muslim Threat
Roger Kimball: The Grim Future of Statism Weblog 
|
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}