Opera Conductor Research Articles

THREE LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES FOR ENHANCING THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR METAPHOR

AbstractThe author is an award‐winning orchestral and opera conductor, and music conservatory professor, who remarks on the way that “the conductor is such a common metaphor in executive leadership.” Yet she discovered that these notions can be flawed because of misconceptions about what a conductor actually does, on the podium and outside it. She provides an “insider’s perspective,” that in her words, (1) the conductor is a storyteller, (2) listening is the conductor’s most important job, and (3) musicians don’t actually follow conductors. Within the first perspective, she takes “four approaches: investigate clues, find meaning, get buy‐in, and be a reverse‐engineer.” She relates that “It’s fascinating that different conductors can gather different stories based on their own worldviews, lived experiences, and artistic values. This results in many different possible performances of the same piece of music. That’s the magic of interpretation.” In perspective two, she describes “three types of awareness: situation‐aware, self‐aware, other‐aware.” Regarding teamwork in perspective three: “The best conductors enable teamwork and stay out of the way. They don’t insist on their help when it may be unhelpful.” Finally, she reminds us that “a conductor faces the same challenges as any leader embedded within a top‐down management structure.”

Psychologization Of Oksana’s Vocal and Stage image from S. GulakArtemovsky’s Opera ―Zaporozhian Za Dunaiem‖ in Creative Version of Lev Venedyktov

The author carried out the research aimed both to determine the factors of creation of S. Gulak-Artemovsky's opera "Zaporozhets beyond the Danube" and to reveal its characteristic features. Changes in the libretto of the work were proved, their influence on the development of the conflict, the peculiarities of its resolution in the implementation of the play were indicated. Due to the review of literary sources, their thematic systematization was carried out according to the following parameters: features of the life of the Transdanubian Cossacks after the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich; preservation of national traditions, customs, rites of the Ukrainian ethnos abroad; the specifics of the manifestation of the mentality of Ukrainians against the background of their coexistence with another nation, which differs in cultural and religious identification. The methodological study of educational issues through the prism of a comprehensive cross-sectoral understanding of the historical, socio-psychological, cultural, musicological and theatrical aspects of the opera is outlined. Peculiarities of the musical dramaturgy of the work, its construction on the synthesis of creatively reconsidered genre-style features of the French and Italian lyric-commission opera with the Ukrainian song and dance folklore are published. Three dramatic lines in the opera are characterized: lyrical-romantic (images of Andrew and Oksana), comic (images of Karas and Odarka), patriotic (generalized image of the people). The process of creating a holistic vocal-stage image of the heroine was analyzed through the prism of the author’s article E. Kolesnyk who was the performer of Oksana's part under the guidance the Chief Choirmaster of the National Opera of Ukraine L. Venediktov. The individual specific approaches of the artist to the deepening of the psychology of the heroine’s artistic image through the use of a synthesis of various means involved in stage expression were determined. The fruitfulness of the outstanding choirmaster's cooperation with the experience of an opera conductor and singer in revealing the musical drama of opera composition in accordance with the composer's idea is proved. The author predicted the prospects for further explorations of the concept concerning the creating of holistic vocal and stage characters which goal is to find and display new synthesis of artistic means of expression with their inclination to neo-syncretism.

Briefs / Feuilletons

Briefs / Feuilletons Aleš Březina The Central Library of the Liszt Academy in Budapest has acquired several documents from the legacy of the composer and conductor Emil Ábrányi Jr. (1882–1970). This collection is highly valuable from several aspects. The Ábrányi family is one of the most important Hungarian musician families of the nineteenth and twentieth century. The composer, musicologist, and music critic Kornél Ábrányi (1822–1903) was a member of the first teaching staff of the Music Academy in Budapest; his son, the poet Emil Ábrányi Sr. (1850–1920) translated many opera librettos into Hungarian. The wife of Emil Ábrányi Sr., Margit Wein (1861–1948) was a coloratura soprano opera singer, and, between 1901 and 1920, voice teacher at the Music Academy. Their son, Emil Ábrányi Jr., whose legacy has now become part of the collection of the Central Library of the Liszt Academy, studied composition with Hans von Koessler (1853–1926) at the Music Academy in Budapest, and conducting with Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922) in Leipzig. He began his career in 1904 at the Opera in Köln, and from 1907 he was conductor of the Opera in Hannover. His wife was also an opera singer, Rósa Ábrányi-Varnay (1885–1962), member of the Opera in Hannover. They returned to Hungary around 1910, and Emil Ábrányi Jr. became conductor of the Royal Hungarian Opera, while his wife became a member of the new opera house of Budapest, the Népopera (People's Opera). Emil Ábrányi Jr. was the director of the Opera in Budapest in a very difficult period, from 1919 to 1920, and after that he became the director of the Városi Színház (Budapest Municipal Theatre, in cooperation with the Royal Hungarian Opera). He also taught conducting at the Music Academy and worked as an opera conductor in Budapest, Debrecen, and Szeged. He composed twelve operas to librettos by several authors, including Maeterlinck, Dante, Cervantes, and Ferenc Herczeg, among others. His last opera, A Tamás-templom karnagya (The Cantor of the St. Thomas Church, 1947, unperformed), is the first opera composed about Johann Sebastian Bach. The Ábrányi family lived in the same house as Gustav Mahler in his Budapest years. The grandchildren of Emil Ábrányi Jr., Lívia Ábrányi, and Margit Ábrányi donated the legacy of their grandfather to the Central Library of the Liszt Academy The collection consists of printed and manuscript scores of his compositions, a total of twenty-two complete works and fragments, as well as photographs. Most of the scores are in manuscript, including full scores of three operas, two ballets, two works for symphony orchestra, and a Mass. Furthermore, the legacy contains handwritten vocal scores of seven operas and some songs for voice and piano as well. In the hope of performances abroad, Ábrányi wrote German translations beneath the Hungarian texts in most of the full scores and vocal scores of his operas. As part of the donation, the Library also received a photograph of Lívia Ábrányi›s painting depicting her grandfather, as well as Margit Ábrányi's manuscript memoirs in English and Hungarian. The cataloguing of individual items and the digitisation of sheet music will begin in 2021. The legacy of Emil Ábrányi Jr. will add considerably to several valuable Hungarian musician-legacies housed at the Central Library and the Research Library of the Music Academy. [End Page 33] An early version of String Quartet No. 2, H 150 (1925) by Bohuslav Martinů discovered 'I do not deny of course that Stravinsky has influenced me'. If we include the early string quartet Three Riders, H 1 (ca 1902), which Bohuslav Martinů took with him to the entrance exams at the Prague Conservatoire, then the missing string quartet, H 60 (1912), String Quartet in E-flat major, H 103 (from 1917, dubbed 'No. 0'), and String Quartet No. 1, H 117 ('French', apparently written a year later), we would be right to note String Quartet No. 2, H 150 (1925), as the composer's fifth foray into a genre that has been considered the pinnacle of chamber music...

Mikhail Vasilyevich Sechkin – Pianist, Conductor, Teacher

Mikhail Vasilyevich Sechkin – Pianist, Conductor, Teacher

Anatoliy Vasylyovych Kalabukhin: the phenomenon of a creative personality

Anatoliy Vasylyovych Kalabukhin: the phenomenon of a creative personality

LIFE AND CREATIVE PRINCIPLES OF ARIY MOISEYEVICH PAZOVSKY

The article is devoted to the biography and musical career of Ariy Pazovsky, the famous Russian opera conductor of the first half of the XX century, the chief conductor of the Kiev, Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theatres, and to the analysis of formation and evolution of his basic creative and performing principles. The article highlights the main periods of the creative biography of the master, their impact on creation of the harmonious system of Pazovsky's views on opera performing practices. The article also highlights the main ideas formulated by the master at the end of his life as a heritage for the future generations of conductors and singers who chose the path of opera career.

Listening in the pit

Temporal masking effects are a controlling factor in the ability of performers to hear each other well. Difficulties in ensemble communication and perceived weakness of the acoustic response of the auditorium can be exacerbated by high early energy levels often found in orchestra pits. These problems become particularly acute in orchestra seating positions under stage overhangs. Drawing on experiences as an opera conductor as well as an acoustic designer, the author: (1) provides an overview of the psychoacoustic challenges facing the opera house designer relative to orchestra satisfaction; (2) explores, using architectural examples, the reasons why some pits are highly regarded by orchestras and conductors while others, even those similarly configured, are not; and (3) proposes protoptypical design solutions to improve the listening environment both inside the pit and elsewhere.

Fritz Reiner as Opera Conductor in the 1930S

Fritz Reiner as Opera Conductor in the 1930S

Scenska glasba Demetrija Žebreta

Scenska glasba Demetrija Žebreta

Principles of Neglected Musical Repertoire

NEGLECTED MUSICAL REPERTOIRE can most simply be defined as music that is good, if not great, but does not receive its fair share of performances. Determining goodness and greatness can be a fruitless exercise in semantics. Trying to find the minimal criterion of musical worth-that a piece deserves to be heard again-calls on at least peripheral examination of the historical, cultural, social, pedagogical, psychological, and physiological aspects of the music in question. Today's musical repertoire is at its greatest extent. The choral conductor's repertoire goes back to the seventh century, the solo singer's to the eleventh, the orchestra and opera conductor's to the seventeenth. Thanks to the activities of musicologists and intellectually curious performers, there is now more music available to be heard and performed than ever before and, with a few exceptions, the main problem in building a repertoire is selectivity. Yet even the standard repertoire needs periodic reevaluation; yesterday's standard item is often today's warhorse and tomorrow's neglected composition. What reasons are there for the changes in musical taste that result in neglected musical repertoire and its subsequent revival? Several answers have been proposed. One is that composers' reputations undergo fluctuations like stocks and bonds. Another view is that neglected musical rep ertoire is the result of a kind of Darwinian natural selection. In opposition, a small group would postulate a musical Gresham's Law, that the bad music drives out the good: the reason why the symphonies of Tchaikovsky are more popular than those of Bruckner. A few perceive the history of music as a giant escalator operating on predetermined laws, with historical necessity dictating the rise and fall of genres and composers; this view is most prevalent among Marxist critics. Those who abandon attempts at formulating systems would say that the success, neglect, or rediscovery of a given musical composition depends on capricious chance and historical accident. All of these statements, contradictory though they seem, contain kernels of truth. But the history of music contains several factors that help explain the neglect and revival of compositions of value. Different procedures have been employed in examining the principles of neglected repertoire: case studies of how and, more speculatively, why

Henry J. Wood. Organist, Accompanist, Opera Conductor, and Composer

Henry J. Wood. Organist, Accompanist, Opera Conductor, and Composer