The reality outside the virtual reality is this: a blindingly sunny pre-fall day on Glasgow’s South Side gives way to a dark, almost bare studio in Offline (formerly Glasgow Artists’ Moving Image Studios). The room is divided into two halves, each with a square, slightly soft, and pleasingly bumpy fabric covering, and a stool for […]
Category: Review
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The Interpenetration of Things
Inspired by the ancient legend of Indra’s net, which depicts the Buddhist concept of interpenetration, Meredith Monk’s latest work metaphorizes the interdependency of humans with the natural world. “Indra’s Net” meditates on the earth’s vulnerability through a multimodal interplay of sound, silence, gesture, space, and time. Throughout the performance, Monk, her cohort of seven other […]
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Anti-Thematic
Ours is the age of themes. Drowning in the deluge of streaming content whose rush, flow, and surge defines what Anna Kornbluh last year termed our too-late capitalism, any and all aspirant media—entertainment, art, or otherwise—is increasingly compliant with that dictatorial imperative handed down from marketing departments on high: brand or bust. Streamlined themes get […]
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A Refusal of Habit
Putting 50 pianos in a room creates a sense of occasion. On Saturday, I heard Georg Friedrich Haas’s “11.000 Saiten” (“11,000 Strings”), for 50 uprights tuned in ascending intervals of two cents and the contemporary music ensemble Klangforum Wien, at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam. Although the piece premiered in August 2023 in Bolzano, Italy, […]
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A Chance to Mourn
All eyes have been on Detroit in recent years, where Yuval Sharon’s much-profiled tenure at the rebranded Detroit Opera has turned into a case study for new models of opera’s cultural relevance in regional America. News outlets and commentators have been generous in covering his stewardship, highlighting Sharon’s audaciously modern programming and unorthodox concepts—not to […]
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Seeking the Truth About Julia Perry
I am always bitter about going to the established-yet-edgy New York venue (Le) Poisson Rouge—their cheapest beer is $10—but their programs make it impossible to stay away. The kickoff event for the Julia Perry Centenary Festival and Celebration on March 13 was no exception. Even more irresistibly, it was one of the first-ever concerts dedicated […]
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An Introduction to Music Herstory
When I enter London’s Brazilian Embassy at 6.49 p.m., “Let HER Music Play” is already six hours old, but only a quarter of the way through. Organized by the Donne Foundation, which advocates for women in the music industry, it’s an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the longest acoustic live-streamed concert using […]
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29,313; or, where the archive ends
I. I had come to Munich searching for an archive I wasn’t sure was there. This was several years ago now, back when I was still fumbling toward a book on post-war opera—something about its relation to genre, history, and mourning; the sketches are still tucked in a drawer somewhere—and at the time, Munich was […]
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Turn The Machine Inward
The Met Opera’s new production of Bizet’s “Carmen” stars trucks. Or rather tractor trailers, ready to move goods. In the first act, which the libretto sets in a Seville cigarette factory, workers crowd around a loading dock, loading boxes into a trailer whose destination is unknown. In the second act, Carmen and her smuggler gang […]
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Unfinished Cities
Nadia Boulanger was one of the most important teachers of the 20th century, but she was active as a creative artist for only a small part of her long life. Her opera “La ville morte” (“The Dead City”) was begun in 1909; composed in collaboration with her mentor Raoul Pugno, it’s her most substantial work, […]