Take advantage of “front row” seats at the Met’s new 2011-12 HD Live opera season, and watch opening day performances (or encore evening showings) at local movie theaters throughout the world. Although nothing beats a live performance at the Met in Lincoln Center, these simulcast live performances on screen are the next best thing, and the biggest bargain ever.  I love them, especially the close-up shots that make you feel like you are onstage with the performers. And, of course, the popcorn. . .

What a great educational opportunity for all ages!  I hope music teachers  will take advantage of the opportunity to introduce students to opera with some of the Met’s excellent educational materials, then put the icing on the cake by taking them to a local movie theater to experience their first opera. (Interested in bringing opera from the Met into your school? See HD Opera Live in Schools.)

Find participating movie theaters here and enjoy the 2011-12  HD Live Metropolitan Opera season:

Donizetti’s Anna Bolena – New Production

October 15, 2011, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: November 2, 2011 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encores:November 12, 2011 1 pm local time
November 21, 2011, 6:30 pm local time

Anna Netrebko opens the Met season with her portrayal of the ill-fated queen driven insane by her unfaithful king. She sings one of opera’s greatest mad scenes in this Met premiere production by David McVicar. Ekaterina Gubanova is her rival, Jane Seymour, Ildar Abdrazakov sings Henry VIII, and Marco Armiliato conducts.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni – New Production

October 29, 2011, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: November 16, 2011 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encores: December 17, 2011 at 1 pm local time
January 9, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time

Mariusz Kwiecien brings his youthful and sensual interpretation of Mozart’s timeless anti-hero to the Met for the first time, under the direction of Tony Award®-winning director Michael Grandage and with James Levine conducting. Also starring Marina Rebeka, Barbara Frittoli, Ramón Vargas, and Luca Pisaroni.

Wagner’s Siegfried– New Production

November 5, 2011, 12 pm ET
Encore dates to be determined

In part three of the Ring, Wagner’s cosmic vision focuses on his hero’s early conquests, while Robert Lepage’s revolutionary stage machine transforms itself from bewitched forest to mountaintop love nest. Gary Lehman sings the title role and Deborah Voigt’s Brünnhilde is his prize. Bryn Terfel is the Wanderer. James Levine conducts.

Glass’s Satyagraha

November 19, 2011, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: December 7, 2011 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encore: January 14, 2012 at 1 pm local time

The Met’s visually extravagant production is back for an encore engagement. Richard Croft (right) once again is Gandhi in Philip Glass’s unforgettable opera, which the Washington Post calls “a profound and beautiful work of theater.”

Handel’s Rodelinda

December 3, 2011, 12:30 pm ET
U.S. Encore: January 4, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encore: January 28, 2012 at 12:30 pm local time

Sensational in the 2004 Met premiere of Stephen Wadsworth’s much-heralded production, Renée Fleming reprises the title role. She’s joined by Stephanie Blythe and countertenor Andreas Scholl, and Baroque specialist Harry Bicket conducts.

Gounod’s Faust– New Production

December 10, 2011, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: January 11, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encores: February 4, 2012 at 1 pm local time
February 27, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time

With Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, René Pape as the devil, and Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite, Gounod’s classic retelling of the Faust legend couldn’t be better served. Tony Award-winning director Des McAnuff updates the story to the first half of the 20th century with a production that won praise in London last season. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts on the heels of his Don Carlo success.

The Enchanted Island– New Production

January 21, 2012, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: February 8, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encore: March 3, 2012 at 1 pm local time
March 26, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time

In one extraordinary new work, lovers of Baroque opera have it all: the world’s best singers, glorious music of the Baroque masters, and a story drawn from Shakespeare. In The Enchanted Island, the lovers from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream are shipwrecked on his other-worldly island of The Tempest. Inspired by the musical pastiches and masques of the 18th century, the work showcases arias and ensembles by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, and others, and a new libretto devised and written by Jeremy Sams. Eminent conductor William Christie leads an all-star cast with David Daniels (Prospero) and Joyce DiDonato (Sycorax) as the formidable foes, Plácido Domingo as Neptune, Danielle de Niese as Ariel, and Luca Pisaroni as Caliban. Lisette Oropesa and Anthony Roth Costanzo play Miranda and Ferdinand. The dazzling production is directed and designed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (Satyagraha and the Met’s 125 anniversary gala).

Wagner’s Götterdämmerung – New Production

February 11, 2012, 12 pm ET
Encore dates to be determined

With its cataclysmic climax, the Met’s new Ring cycle, directed by Robert Lepage, comes to its resolution. Deborah Voigt stars as Brünnhilde and Gary Lehman is Siegfried—the star-crossed lovers doomed by fate. James Levine conducts.

Verdi’s Ernani

February 25, 2012, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: March 14, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encore: March 31, 2012 at 1 pm local time

Angela Meade takes center stage in Verdi’s thrilling early gem. Marcello Giordani is her mismatched lover, and all-star Verdians Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Ferruccio Furlanetto round out the cast.

Massenet’s Manon– New Production

April 7, 2012, 12 pm ET
U.S. Encore: April 25, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encores: April 28, 2012 at 12 pm local time
May 14, 2012 at 6 pm local time

Anna Netrebko’s dazzling portrayal of the tragic heroine in Laurent Pelly’s new production travels to the Met from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Piotr Beczala and Paulo Szot also star, with the Met’s Principal Guest Conductor Fabio Luisi on the podium.

Verdi’s La Traviata

April 14, 2012, 12:55 pm ET
U.S. Encore: May 2, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time
Canada Encores: May 26, 2012 at 1 pm local time
June 4, 2012 at 6:30 pm local time

Natalie Dessay will put on the red dress in Willy Decker’s stunning production, in her first Violetta at the Met. Matthew Polenzani sings Alfredo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky is Germont, and Principal Guest Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.

Jill and Michael Gallina share news of their exciting new musical that highlights the importance of literature and reading:

If you are interested in a musical that takes place entirely on risers and integrates music and children’s literature into one easy-to-produce package, we hope you’ll consider our latest “Rise and Shine” musical SING ME A STORY: Classic Stories Throughout Time Come to Life in Song and Rhyme for Grades 2-5. Given the fact that literature is such an integral part of every child’s learning experiences, we created a musical that introduces children to scenes from children’s classics all set within the magical medium of music! What better way than music to whet children’s appetites for becoming lifelong readers? What better way than music to support literature-based incentive programs such as “Read Across America?”

Sing Me a Story includes original songs that are used to highlight the very essence of some of literature’s best-loved children’s stories. Wander in “The Secret Garden” or journey to far-away lands and meet such characters as Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, Thumbelina, Pinocchio, Tinkerbell, the Ugly Duckling, and the Little Mermaid. We realize the unrelenting expectations placed on music teachers and thus created the Rise and Shine musical format to enable teachers to perform the entire production on risers with optional props, hand motions, and basic riser choreography.

Sing Me A Story musical kit includes:

- easy-to-memorize rhyming dialogue
- director’s score
- singers’ parts (for unison or optional 2-part songs)
- simple choreography, prop, and performance suggestions
- American Sign Language instructions
- reproducible student pages
- enhanced StudioTrax CD with both accompaniment and full performance tracks, plus reproducible poster, program, clip art, and composer’s info

 As musicians, we are of course well aware of the importance that music plays in the curriculum as a viable entity unto itself, but with budget cuts and music positions being threatened across the country, why not deliver the one-two punch and show how music can also be most the effective way to teach and extend learning into all other areas of the curriculum!

–Guest blog by Jill and Michael Gallina

 Sing Me A Story is now available at Music in Motion.

Born December 10, 1908 in Avignon, France
Died  April 27, 1992 in Clichy, France

“I give bird-songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none.” —Olivier Messiaen

The Musician who Loved Birds

Olivier Messiaen was perhaps the most influential French composer since Debussy. He redefined avant-garde, although his highly original works often reflect conservative values of spirituality, nature, and  beauty that set his music apart from the harsher trends of the 20th century. While others “musicalized” the harsh mechanized sounds of urban life, war, and the industrial age, Messiaen preferred nature, and most of all, birds.  As a passionate ornithologist, he painstakingly transcribed birdsongs, particularly the songbirds of France. Birds were the true musicians, he felt, and their songs were transformed exquisitely in his music, as seen in Catalogue de Oiseaux (1958).

Messiaen enjoyed a happy childhood filled with music and poetry. At age 10 after discovering Debussy he declared his intention to become a composer.  His mother penned a long colorful poem to him before he was born, and the synaesthesia which caused the composer to experience sounds as colors (as did fellow composers Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin) he attributed to her. “When I hear music, I hear colors,” he said. “When I compose, I see the colors as I see the sounds.” He described one of his harmonic sequences as changing “from blue striped with green to black spotted with red and gold, by way of diamond, emerald, purplish-blue, with a dominant pool of orange studded with milky white.” (Once he got a stomach ache at a ballet when the violet lighting clashed with his color conception of the Key of G!) His father,  a teacher of English, translated Shakespeare into French. As a child, Messiaen delighted in adapting Shakespeare plays for family productions.  Considering that Shakespeare wrote more about birds than any other poet,  is it any wonder that birds would sing in  Messiaen’s music more than in any other composer’s?

Messiaen underwent a rigorous classical musical education at the Paris Conservatoire (1919-30), studying with Paul Dukas, Charles-Marie Widor, and Marcel Dupré.  His education came full circle when he taught there from 1941-78, instructing such influential musicians as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, and Iannis Xenakis. The most profound influence in his life was his strict Roman Catholicism, which he expressed strongly in his music and in his 61-year tenure as organist of Eglise de la Trinité in Paris. [It was at La Trinité where I was privileged to hear Messiaen at the organ during the annual memorial service Nadia Boulanger held for her sister Lily Boulanger; this venerable neo-gothic church was at my metro stop during my junior year in Paris, near Mlle. Boulanger’s home in nearby Montmartre where I was privileged to attend her weekly music analysis classes.]  

Messiaen’s deep spiritual faith was akin to Bach’s. Both felt that the essential goal of music was to glorify God. “I want to write music that is an act of faith, a music that is about everything without ceasing to be about God,” declared Messiaen. When his faith was tested during his 2-year captivity in a German POW camp, he composed his most important work Quartet for the End of Time (1941). Written for piano, clarinet, violin and cello–the only 4 instruments available to him in the prison camp, this intensely mystical work had a profound effect on 5000 fellow prisoners in the camp, where it was performed for the first time.

Messiaen’s compositional innovations included the use of Greek meters, Hindu rhythms, rhythmic palindromes, adventurous harmonies, and a vivid use of color in his orchestrations through unusual percussion such as the ondes martenot (a vacuum tube instrument that was successor to the spooky theremin). He  also briefly experimented with electronic music (Fête des belles eaux, 1937) and serialism (Quatre études de rythme, 1949). His legacy includes  works for organ, piano, voice, orchestra, and an almost 6-hour-long opera (Saint Francois d’Assise, 1975-1983).  He was in ill health when he finally completed what he thought would be his final work,  but how fitting is it that St. Francis is the subject of his only opera. (Hear St. Francis’s ecstatic sermon to the birds, Act II, Scene 6). In this gentle saint Messiaen found someone who quietly worshipped God and passionately loved nature and birds as much as himself.

Biographers Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone reflect on Messiaen’s techniques of transcribing and composing with birdsongs:

Here’s a good children’s book on Messiaen:

Music for the End of Time

by Jen Bryant, illus. by Beth Peck

“In my hour of gloom, when I am suddenly aware of my own futility. . .what is left for me but to seek out the true, lost face of music somewhere off in the forest. . .among the birds.” -Messiaen

This poetic children’s biography  reveals the small miracle of how French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote his most important work, Quartet for the End of Time. Imprisoned in a German POW camp, Olivier longs for his family, friends, and home. . .but most of all he misses music. A chance encounter with a nightingale and a German officer, however, provides him with the opportunity to write music again. When a make-shift concert on broken-down instruments takes place in the camp in 1941, Quartet for the End of Time (and the song of the nightingale which is in it) offers a message of hope and beauty that inspires Messiaen’s 5000 fellow prisoners.

Painting by Velasquez

Born Oct. 26, 1685 in Naples, Italy
Died July 23, 1757 in Madrid, Spain

Domenico Scarlatti was born into an illustrious musical family, auspiciously in the same year as two other great Baroque composers,  J. S. Bach and Handel. He received early training from his father Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), chapel organist and composer  in Naples, who encouraged him to write vocal music.  As a young man Domenico went to Venice where he met  Handel and allegedly competed in a keyboard “duel,” where he was judged the equal of Handel on the the harpsichord but his inferior on the organ.  In 1709 he moved to Rome, expanding his training with Pasquini and Gasparini (student of Corelli). In Rome he served as maestro di cappella for the theater of the exiled queen of Poland,  then in 1714-19  serving as maestro di cappella at St. Peter’s in the Vatican. During this period he composed mostly sacred vocal works and operas.

For most of his life, however, he served in the royal courts of Portugal and Spain. There he indulged in his real passion for the harpsichord, composing 555 highly original keyboard sonatas which secured his lasting fame (although few of them were published during his lifetime). His music shows evidence of the influence of Spanish folk and dance music, which he loved. You can hear flamenco effects in his use of guitar-like  harmonic and rhythmic  patterns, striking dissonances, arpeggiated “strums,” quick repeated notes, ornamental accents, and the use of the Arabic Phyrgian mode. His works were characteristically Baroque in their binary form and contrapuntal texture, however Scarlatti’s use of tonality prepared the way for sonata form and the Classical era. The first section unusually modulates to a new key, and the second section finds its way back to the home key.

Teaching Tip: See if your students can hear the guitar effects in Scarlatti’s Sonata, K. 455, for harpsichord. The music animation will help the eye follow the overlapping visual lines while the ear focuses on the musical lines.

 Educator Guides to the Operas

Plan an opera study unit for your students based on one of the operas in the
2010-11 Metropolitan Opera season, climaxing with a Night at the Opera in a local movie theater or at your school. The Met Live in HD series offers free opera-specific educational guides you can use to prepare students for viewing the opera performance, including classroom activities, story synopsis, background on the opera and composer, musical highlights with audio clips, post-opera activities, and more.

Note to Teachers: Have your kids write a paragraph on their “Night at the Opera,” and we’ll share some on our blog or website.

Opera in the Classroom Program

 The Metropolitan Opera has partnered with some school districts around the country to bring their HD Live opera productions into schools. Please check to see if your school district participates, as this brings opera free to students. If your school is not participating, contact the Met to see how you can bring the program to your school.

The fifth season of the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series is coming to a movie theater near you! Enjoy front row seats at these live opening night productions. It is so easy to feel more engaged with opera on a large screen, where you can see everything “up close and personal.”  Feel the pre-performance tension as the audience gathers before the conductor appears and the orchestra begins the overture. Then enjoy backstage interviews with the stars during intermission, or take a refreshment break yourself, get a popcorn refill, and mingle with other opera-g0ers in the theater lobby.  What an exciting night of music and drama is in store for you with each performance. And the price of the theater ticket is usually only $15 to $20.  Check the link for the theaters where you can see opening night or Encore performances (subject to change, so verify with your local theater):

Movie Theaters where you can see the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series (listed by state/city, last updated 8/25/2010)

If you miss the simulcast live opening night Metropolitan Opera performances at a theater near you, you can catch the Encore screenings at other movie theaters. These are the Movie Theaters where you can see the Metropolitan Opera Encore performances (listed by state, city).

Educator Guides to the Operas

Plan an opera study unit for your students based on one of the operas in the 2010-11 Met season, climaxing with a Night at the Opera in a local movie theater. The Met Live in HD series offers free opera-specific educational guides you can use to prepare students for viewing the opera performance, including classroom activities, story synopsis, background on the opera and composer, musical highlights with audio clips, post-opera activities, and more.

Note to Teachers: Have your kids write a paragraph on their “Night at the Opera,” and we’ll share some on our blog or website.

Opera in the Classroom Program

The Metropolitan Opera has also partnered with school districts around the country to bring their HD Live opera productions into schools. Please check to see if your school district participates, as this brings opera free to students in certain districts. If your school is not participating, contact the Met to see how you can bring the program to your school.

METROPOLITAN OPERA: Live in HD in Movie Theaters

2010-11 Schedule

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Wagner’s Das Rheingold

October 9, 2010 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

Two unparalleled artists join forces to create a groundbreaking new Ring for the Met: Maestro James Levine and director Robert Lepage. The cycle launches with Das Rheingold, the prologue to Wagner’s epic drama. “The Ring is not just a story or a series of operas, it’s a cosmos,” says Lepage, who brings cutting-edge technology and his own visionary imagination to the world’s greatest theatrical journey. Bryn Terfel sings the leading role of Wotan for the first time with the company, heading an extraordinary cast.

James Levine; Wendy Bryn Harmer, Stephanie Blythe, Patricia Bardon, Richard Croft, Gerhard Siegel, Bryn Terfel, Eric Owens, Franz-Josef Selig, Hans-Peter König

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Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov

October 23, 2010 at 12:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 5 hours

René Pape takes on one of the greatest bass roles in a new production by Stephen Wadsworth. Valery Gergiev conducts Mussorgsky’s epic spectacle that captures the suffering and ambition of a nation, with Aleksandrs Antonenko, Vladimir Ognovenko, and Ekaterina Semenchuk leading the huge cast.

Valery Gergiev; Ekaterina Semenchuk, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Oleg Balashov, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape, Mikhail Petrenko, Vladimir Ognovenko

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Donizetti’s Don Pasquale

November 13, 2010 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Anna Netrebko revives her sensational turn in this sophisticated bel canto comedy, opposite Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, and John Del Carlo in the title role. Music Director James Levine conducts. When Otto Schenk’s production premiered in 2006, the New York Times called it “brilliant” and “wonderful.”

James Levine; Anna Netrebko, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, John Del Carlo

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Verdi’s Don Carlo

December 11, 2010 at 12:30 pm ET
Expected Running time: 4 hours, 30 minutes

Director Nicholas Hytner makes his Met debut with this new production of Verdi’s profound, beautiful, and most ambitious opera. Roberto Alagna leads the cast, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, and Simon Keenlyside also star. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, back after his triumphant debut leading Carmen, conducts. “I think Don Carlo is the quintessential Verdi opera,” Hytner says. “Right through this opera there is, on the one hand, an implacable expression of impending doom and, on the other hand, a succession of the most gloriously open-throated arias, the most fantastically determined music.”

Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Marina Poplavskaya, Anna Smirnova, Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Eric Halfvarson

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Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West

January 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Puccini’s wild-west opera had its world premiere in 1910 at the Met. Now, on the occasion of its centennial, all-American diva Deborah Voigt sings the title role of the “girl of the golden west,” starring opposite Marcello Giordani. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

Nicola Luisotti; Deborah Voigt, Marcello Giordani, Lucio Gallo

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Adams’s Nixon in China

February 12, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 4 hours

“All of my operas have dealt on deep psychological levels with our American mythology,” says composer John Adams, who conducts the Met premiere of his most famous opera. “The meeting of Nixon and Mao is a mythological moment in world history, particularly American history.” Acclaimed director and longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars makes his Met debut with this groundbreaking 1987 work, an exploration of the human truths beyond the headlines surrounding President Nixon’s 1972 encounter with Communist China. Baritone James Maddalena stars in the title role.

John Adams; Kathleen Kim, Janis Kelly, Robert Brubaker, Russell Braun, James Maddalena, Richard Paul Fink

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Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride

February 26, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo reprise their starring roles in Gluck’s nuanced and elegant interpretation of this primal Greek myth. Tenor Paul Groves also returns to Stephen Wadsworth’s insightful production, first seen in 2007. Patrick Summers conducts.

Patrick Summers; Susan Graham, Plácido Domingo, Paul Groves, Gordon Hawkins

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Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor

March 19, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 4 hours

Natalie Dessay triumphed as the fragile heroine of Donizetti’s masterpiece on Opening Night of the 2007–08 season in Mary Zimmerman’s hit production. Now she returns to the role of the innocent young woman driven to madness, opposite Joseph Calleja, who sings her lover Edgardo.

Patrick Summers; Natalie Dessay, Joseph Calleja, Ludovic Tézier, Kwangchul Youn

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Rossini’s Le Comte Ory

April 9, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

Rossini’s vocally dazzling comedy stars bel canto sensation Juan Diego Flórez in the title role of this Met premiere production. He vies with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, in the trouser role of Isolier, for the love of the lonely Countess Adèle, sung by soprano Diana Damrau. Bartlett Sher, director of the Met’s hit productions of The Barber of Seville and The Tales of Hoffmann, describes the world of the opera as, “a place where love is dangerous. People get hurt. That can be very funny and very painful. Rossini captures both—with the most beautiful love music Rossini ever wrote.”

Maurizio Benini; Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Susanne Resmark, Juan Diego Flórez, Stéphane Degout, Michele Pertusi

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Strauss’s Capriccio

April 23, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

On Opening Night of the 2008–09 season, Renée Fleming dazzled audiences when she sang the final scene of Strauss’s wise and worldly meditation on art and life. Now she performs the entire work, in which the composer explores the essence of opera itself. Joseph Kaiser and Sarah Connolly also star, and Andrew Davis conducts.

Andrew Davis; Renée Fleming, Sarah Connolly, Joseph Kaiser, Russell Braun, Morten Frank Larsen, Peter Rose

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Verdi’s Il Trovatore

April 30, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 3 hours

David McVicar’s stirring production of Verdi’s intense drama premiered in the 2008–09 season. James Levine leads this revival, starring four extraordinary singers—Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky—in what might be the composer’s most melodically rich score.

James Levine; Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky

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Wagner’s Die Walküre

May 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm ET
Expected Running time: 5 hours, 15 minutes

A stellar cast comes together for this second installment of Robert Lepage’s new production of the Ring cycle, conducted by James Levine. Bryn Terfel is Wotan, lord of the Gods. Deborah Voigt adds the part of Brünnhilde to her extensive Wagnerian repertoire at the Met. Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek star as the twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Stephanie Blythe is Fricka.

James Levine; Deborah Voigt, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Stephanie Blythe, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, Hans-Peter König

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Don’t Forget to Support Live Music Events in Your Community!

Even though the Met is coming to your neighborhood theater, don’t fail to subscribe to and support your local opera, symphony, ballet, theater, and other performing groups. The experience of attending live musical events is not replaceable by screened performances. The Live in HD series is a boon for those who have no live opera in their communities, but for those who do have local opera companies the Met series should enrich and not replace your live opera-going experiences. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PERFORMANCE COMPANIES, whether in music, dance, or theater, or you may one day find yourself without them. The Met series will hopefully attract a new and bigger audience, who will also become active supporters of their local musical companies.

Don’t underestimate the power of either sports or music when it comes to exciting a crowd. Even as a tormented composer writing under the harsh restrictions and demands of Communism, in his 1929 ballet  The Golden Age big-time soccer fan and sometime soccer referee Shostakovich recreated a soccer match. In this ballet, a communist soccer team travels to the West to compete against the evil “capitalists” (real boiler-plate geo-political plot!).  Listen to his brilliant recreation of a fast-paced soccer match:

I would love to have seen this ballet scene. Wonder if the choreographer was a soccer fan too? Probably so. . .

Tips for Music Teachers:

1. Play this musical soccer match for your students, and see how many can guess what sport is being depicted. 

2. Ask students to guess why the composer chose to include this work in a ballet, rather than a symphony, opera, or choral work.

3. Ask students to choreograph & perform in teams their own interpretation of Shostakovich’s soccer match.

4. Ask students to research other examples where composers have depicted sports events in their music (and share them with us!).

5. Ask students to describe what music and sports have in common.

6. Show students the vuvuzela, the obnoxiously loud, monotone horn used at this year’s World Cup.  This is a great seque to open the discussion on noise pollution and hearing protection! (Hope they ban the horn for the next World Cup!)

There’s a lot more to World Cup soccer music than national anthems and the penetrating blare of “vuvuzela” horns.  WQXR classical FM station, highlights the top 5 soccer pieces from 100 years of soccer-inspired classical music.

A scholar in England just announced his discovery of a secret music code in the writings of Plato.  As a closeted follower of Pythagoras, whose heretical beliefs threatened traditional religion, Plato believed that music and mathematics were closely related, and that music was a reflection of the mathematical principles that governed the universe. Pythagoras codified the mathematical ratios of the musical intervals in the 12-tone Greek scale. Plato, like his mentor Pythagoras,  believed the “harmony of the spheres” resulted from movement of the stars and planets, which orbited according to mathematical equations that created musical pitches. 

Jay Kennedy of Manchester, England, has discovered that every 12th line of Plato’s original manuscript scrolls includes a passage or reference to music, that possibly sent a hidden code to other followers of Pythagoras. Thus the 12-tone Greek scale underpinned Plato’s writings, just as music and mathematics laid the philosophical foundations of the Pythagorean universe.

Read more about this fascinating discovery and its implications on the relationship of music, science, and philosophy that resonate today.

When famed Broadway songwriter Jason Bert Brown discovered his songs were being “traded” freely online by those who had never purchased a legal copy, he thoughtfully requested that the traders stop the illegal trading. Read this fascinating exchange with a recalcitrant yet extremely bright and articulate teenager. Eleanor’s teenage sense of entitlement is absolutely breathtaking. Her arguments are devoid of any sense of morality (other than her own moral outrage at being asked to remove the illegal songs), yet her rationalizations at stealing other people’s music without paying the $3.99 download fee are worthy of a silver-tongued trial lawyer.  

Please read this exchange in it’s entirety, and more importantly, read it to your own kids and students. I would love to hear from you on how Eleanor’s slippery moral and “aesthetic” arguments for copyright theft either resonate with or repel other teens. The technology is in place for easy illegal “trading” of music: now it’s time to work on how to instill in teens (and adults, I might add) the sense of responsibility, ethics, and control needed to understand and appreciate why copyright violation, though easy, is both illegal and immoral.

This dramatic battle between the composer and the teen is itself worthy of a Broadway play, and a Pulitzer. Read it now:

  FIGHTING WITH TEENS: A Copyright Story