Word: conductor
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When Japanese Conductor Seiji Ozawa went home for a visit with his orchestra, the Boston Symphony, last March, he took time out for a special project: a long-planned TV series on Japanese orchestras. As part of the series, Tokyo's Gakushuin University Orchestra performed the third movement of Brahms' fourth symphony, and viewers got the royal treatment. In the string section of the orchestra was Prince Hiro, 18, eldest son of Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko. The prince, a freshman, has chosen to follow in his father's footsteps and attend a public university...
...good convention, like a good novel, has rising and falling action and a socko conclusion that leaves customers eager to return next time. The International Fiscal Association spent $20,000 to hire Soprano Leontyne Price, Conductor Arthur Fiedler and the National Symphony Orchestra for the final evening's entertainment. The Hyatt Hotels Corp. offers ten "theme packages" for the concluding blowout, including Monte Carlo night, rodeo parties, an Arabian Nights banquet and a Tom Jones party, in which the ballroom is filled with trees, grass, live pigs, chickens, llamas and a tame tiger, while guests gnaw on turkey drumsticks...
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Soprano Anna Tomova-Sintow, Alto Patricia Payne, Tenor Robert Tear, Bass Robert Lloyd, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Colin Davis conductor, Philips; 2 LPs). Under Davis, Beethoven's great Mass moves majestically from the solemn opening Kyrie to a troubled Agnus Dei, in which timpani and trumpets dramatically evoke man's troubled state, before the Mass ends on a serene note. The performance is both spiritually and musically intense, and the chorus sings like the heavenly hosts...
Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Soprano Renata Scotto, Tenor Placido Domingo, Baritone Ingvar Wixell, Philharmonia Orchestra and Ambrosian Opera Chorus, Lorin Maazel conductor, Columbia; 3 LPs). Madame Butterfly is one of opera's most endearing and enduring heroines. Scotto makes a warm Butterfly; she effortlessly holds the almost whispered high notes of her Un bel di aria. Domingo's Pinkerton is such a hearty fellow that it is hard to hate...
Richard Strauss: Salome (Soprano Hildegard Behrens, Mezzo Agnes Baltsa, Tenor Karl-Walter Bohm, Baritone Jose Van Dam, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan conductor, Angel; 2 LPs). With Karajan, the orchestral music comes first, even in opera. Here he conducts a vibrant, sensuous performance of Strauss's lurid opera. Behrens as Salome may lack the cruel edge of Birgit Nilsson's performance on London. But Behrens' pure voice contrasts chillingly with Salome's lust, while Van Dam's ringing Jochanaan is a saintly counterpoint in a savage world...