einspringer

As Piotr Beczala ditches Tanglewood's Boheme to go rescue Bayreuth's Lohengrin from falling into an Alagna-shaped hole, here's the guy tasked with replacing Beczala



His GESTURES are a little BIG, but then so is the Shed, so...details here, if you're fixin to go...

mezzo alert

Sarah Connolly fans and others not enjoying the beautiful weather and its attendant mosquitoes this evening at Tanglewood can access the live feed of tonight's All-Mozart program here at 8:30 ET. Program details here, and yes some La Clemenza di Tito is involved.

lessons from Section 18

What you learn from the rear-shed jumbotrons at Tanglewood during the Mahler 2nd:

 1) Choristers' friends and family sit back there so they can shoot phone pix of their peeps on-screen during their close-ups.

 2) The BSO violins really like playing that pizzicato section of the Ländler, and you can see them collectively dreaming about forming a ukulele orchestra.

 3) The audience is every bit as fidgety during the slow bits with the action in their face as when our sad lack of multi-media technology left us solely at the mercy of our ears.

And yes, dude sitting next to me, yes! the horns of Judgement are blowing in the distance! now is the time to crack your knuckles!

curtain calls as more of a sports bar experience

on a platter

Via Q2, WQXR's online venue for contemporary music, the US premiere of George Benjamin's Written on Skin, recorded at Ozawa Hall this past summer.

Total Doom and friends

From the Great Tanglewood Swap-Out of 2013, audio of the Verdi Requiem, with Kristine Opolais, Lioba Braun, Dmytro Popov and Eric Owens (subbing for Ferruccio Furlanetto), conducted by Carlo Montanaro (subbing for Andris Nelsons).  Performance begins at 30:00 (so drag to there if you wish to skip the woeful tale of Nelsons' gig-squashing encounter with a door, and a recording of the end of Suor Angelica as sung by la Opolais). Montanaro does some cool things with tempo and dynamics and, as previously stated on Twitter, Eric Owens is Total Doom.