https://www.scmp.com/rss/322929/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com A language, the saying goes, is a dialect with an army. In the absence of heavy artillery, a decent alternative is an opera tradition. Finland, a nation of only 5.5 million people, waged one of the great nationalist wars of the 20th century – not in the trenches, but on the operatic stage. Armed with quintessentially Finnish stories and their own distinct language, troops of composers, conductors and trained singers declared cultural independence against their intrusive neighbours, Sweden and... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3034027/opera-autumn-sonata-adapted-original-swedish-film-explosion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3034027/opera-autumn-sonata-adapted-original-swedish-film-explosion?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 22 Oct 2019 08:30:12 +0000 The most remarkable thing about Opera Hong Kong’s production of Don Giovanni last weekend was how unremarkable it was. No one was wearing contemporary costumes, nor did 17th-century Seville suddenly shift to modern-day Spanish Harlem. The legendary seducer found his eventual consequences neither in a bombastic multimedia descent to hell nor a downward spiral in a hospital Aids ward. All of which, by the way, have been crucial elements in other directors’ version of the opera today. Instead,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3011094/opera-it-should-be-no-contemporary-setting-aids-ward-or?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3011094/opera-it-should-be-no-contemporary-setting-aids-ward-or?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 May 2019 07:45:08 +0000 You rarely find works by Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler on the same programme. It’s as if there is an either-or dynamic whereby, like choosing a sports team, a listener can only root for one of these late-Romantic titans. The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert last weekend was an exception. By contrasting the two composers’ distinct musical personalities – the village Catholic and the Viennese Jew, the church organist and the cosmopolitan conductor – a dialogue was established, albeit... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3010920/mighty-mahler-resurrection-symphony-shows-hk-phils-growth?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3010920/mighty-mahler-resurrection-symphony-shows-hk-phils-growth?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 May 2019 08:37:02 +0000 Years have gone by without much attention being paid to Yasunari Kawabata, Japan’s first Nobel laureate, who died in 1972, but a new musical work and a series of films in Hong Kong are shining a light on the author. Beauty and Sadness, a chamber opera by composer Elena Langer and librettist David Pountney based on Kawabata’s last published novel, had its world premiere on Friday at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. On Sunday, Masahiro Shinoda’s 1965 film With Beauty and Sorrow (based on... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3005170/chamber-opera-based-yasunari-kawabata-novel-beauty-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3005170/chamber-opera-based-yasunari-kawabata-novel-beauty-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Apr 2019 10:45:11 +0000 If choosing between the sacred and the profane was one of Wagner’s favourite dilemmas, why did German company Leipzig Opera’s production of the composer’s opera Tannhäuser make it seem so easy? Representing carnal temptation, its Spanish director, Calixto Bieito, had the work’s titular hero languishing nearly lifeless in Venus’ lair. Tannhäuser’s return to “purity” involved hanging out with the boys and getting his chest smeared with blood in a cross between bachelor-party revelry and pagan... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/2188500/leipzig-operas-tannhauser-visceral-pleasure-and-well-sung-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/2188500/leipzig-operas-tannhauser-visceral-pleasure-and-well-sung-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Mar 2019 06:46:20 +0000 “Film nights” with symphony orchestras, which began a couple of decades ago with live accompaniments of screenings of silent movie classics by Charlie Chaplin and others, have grown up. Hardly a season goes by without orchestras accompanying screenings of Hollywood blockbusters, usually those with an Oscar-winning score by the likes of John Williams or Howard Shore. The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra first tested the waters with a sampler of Pixar films, then jumped headfirst into Stephen... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2153368/hk-phils-west-side-story-concert-mixed-experience-music-well-played?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2153368/hk-phils-west-side-story-concert-mixed-experience-music-well-played?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Jul 2018 05:15:45 +0000 The message of this concert’s title was clear: “Jaap, to the New World” was a celebration of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director, Jaap van Zweden, heading to the US to begin his tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic. What that means for the future of music making in both cities remains to be seen, but the weekend concert offered a fine glimpse of the past. Van Zweden’s debut season with New York Phil premiere-heavy The programme tipped its hat not just to the... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2152314/hkphils-hat-tip-us-bound-music-director-jaap-van-zweden-showed-just?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2152314/hkphils-hat-tip-us-bound-music-director-jaap-van-zweden-showed-just?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Jun 2018 10:45:58 +0000 So they finally did it. After talking about presenting a full run of the Ring cycle since 2004, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra finally made good on its promise, bringing their four-year concert survey of Wagner’s epic tetralogy to an end on Thursday night. It was, even compared to the HKPhil’s previous Wagner outings, a muscular effort. Having the orchestra on stage rather than in the pit by nature demanded from the singers more brute force than vocal finesse. For the orchestra, merely... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2129657/review-gotterdammerung/hkphil/jaap-van-zweden-wrestling-match-fought?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2129657/review-gotterdammerung/hkphil/jaap-van-zweden-wrestling-match-fought?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Jan 2018 05:00:54 +0000 Emilia Marty is the kind of operatic role most sopranos would kill for. She is, first of all, supposed to be a celebrated opera singer. Second, she entrances practically any man who comes her way. And oh yes, she’s more than 300 years old. All that nearly makes up for not having a decent aria. The central figure in Leos Janacek’s 1925 opera The Makropulos Case, which received its belated Asian premiere last week in a highly effective 2015 production by the National Theatre Brno, shares several... https://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2074334/review-makropulos-case-cast-score-and-stage-shine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2074334/review-makropulos-case-cast-score-and-stage-shine?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Feb 2017 05:45:45 +0000 Despite the temptation to quote a retro bubblegum hit, Tuesday evening’s concert at Hong Kong City Hall wasn’t all about that bass. Edgar Meyer may play the largest member of the string family, but like the handful of his colleagues with successful solo careers, he is not defined by it. Even when Meyer dips into the stylistic ticks of his instrument – the plucked stride of a jazz player or the bent tones of the blues – those traits are repurposed for a greater musical goal. His two concertos for... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2044717/arts-review-edgar-meyer-and-ccohk-double-bass-virtuosity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2044717/arts-review-edgar-meyer-and-ccohk-double-bass-virtuosity?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 10 Nov 2016 06:00:30 +0000 The Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain, purveyors of fine European modernism for more than four decades, finally made it to Hong Kong on Sunday evening at the City Hall Concert Hall. Better late than never, though their long-delayed debut resulted in a backlog of more than a century of sonic exploration packed into an extensive two-and-a-half-hour programme. Appearing under the banner of the New Vision Arts Festival, the Ensemble led with the “new”, with most of the music before intermission... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2039519/review-ensemble-intercontemporain/matthias-pintscher-worth-wait?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2039519/review-ensemble-intercontemporain/matthias-pintscher-worth-wait?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Oct 2016 05:58:27 +0000 Mozart and Mahler were cornerstones of the Hong Kong Philharmonic under previous music director Edo de Waart, though he used to say their music was played “for training purposes”. Mozart needs rhythmic buoyancy, while Mahler requires supreme attention to instrumental colour. Once orchestral musicians can play delicately enough to dance through Mozart’s slow movements, or join together seamlessly in striking combinations, De Waart explained, the ensemble would be able to play anything. The HKPhil... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2038995/review-jaap-van-zwedens-mahler-1st-driven-and-lyrically-infectious?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2038995/review-jaap-van-zwedens-mahler-1st-driven-and-lyrically-infectious?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Oct 2016 07:24:13 +0000 Even if cellist Steven Isserlis hadn’t blurted it out midway through his recital at the University of Hong Kong, astute listeners would probably have figured out that the central peg holding Sunday’s Francophile programme in place was the author Marcel Proust. Proust wrote passionately (if idiosyncratically) about music, particularly its effects on memory, and for roughly a century critics have tried to determine what real pieces inspired the fictional Vinteuil Sonata that wafts through Proust’s... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2028735/review-steven-isserlis-and-connie-shih-shine-pursuit-proust?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2028735/review-steven-isserlis-and-connie-shih-shine-pursuit-proust?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Oct 2016 08:01:22 +0000 Classical music programming has become so ossified that any deviation from the standard overture-concerto-symphony format is usually deemed radical or eyed with suspicion. The Hong Kong Sinfonietta courted both on Saturday night at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall simply by placing Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 before the intermission and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 afterwards. To be fair, as the orchestra’s principal guest conductor, Christoph Poppen, explained from the stage, the Haydn... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2028662/review-joseph-moog-and-hong-kong-sinfonietta-musical-chemistry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2028662/review-joseph-moog-and-hong-kong-sinfonietta-musical-chemistry?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Oct 2016 03:02:49 +0000 Perhaps the only thing that was able to haul an ageing Giuseppe Verdi out of retirement (besides a greedy publisher) was his long time love for Shakespeare – an author he knew only in translation, and who had very few Italian readers. The composer’s final works, Otello and Falstaff, channelled the full range of his beloved playwright’s tragic and comedic prowess into a much different life on the opera stage. Otello loses more from Shakespeare’s Othello than just the extra “h”, with Arrigo... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2028134/arts-review-verdis-otello-parts-are-greater-whole?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2028134/arts-review-verdis-otello-parts-are-greater-whole?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Oct 2016 08:32:51 +0000 Fans of pianist Murray Perahia – and they were legion on Sunday evening at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall – probably thought this day would never come. Despite his extensive repertory of works from the classical canon, Beethoven’s arguably foremost among them, Perahia had always avoided the composer’s most monumental keyboard work. Much of the reason for the delay was surely physical. In the early 1990s, complications from a paper cut escalated to severe inflammation that required... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2026699/review-murray-perahias-richly-layered-hammerklavier-worth-wait?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2026699/review-murray-perahias-richly-layered-hammerklavier-worth-wait?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Oct 2016 06:00:45 +0000 Headliners in other musical genres often have opening acts, classical guitarists not so much – hence the surprise at seeing Alvaro Pierri have to wait on Monday while nine-year-old Li Zhehao from Shenzhen took the stage at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. Li revealed a precocious poise. Fine guitarists twice his age and size are sometimes physically swallowed by their instrument, but Li had both the technique and showmanship to guide the audience through Fernando Sor’s Grand Solo in D... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2023251/review-joy-guitar-festival-shenzhen-9-year-old-warms-uruguayan-alvaro?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2023251/review-joy-guitar-festival-shenzhen-9-year-old-warms-uruguayan-alvaro?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Sep 2016 04:03:45 +0000 Through four decades of music-making, the Takács Quartet have shown that focusing on the works of a single composer can reveal as much about the players as the music. The quartet’s initial Bartók cycle in the mid-1980s championed the composer as a fellow Hungarian nationalist. Returning to the same works 15 years later, and with the British-born Edward Dusinberre having replaced founding first violinist Gabor Takács-Nagy, the quartet presented the composer as a well-travelled... https://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2022562/review-takacs-quartets-all-beethoven-programme-lesson?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2022562/review-takacs-quartets-all-beethoven-programme-lesson?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Sep 2016 03:39:48 +0000 One could fault composer Giuseppe Verdi’s churchgoing habits. “He’s certainly not much of a believer,” the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, his second wife and herself a devout Catholic, once claimed. But you could hardly say he lacked for convictions, even if they were more squarely rooted in this world than the next, as his Messa da Requiem – written in tribute to the Italian novelist and patriot Alessandro Manzoni — shows. There’s a tidy symmetry in the fact that Verdi, a former church organist... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1920546/review-verdis-requiemteatro-regio-torinogianandrea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1920546/review-verdis-requiemteatro-regio-torinogianandrea?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Mar 2016 06:45:30 +0000