'I can hardly believe these MSO programme notes could be so ill-informed and so keen to whitewash an era of hideous tyranny and murder in the now-unlamented Soviet Union,' I complained some years ago. To my surprise, my gripe was taken to heart. I seriously doubt that would be the reaction today
What to say about Vienna? A divided city, poised between a gleaming future, voted in poll after poll the most livable city in the world, as a result of its Socialist and Social Democratic reforms, and a torturous past, with both an absorbing intellectual and cultural tradition, in large part thanks.
What to say about Vienna? A divided city, poised between a gleaming future, voted in poll after poll the most livable city in the world, as a result of its Socialist and Social Democratic reforms, and a torturous past, with both an absorbing intellectual and cultural tradition, in large part thanks.
Aristotle wrote that classical tragedy should evoke pity and awe. With Richard Strauss’s Elektra, the awe can be taken as read: a certain irreducible level of epicness is written into the score, even if – like Sir Antonio Pappano on the first night of this new production at the Royal Opera – a conductor takes