Back from a stint on the road, today I caught up with what made news here
in Munich in my absence.  Notable was James Levine's first performance as
conductor and musical director of the Munich Philharmonic.  Seems he was a
smash hit--"frenetic ovations." According to Wolfgang Schreiber, reviewing
for the *Sueddeutsche Zeitung*, the orchestra and the vocal soloists --
Rene Pape, Wolfgang Schmidt, Gabriele Schnaut, Deborah Voigt, Marjana
Lipovsek-- were not only in top form throughout, but also throughout deeply
indebted to Levine's leadership.  According to Schreiber they surpassed
themselves in a concertante highlights performance of Richard Strauss'
*Elektra* --a piece that Munich considers its own, by a composer who most
decidedly was one of its own until he died fifty years ago.  But they also
did well with the Sacre du Printemp, which presented Levine with the
opportunity to show off "the vast orchestral apparatus with which he will
work creatively in the coming years...and to show how it held up under the
demands of intensity, stress, and virtuosity in playing and listening."

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]