John Adams - El Nino

i have been a big fan of Adams for a while now and got tickets for this also, i have previously prefered his orchestral stuff more than the opera but the opera is growing on me
i bought the cd cheap in Tower Picadilly circus when they were closing down and am really glad i did

it is very varied and at the moment the south american sounding stuff is my favourite but on the whole it is very interesting with good orchestral work as well and should be very powerful live, i am not really a great listener to religious music but it is good to heart the nativity story done slightly differently to previously

you may be interested to know that channel 4 have recorded a new production of Death of Klinghoffer for showing at the end of May which i think will be very interesting given recent global events

I love Nixon In China [funny & pacey], and Death of Klinghoffer [sad & languid], but have to confess I was a bit disappointed by El Nino, which to me sounds a bit of a dog's dinner, on the couple of listenings I've given it.

Will the Barbican performance be staged? That might sort things out for me, & if so I might go. I'm more interested in 'On the Transmigration of Souls' at the Proms. It apparently features the calls of 9/11 victims. There's the possibility it might be tacky, but I somehow doubt it.

throb

Well I am a west coast Adams fan and have seen him conduct several times. Most recently he was at the premier here in LA of El Nino. The music in performance was really stunning with lots of percussion. The staging and chorus roamed all over the stage having memorized the work which he never expected. There is one huge video screen with a boring tape of current LA emigree scenes that is really distracting. However, Adams said in his talk that this was supposed to be all too much, and it was. Sometimes I just had to close my eyes.

benlav, I envy you getting to see Klinghoffer. I have that on CD and really am taken with it tho it will probably not be performed here in the states. Too touchy on the arab/isreali issues and would cause quite a flak, I'd be first in line for tickets tho.

Also got to hear the original performace of Naive and Sentimental Music. Wow what a performance, and piece of music. So glad he and Esa-Pekka Salonen have a good working relationship. Next fall we get the new Disney Hall opening up and he's doing a new piece called Dharma of Big Sur which I can't go to because I don't have $1500 for one performance. fund raisers for the first three opening nights are too expensive. I'll have to wait for it to come out on CD, hope it's not 3 years like N&S Music.

well that's the latest from the west coast.

glenn

Thanks for the replies, think I will get hold of a copy and have a listen before booking, I might well be out of the country anyhow but we shall see.

Matthew