Technically, the first night of Marin Alsop's inaugural season as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra came on Thursday at the ensemble's second venue, the Music Center at Stathmore in Montgomery County. But you could say that Friday's performance at the BSO's principal residence for the past 25 years, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, was the one that counted the most. It's the Baltimore audience, after all, that has the biggest emotional stake in the orchestra, and the biggest financial impact on it. Friday's large, very enthusiastic crowd gave every indication that the Alsop/BSO partnership is already registering strongly with the public.

Alsop's approach to Mahler's epic Symphony No. 5 was nearly as hard-driven as it had been on Thursday, but there was some effective relaxation along the way, allowing more subtleties to emerge, especially in the first three movements.  There was an acoustical advantage, too, since the Meyerhoff has a warmer sound than Strathmore; several passages that had seemed too edgy or brittle on Thursday came off in more balanced, sensitive fashion this time. Alsop still pushed the orchestra hard, though; fortissimos in the finale had just about the same whomping power as those encountered early on in the symphony. It would have been nice to hold a little extra in reserve for the big finish. 

My initial impression of Alsop's interpretation remained pretty much the same. I think she missed some of the depth and nuance possible in this brilliant work, with its compelling journey from funereal and angst-ridden to deeply nostalgic and wry, then from richly reflective to ecstatic and unbounded. Alsop seems to favor an essentially literal view of the score, which certainly can produce plenty of expresisve urgency (Mahler's careful directions see to that). But greater rhythmic elasticity could have revealed a more richly atmospheric world in the Scherzo, for example, just as greater breadth could have opened up a window to the soul of the Adagietto. (Just by delaying the latter movement's final resolution a few more seconds than Alsop allowed can make a huge difference in poetic communication.)

That said, there was no mistaking the conductor's command on the podium, or her ability to get the BSO fired up. Friday's performance hit many an imposing peak, particularly in the finale, which Alsop gave a wonderfully electric charge. Some of the bumps encountered in the brass section on Thursday (the tuba player was a very weak link that night) cropped up again, but the players summoned terrific force. Woodwinds, too, were generally in top form. The strings offered a great deal of power, precision and feeling. (Alsop has rearranged the strings so that the cellos no sit on the outside, the violas on the inside -- the reverse of the seating preferred by previous music director Yuri Temirkanov.)

I had nearly as much fun Friday with John Adams' 'Fearful Symmetries' on the first half of the concert as I did the night before. The only problem, from where I was sitting on the main floor, was that some of techno beat coming from the synthesizers onstage echoed off the walls, causing a muddying effect. But the palate-cleansing, pulse-jumping, head-spinning quality of the score proved just as irresistible. And I can't stress enough how significant and welcome a statement Alsop was making by opening her tenure here with a 28-minute contemporary work. So many conductors think they've done their duty by zipping through a short, curtain-raising splash of modernity once in a blue moon. Count on Alsop to remind everybody, and often, that classical music didn't die when Tchaikovsky did.

If you missed Thursday and Friday, you should catch one of the remaining performances, Saturday night or Sunday afternoon at the Meyerhoff.

Tickets: 410-783-8000, www.bsomusic.org.

Posted by Tim Smith at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

If you're curious about opera, or can't get enough of it, there's a concert worth checking out on Oct. 5 at the Kennedy Center. Placido Domingo, the stellar tenor and general director of Washington National Opera, will conduct a program called Welcome to Opera, featuring excerpts from the company's 2007-2008 season and other repertoire.

In addition to singers from those upcoming productions and members of WNO's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, the lineup includes remarkable soprano Alessandra Marc. There will be music by Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Humperdinck and Bolcom -- an attractively broad sampling of the operatic art. The price ain't bad, either: $25.

The performance is at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Virginia and New Hampshire avenues, Northwest. For tickets: www.dc-opera.org; 202-295-2400 or 800-876-7372.

Posted by Tim Smith at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

If you've been immersed in the potent Ken Burns film The War on PBS, you will have noticed that a lot of classical music is woven into the soundtrack, along with popular music of the 1940s and our own time. You can get the complete aural side of the film on a four-CD set from Sony or a single collection from the same label that gathers the classical material under the title "Songs Without Words."

Those who have watched the film are likely to find the experience of hearing the music separately a strongly communicative experience, but you don't need that extra association to enjoy this particular compilation. The selections here, nearly all of them reflective, if not elegiac, include some remarkably heartful utterances (and some fine performances).

The brief "Death of Falstaff" from William Walton's film score Henry V, with Leonard Slatkin conducting the London Philharmonic, takes on an uncommon poignancy here. And, in this context, the achingly beautiful opening of Aaron Copland's Concerto for Clarinet becomes all the more eloquent. The jauntier, jazzier part of that concerto (played here by the great Benny Goodman with the composer conducting) provides a welcome contrast.

There is some dark, complex, brilliantly constructed music by the late Gyorgy Ligeti, a movement from his Horn Trio (I'm not crazy about the sound the horn player makes, but the eerie piece is quite effective). One of the strange, harmonically unsettled piano works of Franz Liszt, "Nuages Gris," is also here, along with the solo clarinet movement from "Quartet for the End of Time," Olivier Messiaen's astonishing creation written while a prisoner of war.

The diverse, yet somehow cohesive, collection ends with the ultimate sonic memorial, the "Nimrod" movement from Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations," spaciously and tellingly shaped by Slatkin with the London Philharmonic. This hymn without words never fails to touch the heart; heard here in the connection to the Burns film, it sounds more moving than ever.   

Posted by Tim Smith at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Those of us who believe intently in the value of music and early exposure to music education just got a welcome bit of news from researchers at Northwestern University. Here's a key passage from the report summary:

"The brain’s alteration from the multi-sensory process of music training enhances the same communication skills needed for speaking and reading, the study concludes. 'Audiovisual processing was much enhanced in musicians’ brains compared to non-musician counterparts, and musicians also were more sensitive to subtle changes in both speech and music sounds,' said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, where the work was performed."

Pretty cool, eh? If only governments, local and federal, could ever fully grasp the significance of such findings. Maybe we could finally see the day when arts are as valued as sports, starting from the earliest school days. How promising that could make the prospect of all the next generations to come. 

Here's a link to the article announcing the study results:

http://www.scientistlive.com/news/daily-news/18874/music-improves-verbal-skills.thtml  

This link should get you closer to the full study:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0701498104v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Musacchia&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Posted by Tim Smith at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Sun movie critic Michael Sragow rates Across the Universe a C, calling it "disarming, discombobulating and disappointing." What's your take on the Beatles-inspired musical? Join the discussion today in our comments section.

(Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures)

Posted by Tim Swift at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

In the photo on the back of Jill Scott's new CD, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3, she's dressed in a long, salmon-colored house coat, bubble gum-pink slippers, and a black and white scarf is tied around her head. She sits on the floor, legs crossed, surrounded by books. She clutches a notebook to her chest and looks as if she's in deep thought.

Presumably, the picture is supposed to convey the intimacy of the music inside. But Scott's music has always been intimate. Her songs flow like thoughtful journal entries. And although the bitter lead single "Hate On Me" is a little out of character, the rest of The Real Thing is the same old Jilly: She croons caramel love songs in her lovely, bell-clear voice.

But the production --  handled mostly by past collaborators Andre Harris, Vidal Davis and Adam Blackstone -- remains mostly thin and pedestrian. On her last album, 2003's Beautifully Human, the music was just a little daring, tossing in nice tempo changes and swinging big-band jazz. But on The Real Thing, Jill is back to crooning over sleepy, mostly programmed arrangements that sound like colorless smooth jazz  

If it weren't for her marvelous voice, Jill's albums would be straight-up boring. But as on her previous releases, The Real Thing is studded here and there with gems. "Come See Me" is a silky, midnight-love ballad recalling the sensuous side of Minnie Riperton, and "Crown Royal" is a clever, sexed-up number that's too brief.

The Real Thing will undoubtedly please Jilly's fans. But it's really time that she hooked up with producers who could put her lyrics and voice in a spicier musical context. 

Posted by Rashod Ollison at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Sun intern Katy O'Donnell spoke with Donda West, mother of rap star Kanye West, earlier this week in advance of her appearance at the Baltimore Book Festival this weekend. Here are some highlights from the interview. (See more about the festival in tomorrow's LIVE.)

Why are you coming to the Baltimore Book Festival? What do you want the audience to take away from you speaking about your book?

I'm coming to the Book Festival for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that those kinds of events are among my favorite. I'd like to share Raising Kanye [her book] with as many people who will stop by as possible.

How do you think your own parents have shaped your life? You say in your book that your own parenting skills started with them — how so?

Both my parents have had and still have a tremendous impact on my life and they've shaped my parenting very profoundly. They were the perfect parents, showering me with the kind of love that I knew would always be there. They actively participated. I don't think my mother — or father — ever missed a PTA meeting. I was born in the late 1940s, and for black families, it wasn't always easy to have more than the necessities. But as I said, they made me feel rich.

Kanye has said that his family says, "Shy is next to stupid. Speak up!" And you have said you encouraged him to always speak up. Do you think he gets a bad rap when people say he is arrogant for making comments like the one when he said that best thing about hip-hop in 2004 was himself? What about the Bush comments — he is clearly agitated and passionate in the entire clip [when during a televised fund-raiser for Hurricane Katrina victims, he strayed from the script and said that the president didn't care about black people], but do you think those comments were appropriate?

We live in a society where it's prudent to be politically correct; some would say it's not wise to speak your mind and tell the truth. But I feel that if you feel strongly about an issue and you think about an issue … you have every right to do it — there's free speech. ... Kanye's first question was, 'Do you think anybody would want to read that book? They'd probably want to read it more if there was some big problem between the two of us. Do you think they'll want to read it when we have this wonderful relationship?' There's not a lot of people in the world, I don't think, like Kanye, in terms of him keeping it real. … I think that's one of the fundamental tenets of hip-hop, is keeping it real. People say Kanye is a preppy, he's a mama's boy and all of these things. And all of those are true, but you can't find someone who keeps it more real than Kanye. He's not going out there rapping about blowing someone's head off when he's never so much as owned a gun. In my view, there is to be some consideration for what is politically correct, but there is to be more consideration for telling the truth and making the most positive impact on society that we can. I don't necessarily think that he thought about [the Bush comment] … Kanye is really, I think, a very good spokesperson. He's a very critical and analytical thinker, as he was taught to be … If you think that what is happening is very unjust, and you have the platform like Kanye to call attention to it, I think it's very responsible of him to do that, and it's the responsibility of the person listening to decide if they agree.  
    
Do you think the fact that Kanye was raised by intellectuals in a middle class environment has made him a new and different voice that hip hop needed?

I can't really comment on how other people who became stars were raised. … I do know that yes, I do think that Kanye is a voice that can definitely be used and should be used not only in hip-hop but across the arts, period. I think he is broader than a genre. … I think he has a calling to reach a number of people. Kanye keeps it real. He touches the people. You never know how words can save a person's life, physically or otherwise. People like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi or, in my view, Barack Obama, or Jesus Christ — people whose job it is to tell the truth — I see that in Kanye. Now, people like you are gonna go, 'Oh, Kanye's mom said he's like Jesus!' but … when you have a gift, you didn't get it by yourself. … Your truth is your truth.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

ABC debuts its New York-based soap Dirty Sexy Money on Wednesday. But it's been an unusual presence on pop culture blogs for a few weeks now.

To build buzz for the show, ABC wrote faux blog posts for Perez Hilton's popular picfest. The items made it seem like the characters from Dirty Sexy Money were real celebrities of note. On the upside, they were color-coded to maintain Hilton's high journalistic standards. Today, Defamer, another popular Los Angeles blog, got a new logo -- the face of Dirty Sexy, Money star Peter Krause, best known for his role on Six Feet Under. 

Could you image the logo of major news outlet changing for a TV show? Hey, Cavemen is coming next week. Who knows? They could set up shop in the flag of The Sun. (I don't know if the ad department reads this.) That lady and the eagle have really worn out their welcome anyway. Lite for all!

Posted by Tim Swift at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Maybe Microsoft should lay off the marketing. The Associated Press is reporting that the fancy packaging for Halo 3, which can cost up to $130, is scratching the disks. Fans say the scratched disks are still playable, but it doesn't bode well for longterm use. The blockbuster game was released today on the heels of $10 million ad campaign. No word on how much was spent on quality control.

From the AP: Within hours after die-hard fans finally got their hands on a copy of “Halo 3,” blogs brimmed with reports that special limited-edition packaging is scratching the video game disks. 

Microsoft Corp., which owns the studio that makes “Halo 3,” responded quickly on its Xbox Web site with details for a replacement program. Customers can fill out a form and send in their scratched limited-edition disks for a free exchange through the end of December.

Posted by Tim Swift at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Nerds rejoice! The breakout hit of last fall, Heroes, is back with new episodes. But am I alone in feeling a little let down by last night's season opener? 

Aside from Sulu -- a.k.a. Papa Hiro -- going splat, nothing really happened. It lacked the breakneck pace that made the first one so enjoyable. Call it a byproduct of season one being so self contained, which is unheard of in the fantasy/sci-fi genre. Last May's season finale completed the story arc, so the producers are now starting from zero. Closure is good (note to Lost), but it comes at a price.

The requisite cliffhanger ending -- Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) alive and half-naked hanging out in an iPod cargo container (seriously) -- gave some hope that things would be speeding up. But please give Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) a shave. The producers were going for the defeated drunk look, but they got freaky mountain man instead.

Posted by Tim Swift at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
                    

The latest Resident Evil installment took the top slot, but far more surprising and disturbing is that Good Luck Chuck, a vehicle for the talentless Dane Cook, took the No. 2 position.

This is a movie that's destined to find its proper level as a slot-filler on Comedy Central. Even then, there'll be a problem: It will be hard to tell this coarse and demeaning and singularly unfunny film from the commercials for Girls Gone Wild. 

Posted by Michael Sragow at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

I have never been a fan of karaoke. I steer clear of such nights at my favorite dive in town. So sitting through the American Idols Live! last night was almost insuffarable. Let's keep it real, OK? The tour and the TV show are high-powered karaoke. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. But if you want just a little something beyond the flash, neither the Idol show nor the tour will satisfy.

It is wholesome entertainment, you know. Although the Idol finalists on the tour are more or less good vocalists (save for maybe two: the camera-ready but pitch-challenged Sanjaya Malakar and the beat-boxing Blake Lewis), they could do little to offset the cheesiness of the show.

Ever mindful of the audience (made up mostly of screaming prepubescent girls and their accomodating parents), the show features Disney-friendly versions of songs by the Beatles, Christina Aguilera, Maroon 5, Gnarls Barkley and others. The vocalists are backed by a seven-piece band whose sound is so faceless that prerecorded tracks would have been just fine, too.

The show opened with a stagy version of the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started," featuring all 10 finalists, including Season 6 winner Jordin Sparks and Fort Meade resident Lakisha Jones. Afterward, Melinda Doolittle and Jones performed a Motown medley in matching silver-blue fishtail gowns. It was lame. Then, Jones disappeared and Malakar joined Doolittle for an underwhelming version of "Proud Mary." 

I will say this about pretty-boy Sanjaya: He has undeniable stage presence and seems very comfortable in the spotlight. He couldn't carry a note in a brown paper bag, as the saying goes. But he can work the stage better than the other guys on the show. And he certainly moved better than the stiff Doolittle during "Proud Mary." (Later in the show, she redeemed herself with a charged version of Aretha's "Natural Woman.")

Phil Stacey, the bald guy, is clearly the best male vocalist on the tour with a soulful style slightly reminscent of James Ingram, while Lewis is mildly annoying. He beatboxed whenever he appeared onstage, and the novelty got old really fast. His version of Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved" was forced, and his whiny voice was so off-pitch.

Jones gave the most rousing performance of the night with a roof-raising version of "I Will Always Love You." The song grates my nerves now because I've heard it 10 million times since Whitney Houston scored a smash with it in 1992, but Jones owned it.

The show ended with a mini-set by Sparks, who pulled songs from various style bags, including folk-pop (Jewel's "You Were Meant For Me," during which she accompanied herself on acoustic guitar) and stately pop-soul (a slightly overwrought version of Ben E. King's "I Who Have Nothing"). She has a big, clear voice, but there's virtually no emotional resonace in her style. 

But none of that matters when you're in an overblown karaoke show.   

Posted by Rashod Ollison at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
                    

Live opera simulcasts have become the rage, and Washington National Opera’s embrace of the technology may be the most ambitious in the business. Sunday’s planned simulcast of ‘La Boheme’ was already going to be a big deal — beamed free to a huge screen on the National Mall (the company’s third annual simulcast there); to two Washington area movie theaters (also free); and to 32 high school, college and university campuses around the country (again, free -- none of schools, alas, in the Baltimore area).

The performance will now also be available to more than a thousand lower income young people in public and assisted housing in eight cities — Dallas, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York, Santa Fe, San Jose, San Diego and Washington. It’s part of a pilot program announced today by Washington National Opera general director and eminent tenor Placido Domingo and U. S. Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Roy A. Bernardi. The program’s goal is to introduce a new, under-served audience to opera, as well as the backstage world (and employment possibilities) of opera production.

Washington National Opera started blazing the simulcast trail in 2005, making it possible for a crowd of 13,000 gathered on the National Mall to see a performance of Gershwin’s ‘Porgy and Bess’ live from the Kennedy Center. Rain made for a messy experience at last year’s simulcast of ‘Madama Butterlfy,’ but the forecast looks promising for ‘La Boheme’ at 2 p.m. Sunday.

For more information, check out dc-opera.org.

Posted by Tim Smith at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

With the debate on the Iraq War and its future in high gear, Soheil Nasseri’s piano recital Thursday at An die Musik is nothing if not timely — and provocative.

The program includes ‘Lullaby of War,’ a new work by American composer Haskell Small for piano and narrator that incorporates anti-war poems dating from the Civil War era, the two World Wars and our own time. The composer describes the work as " both an expression of outrage at our perpetual rationalizations for making war and an offering of compassion for its victims."

The California-born Nasseri will also perform sonatas by Beethoven (No. 31) and Schumann (No. 1), along with Beethoven’s Bagatelles, Op. 119.

The recital is at 7 p.m. Thursday at An die Musik, 409 N. Charles St. For tickets, call 410-385-2638. More information: andiemusiklive.com 

As usual, this busy venue has all sorts of other concert activity going on these days. Soprano Sandra Ferrandez and pianist Laila Barnat perform works by French and Spanish composers at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. And the Monument Piano Trio (An die Musik’s top-notch artists-in-residence) will offer a program of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Octavio Vazquez at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Posted by Tim Smith at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Even the mass audience prefers their vengeance fantasies with a veneer of culture these days. The Kevin Bacon payback thriller Death Sentence, based on Brian Garfield's 1975 print sequel to his novel Death Wish, opened on Aug. 31 and sank without a trace at the box office; it made a nod toward Garfield's original tortured-conscience conception before devolving into the self-righteous bang-bang of the Death Wish movie series.

But the Jodie Foster revenge fantasy The Brave One, which owes as much to Taxi Driver as to Death Wish, racked up over $14 million in ticket sales at the box office to take the number one slot this week. The Brave One is a much slicker movie, but there's actually less moral questioning in it than in Death Sentence, let alone Taxi Driver. Still, Foster and co-star Terrence Howard lend the film's absurd histrionics some emotional authority, and director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) applies a patina of literary and visual sophistication to the kapow that sells it to art audiences and action fans alike. It's a self-deluded (or meretricious) piece of work, but it may have staying-power.

The best news is the relatively slight decline of last year's winner, 3:10 to Yuma, a Western that brings a modern sensibility to sturdy old storytelling conventions and features superb performances from Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda and Ben Foster. And Broken Trail won three Emmys last night. Suddenly, again, the Western is thriving. 

Posted by Michael Sragow at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Sopranos may have been unfairly shut out of the acting awards, but the hit HBO show finally won for best drama series for its final season. In a strange speech, creator David Chase took the stage thanking James Gandolfini and Edie Falco and the musicians who contributed to the show (??). But he got a few digs in at the current administration. 

"In essence, this is a story about a gangster ... and gangsters are out there taking their kids to school, working to put food on the table... If the world and this nation were run by gangsters, maybe it is," he said.

Also, Tina Fey got some much needed help from the Emmys for her show, 30 Rock. The critically acclaimed but low-rated show took home the best comedy prize. And it was well deserved.

But James Spader? Really?

(Photo by Associated Press)

Posted by Tim Swift at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

So things are start out normal with America Ferrera winning for her role in Ugly Betty. But then it gets bizarre when they call out James Spader's name for the best actor in a drama series. So here I'm thinking Boston Legal was canceled a few years ago. Wishful thinking, I guess. So the Emmys must have really hated that Sopranos ending.

Note to ABC, please actually cancel Boston Legal so it can stop winning Emmys it doesn't deserve. Even Spader knew it was a bad call. He stumbled through his acceptance speech, dumbfounded.

(Photo by Associated Press)

Posted by Tim Swift at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

In a very meta moment, Steve Carell was able pick to up Ricky Gervais' Emmy from presenters Stephen Colbert and John Stewart. The Office creator wasn't in the audience so his American counterpart took the stage, allowing for a fun Daily Show alum group hug.

In another Sopranos loss (sorry, Falco), Sally Field wins for best actresses in drama series award for her role in Brothers and Sisters. She starts out strong but then gets tongue-tied and -- in a truly strange moment -- censored when the audio cuts out during her anti-war spiel.  

Posted by Tim Swift at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Ryan Seacrest pokes some fun at himself, suiting up in some Tudors tights to introduce a great bit with The Office's Rainn Wilson and Kanye West. "You know, this looked a lot less gay on the rack," Seacrest says. Wilson and West went head to head in an impromptu game of Don't Forget The Lyrics. And of course, Wilson -- channeling his socially inept Office role -- took the nonexistent prize.

But Seacrest's wardrobe choice that wasn't enough to save his show, American Idol, from losing to the old, lame and tired Amazing Race for best reality show. The Amazing Race? Can any other show win this award? At least they could have given it to Project Runway.

Posted by Tim Swift at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)