January: At a forum on
20th century music sponsored by the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in
conjunction with its current season and in particular the commissioned work by
John Adams, D gives an informal talk with musical illustrations about
the work of Darius Milhaud (implicitly a critique of views expressed in
his 'French Music' contribution to the 1957 Hartog symposium) and takes part in
a round-table discussion with musicologists including Christopher Hailey
(organiser of the forum), Katherine Bergeron, David Schiff, and Richard
Taruskin.
March: Broomhill
Opera stage The Silver Lake, 'A Winter's Tale' by Georg Kaiser and Kurt
Weill, in a new translation by Rory Bremner. Mark Dornford-May and
Charles Hazlewood - respectively, Artistic and Musical Directors of
Broomhill Opera - had consulted DD regarding this production, after his
original approach to Broomhill in connection with the Largo recording of the
opera The Juniper Tree by Andrew Toovey.
1 April: Start
of 2-year appointment as Musical and Literary Adviser to Broomhill Opera
at Wilton's Music Hall, London. The first production with which D will be
directly involved is Jonathan Miller's - of The Beggar's Opera. The
choice of 'arranger' is recognized as crucial.
April: Der
Weg der Verheissung: Weill at the Crossroads, in Tempo
No.208. |
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April-May: Outlines
for a Darius Milhaud double bil at Wiltons.
Later projects include a commission for a young British composer, and a first
UK production of a major work by Karl Amadeus Hartmann.
14 May: The
Nature of the Fire (on Hans Werner Henze's autobiography), TLS.
19 June: D gives the
second in the series of annual Goldschmidt Lectures at Trinity College of
Music. His paper, Silhouettes of The Unknown Composer (see
September 1996 for related theme but different subject-matter) proceeds from
the broadly philosophical question to specific instances taken from the 18th to
the 20th centuries and ending with the still virtually unresearched life and
work of Robert Müller-Hartmann.
11-13 June: : The
Kurt Weill Centenary year is officially inaugurated in Chemnitz
(formerly Karl-Marx Stadt). Headed by Kim Kowalke, Board members and
staff of the Kurt Weill Foundation have travelled from New York for the world
premiere in the original language of the Weill-Werfel Biblical saga Der Weg
Der Verheissung. At a conference attended by scholars active in Weill
studies in recent decades, DD delivers part of an informal paper which will be
published in its definitive form under the title Reinhardt's Choice: Some
Alternatives to Weill? The talk is not well received, and there is some
heckling.
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July: The
Broomhill/Wilton's production of The Beggar's Opera is scheduled to open
in November. The Broomhill team agree that in the half century since
Benjamin Britten composed his masterly version for the English Opera
Group, John Gay's original ballad opera has been overshadowed by The
Threepenny Opera. From a strong list of possible candidates as
composer/arranger, Mark Dornford-May and Charles Hazlewood choose
Jonathan Lloyd. The director will be Jonathan Miller.
Late summer: After a
meeting with D in Dorset, Jonathan Lloyd accepts the Beggar's Opera
commission and begins work on Gay's 69 songs and airs. Strictly on
schedule, the score will reach D batch-by-batch over the next three months,
with each package followed a day or so later by a phone call.
September: The Editors
of the revised New Grove have for some while, and rightly, been pressing
D for his overdue contributions, of which much the largest will be a promised
revision of the Weill entry. D's belated discovery of explicit
objections in Opera Grove to his 1980 entry leads to the further
discovery that a revision of his entire text has just been completed by J.
Bradford Robinson, an American writer and musician resident in Germany and
currently preparing a volume for the Kurt Weill Edition. D asks for, and
receives, the revised text.
17-20 September: At
the Opera in Dortmund, attends rehearsals and premiere - on the 19th - of
Kantan/The Silk Drum, a Noh-play diptych-with-epilogue by Alexander
Goehr. On the 21st, discussions in Hannover with J. Bradford Robinson about
his revision of the 1980 Grove entry and his volume for KWE.
October: First series
of Weill events at South Bank Centre, London, including Cry, The
Beloved Country, and a definitively revised Happy End sequence.
4 November: Premiere
at Wilton's Music Hall of the Lloyd/Miller Beggar's Opera.
Schwertsik, Gruber, and friends, have travelled from Vienna for the
occasion. The press is mixed, and preponderantly unsympathetic.
26 November - May
2000: Continuous work on the revised New Grove.
Broomhill
Opera: The Beggar's Opera in rehearsal at Wilton's Music Hall left
Jonathan Miller with Jonathan Lloyd. right Cast and band, with
conductor Charles Hazlewood (centre, in black)
Photos © 2000 by David Drew
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