Far and away the most exciting classical DVDs I reviewed in 2011 were the Wagner Ring operas from Valencia, Spain (C Major; reviewed on Aug. 14). Conducted by Zubin Mehta, and choreographed by La Fura dels Baus (which staged the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics), these DVDs finally broke with the postmodern, euro-trash habit of mocking these late-Romantic masterpieces with a spurious modernization.
Instead, we had all the mystery of the ancient Nordic legends combined with high-tech projections and the gods singing from the top of electronic fork-lift towers, while the Fura dels Baus figures writhed on the ground as the Rhine gold itself and crossed the stage suspended on hooks like meat carcasses in Alberich’s underground workshop.
These DVDs — seven, plus one devoted to “the making of …” — seemed stylistically new, but in reality they revived the original magic and mystery that Wagner wanted, and the early productions strove to attain. A bargain-priced highlights disk is also available.
Photo Courtesy of C Major
Staying with opera, and with Wagner, the Lohengrin (Decca; reviewed on March 13) starring Jonas Kaufmann and conducted by Kent Nagano managed to be memorable despite its bizarre 1930s staging by Richard Jones. The reason it is so fine has a lot to do with Kaufmann, who quickly proceeded to sing the same role (Lohengrin) at Bayreuth, plus Siegfried in New York, and the intense musicality of Nagano and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester.
The production, by contrast, had a Nazi-style militia, the ongoing construction center-stage of a honeymoon house, and much more directorial interference with the natural dynamics of the piece. Some will consequently judge this version distasteful, but the singing is very fine, as is the orchestral playing, and the video’s production values are very high.
Verdi’s Don Carlo (EMI; reviewed on May 9) is the Italian version of the opera he originally wrote in French as Don Carlos. The London production, conducted by Antonio Pappano and starring Rolando Villazon, Marina Poplavskaya and Simon Keenlyside, proved exceptionally strong.
Photo Courtesy of SONY
There’s a push nowadays to have this opera accepted as one of Verdi’s greatest achievements, maybe even his masterpiece, and though I can’t agree with that evaluation, this was just the production, traditional and forthright, to support such a claim.
Lang Lang Live in Vienna (Sony Classical; reviewed on Feb. 13) is a lovable performance featuring two Beethoven sonatas, some Albeniz, a Prokofiev sonata, and three Chopin encores. Lang Lang’s (郎朗) charm easily overcame any initial reservations in this citadel of classicism. Meanwhile, Claudio Abbado continued to show his mastery of Mahler’s unique mystique with his beautiful recording of the First Symphony (EuroArts; reviewed on Feb. 13). Yuja Wang (王羽佳) played Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, also to great effect, in the same program.
War in the Taiwan Strait is currently a sexy topic, but it is not the only potential Chinese target. Taking the Russian Far East would alleviate or even solve a lot of China’s problems, including critical dependencies on fuel, key minerals, food, and most crucially, water. In a previous column (“Targeting Russian Asia,” Dec. 28, 2024, page 12) I noted that having following this topic for years, I consistently came to this conclusion: “It would simply be easier to buy what they need from the Russians, who also are nuclear-armed and useful partners in helping destabilize the American-led world order.
Last Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) detected 41 sorties of Chinese aircraft and nine navy vessels around Taiwan over a 24-hour period. “Thirty out of 41 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern ADIZ (air defense identification zones),” it reported. Local media noted that the exercises coincided with the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Taiwan. During the visit of then-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August 2022, the largest number of sorties was on Aug. 5, “involving a total of 47 fighter aircraft and two supporting reconnaissance/patrol aircraft.
July 7 to July 13 Even though the Japanese colonizers declared Taiwan “pacified” on Nov. 18, 1895, unrest was still brewing in Pingtung County. The Japanese had completed their march of conquest down the west coast of Taiwan, stamping out local resistance. But in their haste to conquer the Republic of Formosa’s last stronghold of Tainan, they largely ignored the highly-militarized Liudui (六堆, six garrisons) Hakka living by the foothills in Kaohsiung and Pingtung. They were organized as their name suggested, and commanders such as Chiu Feng-hsiang (邱鳳祥) and Chung Fa-chun (鍾發春) still wanted to fight. Clashes broke out in today’s
Xu Pengcheng looks over his shoulder and, after confirming the coast is clear, helps his crew of urban adventurers climb through the broken window of an abandoned building. Long popular in the West, urban exploration, or “urbex” for short, sees city-dwelling thrill-seekers explore dilapidated, closed-off buildings and areas — often skirting the law in the process. And it is growing in popularity in China, where a years-long property sector crisis has left many cities dotted with empty buildings. Xu, a 29-year-old tech worker from the eastern city of Qingdao, has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers for his photos of rundown schools and
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