Ionarts-at-Large: Berg is Best with Metzmacher

When the schedule dictates, compromises might include attending a matinée orchestral performance. No musician I know does AM particularly well, but with a program of Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces, Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina Preludes, and Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music from Die Walküre, the last of the Munich Philharmonic’s three concerts in that series was unmissable.

For the Wagner and Mahler, baritone Michael Volle was won to perform alongside Ingo Metzmacher. After eight successful years in Zurich, Michael Volle became a cast member of the Bavarian State Opera in 2007 and in his five years there, he rose to locally acknowledged fame for reliable, even excellent performances. But fame at home is a tricky thing. Many talented footballers that make their way through the ranks of one team, from junior to Pro, find that they hit a ceiling beyond which they won’t be appreciated. Familiarity—and a decided lack of exoticism—has led to being taken for granted. They often hire elsewhere, with transfer fee and new salary indicative of their newfound respect away from home.

A.Berg, Three Pieces for Orchestra et al., I.Metzmacher / Bamberg SO EMI H.Pfitzner, Palestrina Preludes et al., C.Thielemann / O.d.Deutschen Oper Berlin DG

Pfitzner on ionarts: Best Recordings of 2012 (Palestrina, K.Petrenko) Best Recordings of 2008 (Von Deutscher Seele, Metzmacher) Pfitzner and Schumann's Requiem (C.Thielemann / MPhil) Palestrina (S.Young / Bavarian State Opera)

It’s perhaps a little similar with singers. Volle was appreciated as stalwart, not admired as extraordinary. He left the State Opera and now he is fêted as a soloist around all the renowned opera houses in the world. A little more at this all-too-early hour, in Mahler but especially in Wagner as Wotan would have gone some way in underscoring how extraordinary he is. But for all the difficulties of making oneself heard in Munich’s Philharmonic Hall, with an Wagnerian orchestra whirring behind him, Wotan’s Abschied could have been a good deal more poised, clearer, and audible. As it was, it fit in with a surprisingly slack, if largely accident-free performance from the less-than-sanguine strings & Co.

In Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, Volle’s softness of hue on this occasion fit much better: There is no point heroically trumpeting about dead children with stentorian precision. And so he sang with a gentle transparency instead, which gave these Songs on the Death of Children touching nuance, occasional raspy notes and uneasy heights notwithstanding. The orchestra was more eager, too, in Mahler just before intermission, diving into “In diesem Wetter” with rare gusto.

So far so decent, but the bonbons were clearly Pfitzner’s Palestrina Overtures, tailored by the composer to better fit the concert setting, and Berg. Pfitzner—the composer, not the music—needs advocates like Ingo Metzmacher. There are enough politically charged music critics in Germany just waiting for Christian Thielemann to tackle Pfitzer on a more regular basis in order to insinuate—with words in hues of insidious brown—that “CT” is, gasp!, a conservative. Wink-wink-nudge-nudge.Metzmacher, with his solid background in championing “Degenerate Art” that the Third Reich had shunned, exiled, or gassed, is politically above suspicion to any left-leaning journalist. Since he has discovered Pfitzner a few years ago (resulting in terrific recording of Pfitzner’s Eichendorff Cantata) the responses are enthusiastic and fawning, and questionable motives aside, rightly so. The music is wonderful and the performances justify any enthusiasm. The Munich Philharmonic was one of Pfitzner’s favorite orchestras with whom he performed plenty, but that legacy has been long felt a poisoned endowment more than opportunity. Understandable, but musically a shame, because the tendency for a deep and darkly romantic sound makes the orchestra very suitable for Pfitzner’s music. That’s true even for the delicate Prelude to the First Act (where Pfitzner plays with a music at once wholly new yet harking back to the 16^th century of his opera’s protagonist) and certainly for the wham-bang intensity of the second Prelude. It’s such satisfactory music that even a Pfitzner-friendly colleague suggested: “If you can have that, why bother with the whole thing in the first place.” (In our defense, we both last saw the opera in the drab Munich production; not in the superior Frankfurt outing.)

Saving the best for first, the concert-opening Berg Three Pieces op.6 was unlike any I have heard before: Rich, dedicated, and muscular, with plenty and raw meat especially in the Preludium, where a proximity to Wagner’s Walküre came to the fore that I had never picked up on quite like that. Transparency and lean textures are all well and good and appreciated in Berg, but this was a case in point that sumptuousness is also a most viable option. And still there was plenty room for delicacy amid

Whenever I lean back, wholeheartedly enjoying this glorious, ultimately romantic work, I also enjoy the smug, self-satisfied glow that comes from knowing that my musical tastes are merely 100 years behind. That’s good to know: by the time Beethoven died, I would have appreciated Johann Heinrich Buttstett and François Couperin.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra -- Whither WPAS?

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

The Neale Perl era at Washington Performing Arts Society is coming to an end, and the organization has just announced its new leader, Jenny Bilfield, who will take over as President and CEO of WPAS in April. The official announcement was made last night, before WPAS's presentation of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. What will it mean for WPAS's schedule to have Bilfield -- whose previous work at Stanford emphasized more cross-cultural programming than purely classical music -- at the helm?

No one really knows yet. Anne Midgette has some thoughts on the appointment -- although, as she is quick to make clear, she and Bilfield are friends -- and she thinks it is a good sign that WPAS is "shaking off the 'stodginess' label with a vengeance." We can perhaps guess what that means in concrete terms for WPAS: less Takács Quartet and more Kronos Quartet, less Royal Concertgebouw and more eighth blackbird, less Angela Hewitt and more Esperanza Spalding. The programming at Stanford Lively Arts is indeed quite like what Susie Farr, formerly programming director at the University of California at Berkeley's Cal Performances, has brought to the Clarice Smith Center in recent years -- a position from which Farr will be retiring at the end of this season. There is nothing wrong with broader programming, and WPAS could benefit from a slight shaking up of its "big name" programming -- how many times hearing Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma is too many? -- but we would hate to see the otherwise laudable goal of broader programming come with the sacrifice of not hearing the marquee musicians that only WPAS has tended to sponsor here in Washington.

After all, WPAS already hosts a number of jazz and popular music events, and like this concert they are often beautiful and high-profile performances. With the programming narrated by Wynton Marsalis, from his place in the back row with the other trumpets, this concert began with a first half in tribute to a great Washingtonian, Duke Ellington. Wailing reeds and the chatter of dirty trumpets marked The Mooche, with a howling solo by trombonist Chris Crenshaw, followed by some late Ellington in Chinoiserie. The only really familiar tune in the set was Mood Indigo, with a cool trio of clarinet, trumpet, and trombone out in front, paired with a rarity in Braggin' in Brass, with a rapid-fire solo from Marsalis. The tribute concluded with the substantial Toot Suite, which showed off the big orchestration that was the hallmark of the Ellington Orchestra. Listening to this set silenced the expected objections that Marsalis is a sort of museum curator, ignoring the newest developments in jazz -- that may be true, but what he aims to preserve is so good and so important. I, for one, do not care if the ensemble is on the conservative side -- even the Vienna Philharmonic has some women players now, one might observe -- because to listen to Ellington's music revived this way was such a thrill.

Other Articles: Max Radwin, Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to return to Hill for anniversary tour (The Michigan Daily, January 30) Alison Samuels, Wynton Marsalis Celebrates 25 Years of Jazz at Lincoln Center (The Daily Beast, January 25)

The second half was bound to disappoint by comparison, but pieces by John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan, and some members of the orchestra brought in other facets of the history of jazz. Mulligan's Over the Hill and Out of the Woods, with its parts for flutes, was a happy-go-lucky multi-metric frolic, while Sherman Irby's Insatiable Hunger was a raucous tribute to Dante's Inferno. The closing Kenny Dorham tune (Stage West?) featured Irby's alto saxophone in a crazy solo and brought the house down. A long ovation prevailed in coaxing an encore from a small group -- just Marsalis and his rhythm section, joined later by Irby -- in Billy Strayhorn's iconic Take the 'A' Train.

With the important goal of keeping this music alive for future generations, Jazz at Lincoln Center is starting a Summer Music Institute for young jazz musicians this summer, on the beautiful campus of Santa Barbara City College. Pass the word along to the young musicians in your life.

Hamelin @ Shriver Hall

Haydn, Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3, M.-A. Hamelin (2012) Liszt, Piano Sonata (inter alia), M.-A. Hamelin (2011)

Marc-André Hamelin is a showman, but far from an empty-headed one. The program he played on Sunday evening, for his debut at Baltimore's Shriver Hall, combined the Canadian-born pianist's cardinal virtues: ear-tickling virtuosity, an exploratory curiosity for unlikely repertory, and an unexpected approach to the familiar.

In the first category was the opening work, Bach's Great G Minor Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 542, in the expansive transcription by Tivadar Szántó. Conceived by Bach for the organ, it is a piece beloved of many composers and performers -- Liszt, among others, arranged it for piano -- and one had the sense of Hamelin meditating on one of music's ancient scriptures. With a liberal use of the sustaining pedal, applied in all sorts of interesting ways, Hamelin gave the prelude a vast scope, both crushing in volume on fully voiced chords and glowing in a haze of sound at other points. The fugue had both crystalline clarity and massive textures in turn, astounding in fortitude of tone. Put Hamelin's own set of variations on a theme of Paganini -- the theme of Paganini, the one subjected to outrageous variations in his 24th Caprice -- in the same category. Part circus march, part homage to various composers -- snippets of Beethoven, Mozart, and tribute to Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Stravinsky -- the piece is a hoot and Hamelin played it fearlessly.

For our pianistic edification, there was Ferrucio Busoni's rarely played Piano Sonatina No. 2, an enigmatic piece that is radically unlike what is implied by the unassuming word "sonatina." Hamelin sought to unravel every eccentric tangle of the piece, reveling in its contrapuntal complexities -- a connection to the Bach that had preceded it -- and its harmonic extravagance. To draw a connection between Busoni and the Debussy that followed it, he used the work's odd conclusion to hold the audience in silence, beginning the first book of Images after a short pause. Through his scrupulous control of hand weight, Hamelin gave these three pieces an extraordinary transparency, creating the sense of imperceptible mists in Reflets dans l'eau and a blurred, almost atomic instability in Mouvement, of motion captured in a series of frozen stills. Only the middle movement, Hommage à Rameau, disappointed slightly -- sultry, but a little slow and dull, not catching the Baroque delight in rhythm. The set was capped off by a virtuostic, aquatically shimmering reading of L'Isle joyeuse.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin gives compelling recital at Shriver Hall (Baltimore Sun, January 28) ---, Marc-Andre Hamelin to make Shriver Hall recital debut (Baltimore Sun, January 26) Jens F. Laurson, Ionarts-at-Large: Marc-André Hamelin at the Herkulessaal (Ionarts, December 16, 2012)

Not many pianists really make me want to hear the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, but Hamelin is one of them. He gave a pearl-like finish to two of the op. 32 preludes: a wistful, rubato-stretched no. 5 (G major) and an aphoristic no. 12 (G♯ minor), marked by a restlessly fluttering right hand. The program concluded with the composer's second piano sonata, wisely played in the revised 1931 version -- trusting the composer's later (perhaps too late) impulses toward self-editing. Hamelin raged through the fast parts of the first movement with technical aplomb but left room for poetry, giving the second movement a voluminous sweep without letting it become too sugary. The third movement rocketed with vitality. Hopes for a Haydn sonata encore -- from Hamelin's growing set devoted to that Ionarts favorite composer -- were almost met, with a guileless, crisp reading of the first movement of Mozart's C major piano sonata, K. 545. This famous little piece, which Mozart entered into his catalog of compositions with the words "Eine kleine klavier Sonate für anfänger" (A little keyboard sonata for beginners), was a last wink of the eye and nudge of the elbow from Hamelin the showman.

We will be back at Shriver Hall next month for the recital by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and pianist Yefim Bronfman (February 17, 5:30 pm).

Isserlis, Gut Strings and All

Steven Isserlis (cello) and Kirill Gerstein (piano) Photo by Kim P. Witman/Courtesy of Wolf Trap

Steven Isserlis was back in town on Friday night, this time in the Barns at Wolf Trap, with pianist Kirill Gerstein. The program was different from what they played in 2010 at the Kennedy Center (he also appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2011), but it had many similar qualities. The British cellist is at his best with a soaring melodic line, with some limitations at the loud end of the dynamic spectrum, at least partly because of his preference for wound-gut strings. At the Q&A session that generally occurs at intermissions at Wolf Trap, Isserlis spoke about his preference for gut, noting that all cellists played on them until the years of World War II. With obvious conviction, he said he stands by gut because their sound has a "more human quality," and that steel strings are "harsher" in tone. "I love them: they're my voice," he concluded, and indeed the sound he makes on those strings in soft moments is one of the indelible qualities that makes Isserlis Isserlis.

Brahms, Cello Sonatas, S. Isserlis, S. Hough

He was at his best in the moody opening theme of the first Brahms cello sonata, op. 38, letting the sound bloom and not giving any sense of being pressed. The two cello sonatas of Brahms are the centerpiece of the program he is touring right now, and Gerstein was a graceful partner for both of them, bringing out embedded motifs in the development of the first movement and embroidering that melancholy first theme with countermelodies at the recapitulation. The second movement was wistful without becoming cloying, and both musicians gave the third movement some Puckish folk inflections. It is, on the whole, a more affecting work than the more outgoing second sonata, op. 99, which concluded this recital. Without some more oomph in the cello tone in the bigger or more agitated movements, really all but the slow one -- and Gerstein was excellent at scaling the power of the piano to his partner's sound -- it just had less to offer here.

Other Articles: Robert Battey, A characteristically furious Isserlis, at his best and most middling (Washington Post, January 28) Steve Smith, Echoes, 21 Years Apart, in a Homage to Brahms (New York Times, January 28)

Although the Brahms sonatas were certainly fine, the outstanding contributions came in the small pieces dotted around them. Bartók's Rhapsody No. 1 had a free rhythmic approach and dancing pulse, but also a smoldering tone in the slow passages. It was paired beautifully with Ferruccio Busoni's Kultaselle, a set of sweet, longing variations on a Finnish folksong, a memento from the composer's time teaching in Helsinki. Best of all were a pair of Liszt delicacies, the Romance oubliée and Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth, both tinged with unexpected harmonies and arching melodic lines that gave voice to expanses of Romantic longing. The encore offered one more chance to wallow in that singing cello tone, an arrangement of Schubert's Lied Nacht und Träume.

Bang on a Can at the Atlas

Stalwarts of the new music scene for the past twenty years, the Bang on a Can All-Stars brought the kind of engaging, genre-bending performance they are known for to the Atlas Center on Friday. Throughout a fresh and varied program, they showed closer affinities to jazz and popular music than to the avant-garde. All the instruments, which included drum set and electric guitar, were miked as if for a jazz show, and the compositions mostly avoided the atonality and extended techniques that often challenge audiences. Unsurprisingly, they attracted what seemed like the biggest crowd of this season’s new music series at the Atlas.

The first half of the program featured pieces by David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe, the three composer-leaders of Bang on a Can, the collective of which the All-Stars are a part. Lang’s minimalist Sunray obsessively reiterated a few simple, mantric motifs, seeming at first like an unsettled dream but ending up as a protracted nightmare. Even so, it evoked an enjoyable trance-like state. Gordon’s For Madeline was a poignant memorial to his mother. It presented an incessantly pulsing minor third interval, around which a series of moaning glissandi created a bleak, grief-stricken mood. Big Beautiful Dark and Scary by Wolfe depicted an ominous, gathering tumult that finally erupted, receded, and gathered again like stormy waves at sea. But beyond this excitement, it didn’t add up to much.

The second half opened with two pieces by Don Byron. Basquiat was a rich, melancholy waltz memorializing the street artist of that name. Show Him Some Lub was a stale exercise in musical identity politics. Over some spunky, oppositional rhythms, the players were called on to state their ethnicities into the microphone along with the date -- past or conjectured future -- of that ethnic group’s liberation. The tackiness of this was exacerbated by uneven amplification and by the obvious discomfort with which certain of the players mumbled their lines.

Other Reviews: Tom Huizenga, Bang on a Can All-Stars brings a storm to D.C. (Washington Post, January 28)

The hypnotic Ridgeway was commissioned by Bang on a Can from young Australian composer Kate Moore. It was a promising contribution, at times creating a meditative atmosphere like that of David Lang’s piece. But many of its transitions were not convincingly organic; it seemed to jump from one section to another without following each one to the conclusion of its minimalist logic.

Finally, Stroking Piece #1 by Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth), featuring a defiantly nonsensical program note, began with a simple chord progression played quietly over and over on the guitar. Then it grew into a full-throated rock ballad by the whole ensemble, seeming like it should accompany a montage showing an aged musician relearning how to rock after suffering a stroke. A quirky end to the program, it was performed with the All-Stars’ typical absorbing intensity.

In Brief: 11 Years Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)

• Listen to opening night of Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Vienna Staatsoper. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• A performance of Wagner's Das Liebesverbot from the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and Prague Philharmonic Chorus. [BR-Klassik]


• For the 50th anniversary of the Traité de l'Élysée, some historical music from France and Germany performed by Ratsmusik from Hamburg at the University of Göttingen. [France Musique]


• Also for the anniversary, a new work by Fabien Lévy called Après tout, for six singers and six instrumentalists, given its world premiere by Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Ensemble 2e2m. [France Musique]


• From the Mozartwoche Salzburg, Gustavo Dudamel leads the Vienna Philharmonic, with pianist Maria João Pires as soloist. [Part 1 | Part 2]


• A recital by mezzo-soprano Isabelle Druet and pianist Anne Le Bozec, with songs by Mahler, Zemlinksy, and others. [France Musique]


• A concert of music by Rameau from La Simphonie du Marais and Le Choeur du Marais, conducted by Hugo Reyne, from Vienna. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• From the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, music by Johannes Brahms from pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja and the Orchestre National de France, under Kurt Masur. [France Musique]


• Vincent Dumestre leads Le Poème Harmonique in a program of music from 17th-century France, in Vienna. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Hear some new music by Mediterranean composers David El Malek and Ibrahim Maalouf from the Présences Festival in Aix-en-Provence. [France Musique]


• More from Présences, with pieces by Marco-Antonio Perez-Ramirez, Henri Tomasi, and Roberto Gerhard, the last featuring Michaël Lonsdale as narrator. [France Musique]


• New chamber music by Croatian composers featuring Ensemble Cantus and other performers, from France Musique. [Part 1 | Part 2]


• Also, some historical music from Croatia, by Luka Sorkočević (1734-1789), Julije Bajamonti (1744-1800), and Haydn. [France Musique]


• The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in concert with pianist Boris Giltburg, from the Grzegorz Fitelber-Konzertsaal in Katowice, music by Ravel, Shostakovich, and Bartók. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Hear a recital by baritone Michal Partyka and pianist Alissa Zoubritski, with Russian songs by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Medtner. [France Musique]


• A recital by cellist Truls Mørk and pianist Havard Gimse, recorded last May at the Schwetzinger Festspiele. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Early music, by Martin Codax and from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, performed by the Ensemble Micrologus and Patrizia Bovi. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• A recital of songs by Liszt, Schumann, and others by mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman and pianist Eduard Kutrowatz. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]


• Listen again to the 1986 recording of Auber's La Muette de Portici with Alfredo Kraus, John Aler, and June Anderson. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]

NSO Ready for Tour

As reported last week, the National Symphony Orchestra is preparing for a European tour this month. Along with a recording contract with Ondine, this is the most visible sign of Christoph Eschenbach's tenure with the orchestra outside of Washington. Tours raise the NSO's profile and bring its playing to the ears of critics in other countries. We will try to follow the results by bringing you whatever reviews we can find. Readers in those countries are invited to send their impressions if they attend one of the concerts.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, National Symphony Orchestra’s latest concert seems like a dress rehearsal (Washington Post, January 25)

The trip begins in Spain, with two concerts at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid (January 31 and February 1) and one at the Auditorio y Centro de Congresos Victor Villegas in Murcia (February 2). The NSO then travels to Germany for concerts at Düsseldorf's Tonhalle (February 4), Hamburg's Laeiszhalle (February 6), Nürnberg's Meistersingerhalle (February 7), and Frankfurt's Alte Oper (February 9). These concerts will feature various combinations of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (arr. for string orchestra by Weingartner), Mozart's fifth violin concerto, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, Beethoven's Egmont Overture, Strauss's Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, and Brahms's second symphony. The soloist for the Mozart will be Arabella Steinbacher, who has stepped in to replace Julia Fischer. The European phase of the tour ends on February 10 at the Salle Pleyel, Eschenbach's old stomping grounds from when he was music director of the Orchestre de Paris. This is the only concert that will feature Tzimon Barto in Bartók's second piano concerto.

From Paris, the NSO will make one final stop before returning home, to perform a concert at the Royal Opera House in Oman on February 13. The local Kennedy Center connection there is that theater's new CEO is Christina Scheppelmann, formerly of our own Washington National Opera. This concert is the only one to feature violinist Dan Zhu in the Mozart fifth violin concerto -- he is playing the piece this week with the NSO at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. A bout with the stomach flu prevented me from hearing the performance, but Anne Midgette's report is not encouraging.

For Your Consideration: 'Quartet'

Some of you may remember Daniel Schmid's delightful documentary Il Bacio di Tosca from the 1980s. It examined the lives of the residents of the Casa Verdi in Milan, the retirement home for poor opera singers that Verdi established with some of his fortune. He and his wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, even decided to be buried there, instead of at their home at Sant'Agata, and thus the wily old composer keeps watch over the devoted nuts who sang and adored his music. This may have been the inspiration for Ronald Harwood's play Quartet, which takes place at just such a retirement home for aging opera singers (and musicians), but a fictitious one called Beecham House, supposedly established by the British conductor Thomas Beecham. The establishment is struggling to balance its budget, which makes the upcoming fundraising gala, held on Giuseppe Verdi's birthday and featuring the residents themselves, such an important event. The eponymous group of four singers -- who once recorded the famous quartet from Rigoletto to great acclaim -- find themselves reunited at Beecham House, and the possibility of performing the Rigoletto ensemble again for the gala, and the money it could raise, are too much to resist.

What made Schmid's documentary so memorable was that it included conversations with and performances by the singers themselves, a zany bunch who had lost none of their wit, competitiveness, or hunger for ovation. Having the eponymous group of four singers here played by actors seemed unlikely to have the same charm. Happily (and quite intentionally) Dustin Hoffman, in his directorial debut, pads the film with actual retired musicians: singers Patricia Varley, John Rawnsley, Cynthia Mosey, Nuala Willis, David Ryall, Melodie Waddingham; clarinetist Colin Bradbury (BBC Symphony Orchestra), jazz trumpeter Ronnie Hughes, violinists John Georgiadis (London Symphony Orchestra) and Ita Herbert (English Chamber Orchestra), cellist John Heley (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), and violist Graeme Scott (BBC Symphony Orchestra), conductor Jack Honeyborne, and pianist Patricia Loveland. These are only the names of those specially listed in the credits, accompanied by black-and-white head shots from the height of their careers.

Other Reviews: Village Voice | TIME | NPR | Roger Ebert | New York Times | Boston Globe Washington Post | Wall Street Journal | Movie Review Intelligence

Best of all, soprano Gwyneth Jones has a guest appearance as a rival soprano, and a performance of Tosca's aria Vissi d'arte at the gala -- with Maggie Smith's Jean Horton sneaking up back stage to listen with admiration. Smith, of course, fits into the role of a temperamental, often nasty diva only too well, matched in theatrics by the baritone, Billy Connolly's Wilf (the role was reportedly conceived for Albert Finney), who continues to throw himself at everything female near at hand, but with some of his inhibitions removed by a recent stroke. Their Maddalena, Pauline Collins (Albert Nobbs), is deep in the ravages of dementia but very sunny, while the touchy tenor, Tom Courtenay (Little Dorrit, The Dresser), has to get over the bitterness caused by his divorce from Smith's character. They are a virtuoso bunch of actors, and their interactions are all delightful to watch, with a campy Michael Gambon as their willful and colorful director. For anyone who loves opera, the soundtrack will be a highlight, too, featuring parts of several performances of the Rigoletto quartet, as well as lots of other opera, and original music by Dario Marianelli which incorporates many motifs from Rigoletto (especially the tenor's smarmy line "Bella figlia dell'amore"). Hoffman's debut behind the camera is warm, snappy, and fun -- if not exactly a triumph -- mostly because he stays out of his actors' way. His love of opera -- as a young man he and Robert Duvall lived with opera singers as roommates -- comes through loud and clear.

This film opens in Washington-area theaters today, including Landmark's E Street and Bethesda Row Cinemas.