Maybe I'm late to the game on this, but I've just "discovered" the young Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins, and I am enthralled — as I always am with a wonderful new singer discovery. This was a double-barrel discovery, since by coincidence I bought his debut recital CD just days before hearing him sing at the NY City Opera in the new production of Leonard Bernstein's opera, "A Quiet Place." So I have had the opportunity … <Read More>
Richard Strauss’s “Intermezzo” at NY City Opera
My first opera of the new season… but, alas, a bore. Richard Strauss's operas are an acquired taste. I've acquired the taste for the earlier efforts – Salome, Elektra, Rosenkavalier - but not so much for his post World War I efforts. (This one dates from 1923.) He's blown up a simple-minded incident from his earlier life into a full-length opera. This is autobiographical, the names changed to protect the guilty, but it could come right … <Read More>
New York Trial Judge Dissolves Vermont Civil Union
Justice Kevin G. Young of New York Supreme Court, Onondaga County (Syracuse), issued a decision on October 21 dissolving a civil union that had been contracted in Vermont in 2004 by Heidi Marie Parker and Mindy Tamara Waronker. Parker v. Waronker, No. 2010-M-0517. In default of any New York substantive law about civil unions, Justice Young referred to Vermont law to determine whether grounds for dissolution of the civil union had been met and, due … <Read More>
Vermont Supreme Court: Last Word on the Miller-Jenkins Custody Dispute?
On October 29 the Vermont Supreme Court issued its ruling unanimously affirming the decision by Rutland Family Court Judge William D. Cohen that it is in the best interest of minor child IMJ to be in the sole physical and legal custody of Janet Miller-Jenkins rather than Lisa Miller-Jenkins, her birth mother and Janet's former civil union partner. It is uncertain what this will mean in the real world, as Lisa and the child have disappeared … <Read More>
ASO Plays Music from the Bible
For their second concert of the season, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra gave us a fascinating glimpse of music from a period not very well represented in our concert life, the 1820s and 1830s. With the exception of the latest works of Beethoven, the contemporaneously produced works of Franz Schubert, and the earliest efforts of Mendelssohn and Berlioz, what works do we hear from this period on symphony programs in the U.S.? Not much. … <Read More>
DADT – The Stay Stays For Now
The temporary stay that the three-judge motion panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States will remain in place pending the 9th Circuit's decision of the appeal, by a 2-1 vote of the court's motion panel released today. Judges O'Scannlain and Trott voted to continue the stay in full. Dissenting (in part), Judge Fletcher favored allowing District Judge Phillips's order to go into effect … <Read More>
Skampa String Quartet Opens Peoples’ Symphony Season
Last night at Washington Irving High School, the Skampa String Quartet initiated the new season of Peoples' Symphony Concerts with the first program in the Mann Series. The Skampa are repeat visitors to PSC, and their visits are eagerly anticipated, because this is one of the best European string quartets, and they surely lived up to their reputation last night.
They began with the two movements Josef Haydn completed before abandoning his last string quartet, … <Read More>
Monteverdi and His Contemporaries – Jaroussky & L’Arpeggiata at Zankel Hall
Zankel Hall, the underground concert hall beneath the main stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City, was the setting last night for a concert dedicated to the music of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) and his contemporaries by Christina Pluhar's early music ensemble, L'Arpeggiata, with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky as vocal soloist.
I have been an intensely absorbed fan of Jaroussky for several years now, but this was actually my first occasion to appreciate him "live" in concert, … <Read More>
Christian Tetzlaff with Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall
Last night, the Orchestra of St. Luke's presented their first subscription concert of the season at Carnegie Hall. Usually they have a guest conductor leading the ensemble, but for this program violinist Christian Tetzlaff was the "leader" for those pieces that were not specifically written for solo violin and orchestra, and the group functioned without a visible leader for the two pieces in which he played the solos. The result was something approaching a typical … <Read More>
California Appeals Court Maintains Strict HIV Confidentiality
An unanimous panel of the California 1st District Court of Appeal ruled in _Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board_, 2010 WL 3936050 (Oct. 8, 2010) (not reported in Cal.Rptr.3d), that the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board erred in ordering a hospital to provide statistical data drawn from patient files on the possible presence of HIV+ infants at the hospital during the years 1981-1999 as part of discovery in a Workers' Compensation … <Read More>