Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit has been in charge of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center for a long time, but now, as the orchestra's all-season chief conductor starting in 2008-09, his presence carries greater authority. Last night's Beethoven Symphony No. 9 here in Saratoga Springs said it was so. A review of the concert will appear in the Inquirer Saturday.
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B9 Shot in the Arm
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The Author
Peter Dobrin has been writing about classical music and the arts for The Inquirer since 1989. He earned an undergraduate degree in performance from the University of Miami, and received a master's degree in music criticism from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
He’s grateful for news tips, willing to engage in a certain amount of back and forth with readers, but is unfortunately unable to remove old LPs from your basement or post photographs of your cat.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 1, 2007 4:53 PM.
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Comments (1)
What Peter Dobrin didn't mention in his review is that, under Dutoit, since 1990, attendance for the Philadelphia Orchestra's concerts has plummeted dramatically. He also doesn't point out that it is actually difficult to hear the Orchestra in the SPAC amphitheater due to the Geyser Creek waterfall roar on the left side of the building, and the running air conditioners in offices on the right side.
I sat in row BB of section 12 on Saturday night for Dutoit's concert with Emanuel Ax, and in the quietest passages of Mozart's Concerto K. 271, it was difficult to hear the orchestra and soloist.
SPAC itself has had significant artistic and acoustical problems since Ormandy retired in the early 1980s, and Richard Leach left SPAC in 1973. Noise problems; dull, stale programs that don't repeat what the Orchestra does in the regular season; and declining audiences due to indifferent and clueless management -- all of these hamper the Orchestra's annual three-week stint in upstate New York.
If SPAC spent more time and money repairing the Ormandy Dam and less on badly-photographed indoor video screens, it might attract the large crowds who still travel just 60 miles south, to Tanglewood.
Don Drewecki
Galway, New York
Posted by Don Drewecki | August 7, 2007 11:53 AM
Posted on August 7, 2007 11:53