Proms 2023 - what is in your diary ?

[Petrushka]

I wonder whether the familiar sense of deflation whenever a new Proms season comes around is partly because a lot of the conductors we would get excited about seeing over the years have died and there aren't that many new ones of equal stature who have replaced them.

Yes, I'm afraid this does very much have something to do with it. What has happened to conductors born at roughly the same time as I was, in the mid-1950s? There does seem to be a missing generation that haven't filled the gap left by Abbado, Solti, Haitink etc. Rattle is one of the very few who can be mentioned in the same breath but others such as Chailly, Gergiev (ahem!), Gatti, or Fischer are not, as you say, of comparable stature.

What has happened is that conductors are being appointed to major posts (see the RCO) who are from the next generation with barely any experience and having to learn on the job. It's true that this was also the case with Karajan and Haitink but it looks like the hopeful future flowering of talent will come too late for those, like me, who can't really find much inspiration from their own generation.

Sorry if this makes me an old fogey but it's how it is.

[alywin]

The proms ticket prices are the only element that aren’t a ripoff .

But hasn't the price of the Promming tickets gone up by 1/3 since last year, or did I simply not notice, having been forced to book online for the past 2 years? (Actually, I'm sure I didn't, because I objected to having to pay a booking fee in addition to the ticket price).

[Barbirollians]

Yes, I'm afraid this does very much have something to do with it. What has happened to conductors born at roughly the same time as I was, in the mid-1950s? There does seem to be a missing generation that haven't filled the gap left by Abbado, Solti, Haitink etc. Rattle is one of the very few who can be mentioned in the same breath but others such as Chailly, Gergiev (ahem!), Gatti, or Fischer are not, as you say, of comparable stature.

What has happened is that conductors are being appointed to major posts (see the RCO) who are from the next generation with barely any experience and having to learn on the job. It's true that this was also the case with Karajan and Haitink but it looks like the hopeful future flowering of talent will come too late for those, like me, who can't really find much inspiration from their own generation.

Sorry if this makes me an old fogey but it's how it is.

I don’t agree about Chailly but we seldom seem to see him here any more.

[smittims]

I think the dearth of 'great' conductors is due to an aspect of social progress like unto Orson Welles' 'cuckoo clock' speech; an uncomfortable truth in today's politically-correct world.

Most of them were the product of a deeply unfair, divisive world , and they survived and thrived where many others died in infancy or succumbed to deprivation and discouragement which the post war generation in western liberal democracies were able to swap for state-sponsored scholarships . And of course many of them behaved on and off the podium in ways which would not be tolerated today.

Abbado, Haitink and Mackerras were loved for their humanity, but I don't think they will be revered as intensely as Toscanini and Furtwangler. And the next generation were pleasanter still , because they had to work in a world where autocracy was less and less accepted.

Just my opinion, of course...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, I'm afraid this does very much have something to do with it. What has happened to conductors born at roughly the same time as I was, in the mid-1950s? There does seem to be a missing generation that haven't filled the gap left by Abbado, Solti, Haitink etc. Rattle is one of the very few who can be mentioned in the same breath but others such as Chailly, Gergiev (ahem!), Gatti, or Fischer are not, as you say, of comparable stature.

What has happened is that conductors are being appointed to major posts (see the RCO) who are from the next generation with barely any experience and having to learn on the job. It's true that this was also the case with Karajan and Haitink but it looks like the hopeful future flowering of talent will come too late for those, like me, who can't really find much inspiration from their own generation.

Sorry if this makes me an old fogey but it's how it is.

It could just be a temporary blip but it seems to me when you look as many artistic spheres there seem to be fewer geniuses around - no poets in English comparable to Eliot or Yeats or novelists the equal of the great 19th century ones.
The old conducting career of perhaos starting in a orchestra pit (Toscanini, Tennstedt ) as a string player then progressing through the ranks to music director seems to be rarer - not sure if it even happens in Italy now.Now young talent is put into positions where they are clearly struggling (no names but some of the conducting at Covent Garden just isn’t up to it). The jet engine and the marketing machine hasn’t helped - they get over hyped , people over commit and their work suffers . Just look at Dudamel and Gergiev. The days of a conductor sticking with a band for thirty years are also long gone.

[Historian]

Not quite 30 years, but the soon-to-be departing Mark Elder has been with the Halle (can't do the accent on this machine) since September 2000. However, I imagine that he is the exception which may prove your rule Ein H.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Not quite 30 years, but the soon-to-be departing Mark Elder has been with the Halle (can't do the accent on this machine) since September 2000. However, I imagine that he is the exception which may prove your rule Ein H.

He certainly proves my opera theory - UK ‘s greatest living opera conductor ? Working with Ed Downes and all those years at ENO.,I’d forgotten he’d been with the HALLE that long. A remarkable career.

[smittims]

Yes, you've reminded me of a thrilling 'Salome' I saw him conduct in Manchester in 1977, with Josephine Barstow, for once a Salome who looked as well as sang like a young princess. The audience erupted in 'Bravo's' at the end.

[LeWoiDeWeigate]

A quick first run through of the season indicates an improvement on last year but with sky-rocketing hotel prices in London I'll need to be highly selective in those I decide to attend. The LSO/Rattle is the obvious stand out once again but some good stuff from the Budapest FO as well. Also like the typically off-beat programme from Jurowski and the Berlin Radio SO.

The days of going to a dozen or so Proms in the season has been killed off by the rip-off hotel costs. I could find a good, if basic, hotel room for £30 in the 1990s. The same now is around £200.

I feel your pain. As a student and up to the pre-Covid days, I was regularly at 25-30 Proms per year. Now, even travelling in from north Surrey (22 miles as the crow flies) is a) expensive b) unreliable c) slow d) finishes too early.

There is good and bad in this year's Proms offer (good - Iestyn Davies and more Bach than you care to mention; bad - Orrible Opera, the Mindless Mix guff and a couple of others) but I'm starting to find so much in general happening in London and not in Surrey that I'm actively considering moving closer in... Retirement is a few years away for me but the thought of being isolated from the stuff I love is driving my choices...

[LeWoiDeWeigate]

Initial thoughts from first glance and nearly 35 years regular Promming...

1) The lack of Pre-Prom talks. I'd hoped that that was just a temporary blip whilst we went through the Covid nonsense but I see that the Beeb has cut them completely.

2) No announcement on live 'In Tune' from Beit Hall as we've had for years. Again, I'd hope that was temporary but I see not...

3) Loss of the lunchtime Chamber concerts at Cadogan.

4) A general dumbing-down of the 'Proms At...' series. I've seen some amazingly eclectic stuff over the years in some wonderful, unusual locations but this year quite frankly this looks purely political along the lines of "Look - we've put on a nominally 'classical' concert in a remote location.' Does this fix the demographic and educational problem associated with 'classical' music? No.

5) The offering for children is, quite frankly, patronising in the extreme. My introduction to music was through the Robert Mayer Children's Concerts which made no attempt to sanitise works for children and ensured that the essential element of education and explanation was included in every concert. The message that 'Orrible Opera' sends is madness, populist and actually damaging to the art form.

6) There is some FAB stuff - THE BBC Singers concert on the 7th September, iestyn Davies on the 19th August and the entire second week including the Fado really appeal as does the NYO at Prom 28 and the innovative Manchester Collective - but there is some utter dross as well - Rufus Wainwright? Mindless Mix?

Summary - good, but not stand out with some obvious virtue signalling that is actually quite insulting.

{BTW, if anyone else is massively hacked off as I am that Stile Antico's concert as part of the Proms is in Derry/Londonderry, they are putting exactly the same concert on Thursday 29th June at their usual home, Temple Church).

[Retune]

Looking beyond the title of the 'Mindful Mix' and previewing some of the pieces on Youtube, it looks like an interesting concert with two excellent ensembles and music ranging from Byrd to the new Panufnik commission. Seems entirely appropriate for a late night Prom. My own introduction to opera as quite a young child was pretty hardcore - being taken to full-length WNO productions of Verdi, Puccini and Britten - but I have no problem with the ENO doing some playfully framed excerpts for kids, another part of the outreach they do that the misguided plan to evict them from London ignores.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Looking beyond the title of the 'Mindful Mix' and previewing some of the pieces on Youtube, it looks like an interesting concert with two excellent ensembles and music ranging from Byrd to the new Panufnik commission. Seems entirely appropriate for a late night Prom. My own introduction to opera as quite a young child was pretty hardcore - being taken to full-length WNO productions of Verdi, Puccini and Britten - but I have no problem with the ENO doing some playfully framed excerpts for kids, another part of the outreach they do that the misguided plan to evict them from London ignores.

Yes I think ‘Orrible Opera is an excellent idea. Children have a fascination with the macabre , violence and death - opera and dramatic tragedy can help them to make sense of it in a way that straightforwardly explicit slasher horror films can’t . It is quite right that they are exposed to the former and kept away from the latter. I more or less can’t face the last scene of the Dialogues des Carmelites in the opera house - I suspect a lot of kids would find it fascinating.

[Master Jacques]

Yes I think ‘Orrible Opera is an excellent idea. Children have a fascination with the macabre , violence and death - opera and dramatic tragedy can help them to make sense of it in a way that straightforwardly explicit slasher horror films can’t . It is quite right that they are exposed to the former and kept away from the latter. I more or less can’t face the last scene of the Dialogues des Carmelites in the opera house - I suspect a lot of kids would find it fascinating.

I'm in the camp of LeWoiDeWeigate on this one, finding it condescending to assume that children will find bleeding chunks, jokily presented, more fun than being treated like adults at a complete opera, with dialogue, pretty costumes and a great story. If it's anything like the Horrible Histories series, the kids will see through it and be sneering within minutes. They know, you know.

Just as young teenagers knew that Seven Deadly Sins must be cool, when Covent Garden gave it a '16+' rating.

Never mind those headless nuns. Give 'em Wozzeck!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm in the camp of LeWoiDeWeigate on this one, finding it condescending to assume that children will find bleeding chunks, jokily presented, more fun than being treated like adults at a complete opera, with dialogue, pretty costumes and a great story. If it's anything like the Horrible Histories series, the kids will see through it and be sneering within minutes. They know, you know.

Just as young teenagers knew that Seven Deadly Sins must be cool, when Covent Garden gave it a '16+' rating.

Never mind those headless nuns. Give 'em Wozzeck!

Well we’ll see but I prefer not to prejudge these things too much and I think ENO are professional enough to do a good job. The Horrible Histories series is a publishing phenomenon (25 million copies in 30 countries ) and if their magic touch can get some youngsters interested in opera that’s fine by me. Clearly some on the forum think they understand what children want better.

[Retune]

Opera purists had better avoid the Last Night - random bits of four unrelated works by very different composers, shockingly sung in sequence, quite possibly without a single change of costume!