Frédéric Chaslin accompanies Kirstin Chávez.
Photograph: Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times
Tobias Picker Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre
The New York Times, October 10, 2011
The title of this post refers to the notion of a concert that touches on multiple facets of a single composer's work over the course of an evening: the useful premise of Miller Theatre's Composer Portraits series. But it also alludes to something I didn't mention in the review: during a mostly inconsequential onstage interview with Tobias Picker, the composer in focus last Thursday night, the great pianist Ursula Oppens mentioned that two of Picker's four operas (specifically, Thérèse Raquin and An American Tragedy) include a death by drowning. Actually, Picker replied, the opera he is currently writing for Dolora Zajick also includes a death by drowning, bringing the total up to 60 percent of his operatic canon.
Whatever else the audience took away from this event, we definitely learned one thing: never, ever get into a boat with Tobias Picker.
Comments