Bel Canto at Caramoor, July 21, 2012.

 

Eglise Gutierrez, by Gabe Palacio/The New York Times

 

I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Caramoor International Music Festival
The New York Times, July 23, 2012

Seeking objective truth in reviews of live events is always a fascinating prospect. In this review, I'm very keen on Eglise Gutiérrez, more moderate but still positive on the whole about Kate Aldrich, and supportive of the remaining cast members. Mike Silverman, writing for the Associated Press, was even more enthusiastic about Gutiérrez, but found Aldrich lacking and wrote of Leonardo Capalbo's struggles with pitch – an effect that I didn't notice enough to be bothered. The consistently insightful Charles T. Downey of Ionarts, writing for The Classical Review, found less to appreciate in Gutiérrez's work, agreed that Aldrich recovered well from a poor start, and heard a false entrance in the orchestral playing during the tomb scene that I missed outright.

Things like this used to bother me greatly. Now, though, I've come to accept that it's to some extent an inevitable result of different listeners with different backgrounds, seated in different locations in the house, provide insights regarding the same performance. It's not quite Rashomon, but the truth most likely comes in portions from a variety of reviews. (I'm looking forward to seeing reviews from David Shengold and Paul Pelkonen.)

Still, I was pleased to see that Charles also cited the outstanding work done by French-horn, cello and clarinet soloists – and here I'll tip my hat to festival publicist Lois Cohn and her associate, Fiona Zwieb, for working overtime on Sunday morning to provide me with their names.

Comments

[Charles]

Amen to that, Steve -- and sorry that I missed you that night. Listening is so subjective, even if we had been sitting right next to one another. For some reason, I was seated right in the middle of what sounded like a claque, people who went crazy for every sound, no matter what it sounded like. Listening is subjective.