Finding Richter

I know of two books by musicians from the former Soviet Union that give us a glimpse of the artist, but also into the lives of artists and society in general in that imprisoned society. Galina by Galina Vishnevskaya and Testimony: The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich by Solomon Volkov. In those two volumes, both authors were scathing in their criticism of the lies, hypocrisy, cruelty, unfairness, and, often, stupidity within Soviet society.

But in this latest book about a musician of the Soviet Union, Sviatoslav Richter – pianist, by Karl Aage Rasmussen (Boston University Press, Boston), finally gives us a peek into the life of one of the great pianists of the 20^th century. Born on March 20^th, 1915 in Zhitomir, Sviatoslav Richter led a sheltered childhood, a developed “veritable hatred of school, ball playing, sports competitions, and anything else that smacks of competition or espirt de corps.” The writer went on to say that “Richter’s lifelong dislike of any form of competition, in art, politics, love, and daily life, presumably has its roots here.” In this way, Richter has a similar outlook as pianist Glenn Gould, who also disdained competition and any form of competitiveness. Like Gould, Richter was an iconoclast who did things exactly his way – in choice of repertoire, pianos, where to perform and where not to perform, and in how he approached each work he played.

Teofil Richter, the pianist’s father, taught piano to the Consul’s children, and Sviatoslav Richter himself performed at cultural evenings at the consulate, to the extent that he played in a memorial service for the death of Paul von Hindenburg. Because of this close association with the German community in the Soviet Union, and with the German sounding last name, Teofil Richter “was arrested and shot by the secret police before the Germans and the Romanian Fascists reached Odessa in 1941.” Another dark chapter in Richter’s life involved his relationship with his mother, who escaped with her lover Sergei Kondratiev (who was of German ancestry) to Germany after the war. Because of Richter’s name in the music world, Kondratiev later even changed his own name to Richter, and pretended to be Teofil Richter’s younger brother. The pianist abhorred Kondratiev as a man, and considered that “his mother’s deception…the great tragedy of his life.”

The trials and tribulations of the composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev within the Soviet Union are well known to historians. The author devotes two chapters, one on the pianist’s relationship with each of the two great composers. Rasmussen also gives us much insight into the relationship with Heinrich Neuhaus, Richter’s great teacher and mentor, with his colleagues, the violinist David Oistrakh, pianist Emil Gilels, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and composer Benjamin Britten.

Most interesting is the pianist’s relationship with Nina Dorliak, whom many (myself included) considered to be his wife. From the book, I discovered that Richter was homosexual, and his cohabitation with Dorliak (they were never married) became a convenient front for Richter, since homosexuality was, to say the least, frowned upon in Soviet society. Eventually Dorliak became essentially someone Richter could not live without, since she travelled with him, took care of every single detail of his day-to-day living. The relationship between Richter and Nina Dorliak lasted more than fifty years (certainly longer than many marriages), and Dorliak only survived less than a year after Richter’s death.

Sviatoslav Richter was completely apolitical, and this one fact perhaps explains why he never considered living anywhere other than Russia, even during the darkest period of the Stalin era. After his first tour of the United States, pianist Rudolf Serkin offered to find Richter an apartment in New York if Richter decided not to return to the Soviet Union. Richter replied, “My countryman value you highly; if you wish to leave the United States, I can find an apartment in Moscow for you in less than fifteen minutes!” According to Rasmussen, “It takes a dearth of imagination to fail to understand how and why it was (and is) possible for people at all levels of society to find a totalitarian regime repulsive and, at the same time, acknowledge it as a sine qua non; it is narrow-minded to overlook how and why citizens in an unfree society can be both its victims and its supporters.” Perhaps this might explains the current attitude of people from Communist China or North Korea towards their own respective countries. And perhaps, like Richter, they simply see such a society, such a way of living, “as a condition of life.”

I count myself extremely fortunate to have heard both Richter and Emil Gilels – the other great Soviet pianist of the same generation - in concert. The playing of both pianists made an indelible impression in my mind. Of the two pianists, Gilels is the one more familiar to concert audiences, at least in North America, simply because he used to give concerts in the United States and Canada with some regularity. Richter played in the United States, a country he considered “vulgar”, only three times in his life. In fact, his dislike for long term planning led him to eventually form his own music festival, the Fêtes Musicales en Touraine in France, where he was treated like royalty by locals. In his own festival, Richter “enjoyed the freedom of giving concerts where no one could predict what he would play or when. He often surprised his audience with a sudden, unannounced concert or with cancellations” in his own festival, and in concerts in Japan, a country he admired and enjoyed visiting.

Rasmussen also devotes a chapter discussing Richter’s musical legacy, namely, his large and comprehensive discography. Richter’s many recordings consist of studio recordings with major labels, radio transmissions by dozens of broadcasting services, and “pirate” recordings of unknown origin. As the author rightly points out, it is impossible to discuss even the highlights all of Richter’s recordings. There are discussions of his major recordings of Beethoven sonatas (including a single recording of the massive Hammerklavier), Haydn sonatas, Liszt concerti and solo pieces, Handel Suites, and of course Bach’s two volumes of the Well Tempered Clavier. Richter was not hesitant to explore unusual repertoire, and some of these include Glazunov’s Concerto in F Minor, Dvorak’s Piano Concerto, Carl Maria von Weber’s Sonata No. 3, Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto, and Paul Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis, Piano Concerto, and Kammermusik No. 2.

Of Richter’s many recordings, the author writes that they “emphasize the life-affirming fact that a musical performance is always both spirit and life, both soul and body.” Of the dubious sound of some of the pianists older and “pirated” recordings, the author adds that “the unique physical presence in Richter’s music keeps him wonderfully alive, in every sense of the word, even when he speaks to us through the fragile memory of an antiquated technology.”

For me, this book is, to date, perhaps the most comprehensive telling of the life and art of the great pianist. For a more intimate, if a bit one-sided, view of Sviatoslav Richter, one can do no better than Bruno Monsaingeon’s superb film Richter: The Enigma. In the video (alas not available on DVD in North America, since my VHS tape just broke from repeated viewing!), one sees and hears a continuing monologue by the pianist, his views on a variety of subjects, interspersed with precious footage (many excerpts from Soviet television and film archives in garish colours) of Richter’s performances.

More than a decade after his death, Sviatoslav Richter continues to fascinate us, as a man and as a musician, an artist. The more I listen to recordings from his vast catalogue, the more I find it tragic that, in our age of mass marketing of music and a sense of sameness in music-making, we no longer have an artist with the originality, the daring, and the stupendous imagination of a Sviatoslav Richter. Lovers of music, admirers of Sviatoslav Richter, and those interested in the musical life of the Soviet Union, would find this book most rewarding, revealing, and interesting.

Musical Journey

When record producer Walter Legge tried to convince conductor Carlo Maria Giulini to record a certain work, arguing that it would be good for his career, the already legendary conductor responded, with, I imagine, some disdain in his voice, “What is this word ‘career’?”

Pianist Lang Lang probably thinks of little else other than his career. After reading Journey of a Thousand Miles, Lang Lang’s memoir, given to me by a friend, I was filled with a sense of sadness; sadness at an artist who devotes so much of his considerable ability and obvious talent, not towards his own musical and artistic growth, but merely towards advancing his career. And sadness that this is an artist who symbolizes what most people would consider the future of serious music. It is also presumptuous and arrogant for an artist in his early thirties to think that a look back at his life is warranted. I am sure his legion of fans all over the world would disagree with me. Perhaps Lang Lang is taking lessons from pop star Justin Bieber, who published his memoir at an even earlier age.

If success in classical music is measured by record sales, concert attendance, and exposure in the press, Lang Lang can probably be considered to be the most successful musician on the planet.

It all began with Lang Lang’s father, a musician of the Erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument, who himself was denied entry to the conservatory, and ended up playing in the Chinese Air Force band. Lang Lang’s mother was also musical, and dreamt of becoming a singer or dancer. In the pianist’s own words, “As a child of two musicians who had had their ambitions and hopes shattered, I was born of great expectations – ones that both guided me and led me to great success.” Indeed the word success seems to be the leitmotif of the entire book and of Lang Lang’s life.

After discovering that his son is musically talented, Mr. Lang senior inflicted upon his son a regiment of practice that can only be described as inhumane and downright abusive. The approach of his father, again according to Lang Lang, “had to do with winning, winning, winning.” The only objective is to win every competition, and the phrase “to be number one” also appears frequently throughout this rather thin volume. When the pianist was rejected by a teacher, his father screamed at his son and offered him a choice of killing himself by taking poison, or by jumping off a building. I can only imagine what such an upbringing does to the psyche of a young person, let alone one who is sensitive.

Much of the book is devoted to the pianist’s string of triumphs in piano competitions, in China and then abroad, culminating in his winning of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Japan, his success at the Curtis Institute of Music, and then even greater success with major conductors and orchestras the world over. Indeed, more than half of the book reads like a litany of accomplishments, almost like a World War II fighter pilot bragging about the number of enemy planes he shot down. It gets a little tiring after a while.

The young pianist has often been criticized for the flamboyance of his gestures while he plays. No one is able to judge whether, or how much, his rather extravagant gestures contribute toward his music-making. Maybe we can get some insight into the pianist’s gestures from his own words:

I thought of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, and in my mind I transformed their most brilliant moves into my playing: I imagined Jordan’s slam dunk as the big beginning of the Tchaikovsky chords; I thought of Tiger Woods’s swing while playing the octaves.

Well, whatever works for him, I guess.

In spite of the tension in their relationship, Lang Lang and his father eventually did reconcile their differences, to the extent that the two played a short duet at Lang Lang’s Carnegie Hall debut. Mr. Lang senior, the failed musician, made it to Carnegie Hall after all - Mr. Lang senior finally realized his own dream through his son.

In the final paragraph of his book, the pianist confesses that he has “always dreamed big.” Yes, Lang Lang, you have realized your big dreams. But, as violinist Malcolm Lowe says, music is not a business, and that music “can’t flourish without the idea that it is a gift.”

My only wish for Lang Lang is that he would one day devote his great abilities to deepening his understanding of music, to becoming a musician, and not merely a pianist who can play fast and loud. There is nothing at all wrong with success, but success and career do not guarantee deepening musicianship, no matter how loud or long the applause is.

Summer Night With Will

The summer months in Vancouver are slow when it comes to Classical music. We out in the wilds of Vancouver do not have major summer music festivals like Tanglewood or Ravinia. What we do have, for the last 23 years, is a wonderful Shakespeare festival, presenting four of the bard’s masterpieces every season. Other than the plays we have come to know and love, we also get to see the more unfamiliar plays by Shakespeare, like Timon of Athens and this year’s King John.

Last evening, we saw The Taming of the Shrew, a play I often thought of as potentially controversial.  Kate, the older daughter of a wealthy citizen of Padua, is famous for her fiery temper. Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, attracted by Kate’s large dowry, resolves to take her as his wife. After much verbal jostling between the two and “psychological warfare” on the part of Petruchio, he succeeded in “taming” Kate, who became in the end the most obedient wife among all the female characters in the story.

Other than superb acting by all the players of the company, the director, Meg Roe, managed to make the play not only entertaining but a moving experience at the end. In her notes, the director wrote that the play is about belonging. In her eloquent words:

We see people disguise and plot and scheme to belong to one another. We also see two people who categorically do not belong. Who fit with no one. Who rail against the norm. And then who, suddenly, unexpectedly, find a match in one another. A perfect fit. And miraculously, after pushing and fighting and resisting: they belong. They enter into a bargain and a partnership based on trust. True obedience. And fun.

Indeed, the way the play was presented made it a commentary not only on human nature, but on marriage. In the process, Kate finds not only true love, but rediscovers a sense of her womanhood, and the marriage between the two becomes one of mutual self-giving. To me, Kate’s beautiful final monologue, her views on the relationship between husbands and wives, almost parallels the passage from Chapter 5 of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, where the evangelist asks wives to be “submissive to their husbands as if to the Lord because the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of his body the church.” In almost the same breath, and before the men become too giddy, Saint Paul admonishes husbands to “love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” It takes a Shakespeare and Saint Paul to remind us, in the 21^st century, that the concept of love is far deeper and much more than a mere sharing of physical space, finances and, perhaps, chores.

Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew reminds me of Mozart’s opera Così fan Tutte, another work of art accused of being politically incorrect, even immoral. Two young men decide to put their lovers to a test. They tell their lovers that they are going off to war. In actuality, they came back in disguise as two Albanians (only in opera!) to woe their respective lovers, who soon surrendered to their amorous advances. In the end, everything is of course forgiven, and everyone lives happily ever after. Or do they? In Così, Mozart is revealing to us the changeable, or impermanent, nature of life, and that nothing in life, least of all human nature, ever remains the same.

We should remember that in Shakespeare as well as in Mozart, the female characters are very often far cleverer than their male counterparts. What the playwright and composer give us, in works like Taming of the Shrew and Così fan Tutte, are glimpses of human nature, something in ourselves that perhaps we are not even aware of, once we see pass the superficiality of the plot line, and gender differences.

Anniversary Celebrations

Last Saturday

I had the privilege to attend the concert marking the 40^th anniversary of Maestro Kazuyoshi Akiyama’s association with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. I was very happy that the orchestra decided to mark the occasion with a presentation to the maestro, because Akiyama’s twelve year tenure with the orchestra was instrumental (no pun intended) in making the orchestra what it is today. Anniversaries are important, only in that they remind us of occasions and people that are precious to us.

Pianist Claudio Arrau, who had played with some of the greatest conductors of the 20^th century, once called Mr. Akiyama “one of the elect.” I was reminded of this statement again when this wonderful conductor gave the downbeat to Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute. He drew a beautiful string tone in the slow introduction to the overture, and the ensemble as well as the pacing of the body of the overture was as impeccable as it could be. Mr. Akiyama chose to use a fairly large orchestra for the overture, but the result was as light and buoyant as can be.

The soloist of the evening, pianist Yevgeny Subdin, was lucky to have had Maestro Akiyama as a collaborator in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491. When I attended Mr. Sudbin’s solo recital in Vancouver last year, I had found much to admire in his playing and musicianship. The young pianist did not disappoint in Mozart, his passagework in the concerto was beautifully executed, reminding us of Mozart’s dictum that playing the piano should be “like oil.” His Mozart playing is big, bold, and dramatic, and he brought out all the dark colours this particular concerto calls for. I would have personally preferred a more (for lack of a better word) “classical” approach to the piece, but Mr. Sudbin’s interpretation is an entirely valid and deeply satisfying one.

I was surprised to see on the second half of the programme Claude Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse as well as La Mer. La Mer is of course one of the touchstones of the orchestral repertoire, but I was ignorant of an orchestral version of L’isle joyeuse, one of the composer’s major (and perhaps most difficult) piano works. In both works, Maestro Akiyama drew ravishing playing from all the entire orchestra. From the rapturous joy of L’isle joyeuse to the dark and brooding opening to La Mer, the orchestra was in top form.

Mr. Akiyama’s left hand is a thing to behold. There are conductors who beat time with both hands, but Mr. Akiyama uses his left hand to subtly cue the various instrumentalists, but also to shape, sculpt, and colour the music like a master painter. Debussy’s masterful evocation of the sea was never more powerful and beautiful as it was on Saturday evening.

Dimitri Shostakovich used to say that in music, there are no generals, because we are all soldiers of music. Maestro Akiyama has been a perfect soldier of music, one who uses his talents in service to music and to the composer. I am grateful to his four decades in Vancouver, and I very much look forward to the next forty years.

Maestro Akiyama, I hope that Vancouver will always have a place in your heart, and in your musical life.

Sunday Afternoon

What a wonderful way to spend Sunday afternoon, listening to violin sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. Violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov performed the complete sonatas for piano and violin of Beethoven over the course of a weekend, and I was fortunate to have caught the last concert of the cycle. Three sonatas were featured in this concert – the Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 23, the ever-popular Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24 (“Spring”), and the masterful Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96. The collaboration between Faust and Melnikov, solo players as well as chamber musicians, was flawless. The two young artists, equal in technique and musicality, listened and responded wonderfully to each other, and the result was some felicitous music-making.

I was especially taken with how the two players essayed the A Minor Sonata, realizing to perfection the Haydnesque pathos that is so characteristic of early Beethoven. Although only one opus number apart, the Spring sonata brings out the more congenial side of the composer. From the gentle beauty of the opening movement to the joyous finale, Faust and Melnikov gave us a very satisfying realization of this early Beethoven masterpiece.

My personal favourite of all the Beethoven violin and piano sonatas is the last one, the Op. 96 sonata. The reason this work belongs in the top of my personal hit parade is the incredible, other-worldly beauty of the Adagio espressivo movement. The opening bars of the movement represent, for me, the most heavenly music the composer had written. Mr. Melnikov played these opening measures beautifully indeed, and Ms. Faust responded in kind. I did feel that the tempo of the final movement was just a shade careful, thus slightly robbing the music of a kind of spontaneous joy the music calls for. It was, on the whole, a very wonderful realization of this last sonata of Beethoven.

Listening to young artists like Mr. Sudbin, Ms. Faust and Mr. Melnikov, I was reminded again that in our very materialistic world, there are still young people who would respond to this very rewarding, but very difficult calling of becoming musicians. Their talent and their dedication to their art helps us, even if for a short while, forget about the cruelties and iniquities of the “real world” and, in the words of Schober in Schuber’s An die Musik, “Carried me away into a better world.”

What Not to Read This Summer

In a field already over-crowded with books about Gustav Mahler, and with Oxford University Press’ updating of Henry Louis de la Grange’s monumental four-volume biography of Mahler, one wonders why it is necessary to have another general biography of the composer.

The first question that comes to mind when I look at music critic Norman Lebrecht’s new book, Why Mahler? is indeed: Why this book? The book contributes nothing new to the study or knowledge of Mahler, the man or his music. The biographical portion of the book is nothing more than a synopsis – perhaps rehashing is a better word - of more detailed biographies of Mahler. Discussion of the nine symphonies, Das Lied von der Erde, and the songs sheds no new insight into the music.

Worst of all is the chapter, A Question of Interpretation, one that ostensibly introduces worthwhile interpretation of Mahler recordings. Once again, this is nothing more than Mr. Lebrecht irresponsibly airing out his personal biases. A few examples of Mr. Lebrecht’s choice phrases include, “David Oistrakh leads an exemplary Moscow concert in 1967, only to run into a Galina Vishnevskaya squall”, or saying, “Pierre Boulez perversely ignores subjective meaning, giving an analytical presentation of great clarity and no penetration, a dehumanized Mahler…” Even more sweeping are statements from, “Georg Solti does sonic spectaculars of immediate impact and little lasting interest,” to “There are many no-nos in Mahler: These are just a few of the worst.”

Occasionally he drops the name of a famous musician that he knows, such as Leonard Bernstein, that great Mahlerian, as if that fact gives him the legitimacy to be a Mahler expert. According to Lebrecht, some conductors can do no wrong. Apparently conductor Klaus Tennstedt “was an inspiration in all he said and did.” Others are summarily dismissed with off-handed and irresponsible comments like, “Giuseppe Sinopoli, with the Philharmonia, refused to let the Resurrection rise.” A video of a performance by Zubin Mehta’s on top of Mount Masada is considered by Mr. Lebrecht to be, “a sorry piece of political showboating.” Even his good friend Maestro Bernstein did not escape Mr. Lebrecht’s poisoned pen, with the statement, “Bernstein flubbed it, three times”, when discussing recordings of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

Reading this book reminds me of Jean Sibelius’ statement admonishing us not to pay attention to the words of music critics, “A statue has never been erected in honour of a critic.” It appears that Mr. Lebrecht sees himself as somewhat of an iconoclast. In his other books, The Maestro Myth, Who Killed Classical Music?, and When the Music Stops, the critic sets out to destroy the reputation of some of our generation’s greatest musicians. But while he is effective at destroying, his efforts at contributing to our musical knowledge are often far from satisfactory. When he pretends to be a musical scholar, such as he does here, the result is a book such as Why Mahler? It is interesting that all the inevitable quotes from favourable reviews for the volume are quotes from his fellow critics, taking care of one of their own.

Paper should have been saved for books far more enlightening or inspiring and, if not, at least entertaining. Danielle Steel would have been a better read…

The Agony and Ecstasy of Glenn Gould

I received a recording of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations that had attracted a lot of favourable critical attention a few years back. While I enjoyed the recording and find that it deserves much praise, I gradually find myself yearning to return to Glenn Gould’s final (1981) recording of Bach’s monumental masterpiece.

When Gould recorded the Goldberg Variations, the piece was considered to be quite a rarity, an obscure work more to be admired for its craftsmanship than enjoyed, and one that was only attempted by iconic figures such as Wanda Landowska. Since the release of the Gould recording, many pianists, amateur as well as professional, have wanted to scale the heights of Bach’s thirty variations on the simple Aria. The impact of Gould’s debut album cannot be overestimated. Many people, me included, have compared listening to that recording to a religious, life-changing experience. There are now dozens of recordings of the Goldberg, and sometimes the pianist’s concept can be almost as interesting as Bach’s design. None, however, even approached the emotional and musical heights achieved by Gould.

Gould’s 1981 recording of the Goldberg exists in two forms, a sound recording and a video of the performance. The takes for some of the variations are actually different in the recording and the film. Because there were limits to the quality of video technology in 1981, Gould was a little less picky about the sound for the film than for the recording. According to Kevin Bazzana in his wonderful biography of Gould, Wondrous Strange, he had fun “faking in sequences where he had to pantomime at the keyboard in order to synchronize visual with an existing soundtrack” - an extension of Gould’s idea of “creative cheating.”

I find the filmed version of the Goldberg even more compelling than the recording. Although the visual aspect of a performance probably does not add to its musical impact, there is a synergistic emotional effect in watching and listening to Gould’s playing. In his January 1956 recording of the Goldberg, the playing was effortless, and had a sense of fun, of exhilaration, almost like a kid showing off what he could do on a new bicycle. It was a performance of a young man in a hurry. In comparing the later recording with the earlier, the playing in the 1956 recording now sounds almost skittish and rushed.

In the 1981 performance of the Goldberg, there seems to be a great deal of suffering in the playing – not suffering in the physical sense, but spiritual suffering. When I think of that performance, I could not help but remember the words of Blessed John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, Salvifici Doloris, where the then Pontiff commented on the meaning of human suffering, that, “suffering seems to belong to man’s transcendence: it is one of those points in which man is in a certain sense ‘destined’ to go beyond himself.”

Gould’s performances on the piano almost always possess an intensely spiritual quality. It is, for me, this very quality that makes his music making a moving experience. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this 1981 performance of the Goldberg. I believe that Gould, in the performance of his life, really did suffer for his art, and the result is a performance that achieves transcendence, and one that borders on the divine. This single performance of the Goldberg, in my view, towers above any musical performance of any work, and makes it one of the most important recordings in the history of the gramophone. In the film, when you watch Gould’s returning to the theme at the end, his face is that of a person that no longer belongs to the physical world. Bach was speaking to us using Gould as the medium. This performance of Bach’s Goldberg was and is Gould’s own agony and ecstasy.

Blessed John Paul II once said, “They try to understand me from outside. But I can only be understood from inside.” Even two decades after Gould’s death, writings on Gould, even from highly intelligent individuals, still allude to his supposed idiosyncrasies. I believe that those people who dwelled upon such external traits of Gould’s are missing the essence of the man and the artist. Perhaps we should focus less on the external and focus on the internal, on Gould’s heart and soul, which he gave every time he touched the keys of the piano. And our world is richer because of it.

Dreaming Out Loud

Peter Ladner, a former city councillor and mayoral candidate in Vancouver, recently said that our city “desperately needs a visible centre for the high-tech industry.”

Well, Mr. Ladner, there has been something I’d want to get off my chest for a long time now. What this city truly and desperately needs are some world class performing arts centres. Let us look at what we have right now.

The Queen Elizabeth Theatre, opened with great fanfare in 1959, represents the absolute worst of architecture from the 1950’s and 1960’s. This hall is now, unfortunately, the home of the Vancouver Opera. Whenever I am inside the theatre, I am taken back to the time when Vancouver was a quiet and very provincial backwater. What is more, the acoustics of the hall is deplorable, and both the stage and the orchestra pit are far too small. Unless you are seated at the first ten rows from the stage, there is no immediacy in the sound. If you happen to be unlucky to be seated in the upper balconies, you can perhaps see figures moving on stage, but the music being played on stage would, unless amplified, sound like listening to a stereo system from far, far away. The theatre is one of those so-called “multi-purpose” halls that ends up being good for not much else, and is a disgrace to our city. Perhaps it is good enough for Andrew Lloyd Webber, with all the voices singing into hidden microphones, but it is certainly not good enough for Mozart.

The Orpheum Theatre, home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, dates from 1927 and was restored in the 1970’s. It is, and deserves to be, a heritage building, because of its old world splendour. But it is not a concert hall. No matter how many acoustical panels they install, there are far too many dead spots for sound. Again, unless you are one of the lucky ones sitting close to the stage, you might as well stay home and listen to your own sound system.

We are certainly fortunate in our city to have the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, situated in the campus of the University of British Columbia. The hall, not much to look at from the outside, does have comfortable seating, and the acoustics is beautiful. But the hall is limited because of its small stage and lack of an orchestra pit.

Apparently Vancouver did have a “real” opera house once upon a time. In 1890, the Canadian Pacific Railway built The Vancouver Opera House, on

733 Granville Street

, for the sum of $100,000. At the time, it was considered outrageous to spend such an amount of money for a “small town”, but it was an indication of the CPR’s optimism in the city’s future. The opera house seated 2,000 - when the population was a little over 10,000 - and it opened in 1891 with a performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin.

I have a dream. That one day we will have a world class performing arts complex that can house both our orchestra and opera company. I have a vision that the complex will be situated in the Vanier Park area, looking out towards Burrard Inlet. Like Sydney Harbour, we will then have a beautiful performing arts centre in the midst of spectacular natural beauty. Do we have someone with the optimism in our city’s future to initiate such a project?

When that day comes, Vancouver will truly be the international city it purports, or wishes to be.

Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?