In Thursday’s (5/31) Wall Street Journal, David Mermelstein writes, “Earlier this month, over lunch on the terrace of the spacious yet cozy hillside house he shares with his wife, the composer John Adams mentioned good fortune and gratitude so often that it sounded like a mantra. Mr. Adams, age 65, is riding high these days, his varied scores performed regularly in major cities around the world. … From Thursday through Sunday, Gustavo Dudamel will conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in the first performances of ‘The Gospel According to the Other Mary,’ a new take on Christ’s Passion and the latest in a longstanding series of collaborations between Mr. Adams and the director Peter Sellars. … Like [his Nativity oratorio] ‘El Niño,’ the new piece is scored for large orchestra, mixed chorus, three vocal soloists and a trio of countertenors. But Mr. Adams’s interest in the topic and familiarity with the form did not spare him from occasionally feeling unequal to the task. ‘It’s the main event in much of Western civilization,’ he said. … ‘But every person has a need to express their own deepest feelings about life and death, charity and cruelty, poverty and affluence.”
Posted May 31, 2012
