Anne Midgette on Standards of Excellence
Submitted by GIA News on March 16, 2010
(3-16-10) "Classical music, in general, suffers from a certain ossification. Opera, in particular, has an exalted sense of its own importance: an idea that nearly every work is a masterpiece deserving of our full attention....Gergiev turns opera back into a workmanlike part of daily life. I think that if asked, he’d give lip service to the idea of greatness, but his actions seem to signal that music is a daily need, and that making music and having it around and getting it out to people is more important than making it perfectly."