By Michael Roddy 42 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - Doomsayers often predict classical music will go the way of CD shops and dodo birds, but someone forgot to tell the people who organize festivals.

From one end of Europe to the other, this is a banner year to hear lesser known sacred works of Mozart, dive into the mystical, spiritual compositions of Messiaen, sample the musical anarchism of Luigi Nono or stick to the mainstream.

What's more, festivals are happening just about everywhere, from the glorious surroundings of Salzburg, Budapest, Paris and London to smaller gems like Dijon and Bergen.

Following is some of what's on tap for the next few months:

Mozart Week 2008 - Sacred Works Composed in Salzburg

"The sacred works of Mozart are such a key element of his whole writing. He spent mostly all of his life with sacred music and he wrote it not only when asked but also for himself….This is why this is so key for Mozart and why we want to put his sacred works on."

So says Stephan Pauly, artistic director of the International Mozarteum Foundation which has a superb lineup of orchestras, singers and soloists for Mozart and works by other composers as well. Expect great things from Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the French pianist and artist in residence, conductors including Ivan Fischer, Sir Charles Mackerras and Ivor Bolton, violinist Gidon Kremer, the Artemis Quartet and too many vocalists to mention.

Mozart Week 2008, Salzburg, various venues, Jan 25-Feb 3

www.mozarteum.at/default.asp?SID=516740157105951&deflng=en

Messiaen 100th Birthday Year 2008

Olivier Messiaen incorporated birdsong in his music — and wrote the searing "Quartet for the End of Time" in a prison camp after France fell to the Nazis in World War II. This is the 100th year of his birth and a chance for people who know his work — and those who don't — to come to grips with one of the great musical voices of the 20th century, who died in 1992.

In Paris, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Susanna Maikki, performs Messiaen's ode to the eerie Bryce Canyon in Utah, "Des canyons aux etoiles," at the Cite de la Musique on Jan 31, then takes it to London for a performance at the Royal Festival Hall on February 2.

The ubiquitous Aimard is at the piano for "Quartet for the End of Time" with the Nash Ensemble, at London's South Bank, on February 3.

Messiaen Year 2008 www.messiaen2008.com

Budapest Spring Festival

For more than 25 years, the Hungarian capital has put a spring in the step of music lovers — even when the weather is less than spring-like — with its eclectic and distinctly Central European music and arts festival beginning in March.

This year there is plenty for the star gazers to drool over, including a Puccini recital by tenor Roberto Alagna on March 28 and a recital by violinist Maxim Vengerov the day before.

What's Hungarian about that, you say? Throughout the festival, one of the star attractions is the Budapest Festival Orchestra, formed in 1983 and a regular in world concert halls.

"When the BFO was founded the Budapest Spring Festival was one of the strongest supporters of the idea to try to establish in Hungary a new orchestra of the highest standards," says BFO Executive Director Tamas Koerner. "We are proud of this history and our regular presence is always an important event of our annual schedule."

Their concerts also are frequently sold out. To find out more, visit the website, www.budapestspringfestival.com

Budapest Spring Festival March 14-30

Fragments of Venice - Luigi Nono

A masterpiece of 20th century music or unfathomable claptrap from an anarchist-communist composer of agit-prop? London audiences get to decide firsthand for the first time with the belated British premiere of the 1984 "anti-opera," "Prometeo," by the Venetian composer Luigi Nono who died in 1990.

Two back-to-back performances of this work for multiple orchestras, voices, narrators and synthesised sound on May 9-10 at the Royal Festival Hall cap a Nono retrospective that began in October. A rarity and ear-opener beyond a shadow of a doubt. www.southbankcentre.co.uk/festivals-series/nono-fragments-of-ven ice

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON, For The Associated Press 43 minutes ago

PARK CITY, Utah - After a legendary career playing to sold-out stadiums, Bono and the Edge this weekend doing what their fans have done for years — standing in line to see a U2 concert.

That concert was “U2 3D,” a film of the band’s 2005-06 Vertigo tour, shot at several shows in South America with new 3D technology.

“I was really hoping we weren’t crap after all these years. Luckily we weren’t,” the Edge told the Associated Press before the band donned plastic glasses to watch the movie’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday night.

The band’s frontmen, joined by drummer Larry Mullein and bassets Adam Clayton, joked about the absurdity of seeing their own concert after playing together for over 30 years.

“It’s kind of horrific,” to watch himself on stage in 3D, said Bono. “Its bad enough on a small screen. Now you get so see the lard arse 40-foot tall.”

The Edge said the cutting-edge 3D technology allowed “the songs to shine through,” though he was surprised to see the chemistry of the band in the details on screen, and how separate his band mates were on stage.

“Are you saying you felt lonely up there?” said Bono, smiling.

“No, I felt lonely for Larry,” the band’s drummer, the Edge replied.

“He likes being on his own,” said Bono. “Didn’t you bring him back a bottle of water?”

Bono said he loved playing to the enthusiastic audiences of Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro.

“Irish people are essentially Latin people who don’t know how to dance,” he said. “When people are screaming and roaring and shouting, the humbling thing is to realize it’s not really for the band or artist on the stage. It’s for their connection with the songs. A song just can own you … . I think that’s why concerts are so powerful. If that song is such a part of your life, and you hear it, it’s too much almost.”

Bono also expressed hope that the film would allow more people to experience their music, especially teenagers and college students who might not be able to afford the pricey tickets to their sold-out shows.

The band is currently working with longtime producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno on a new album that will merge Lanois’ respect for traditional music and Eno’s futuristic sound.

“Music like the band had formed on Venus, and somewhere between that is our next album,” Bono said. “Where they join, where something feels always existing but you never heard it before, that seems to be what the two of them bring out in us.”

By RONALD BLUM, Associated Press Writer 37 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Two decades after its debut, David Hockney finally is happy with his staging of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”

When it first appeared at the Los Angeles Opera in December 1987, Hockney was at odds with director Jonathan Miller, leaving the storytelling on stage muddled. When it was revived in 1997, and when the production moved to opera houses in Houston, San Francisco and Italy, Hockney said the inferior lighting didn’t do his colorful, fanciful sets justice.

He spent 2 1/2 weeks working on this run, and when it opened Saturday night, delicate details fell into place the way he intended when he first built miniature models at his Hollywood Hills studio in the mid-1980s.

Sets were refurbished and looked new. Through the three acts that run more than 4 1/2 hours, including intermissions, Wagner’s characters came to life, singing their tragic tales of devotion and death, of curses and potions, as if they resided inside paintings by the famous British artist.

Hockney presents the viewer three indelible tableau. The first act, on a ship sailing from Ireland to Cornwall, has spinning patterns of red and blue, and of blue and green, with an entrancing deep blue background. The second juxtaposes King Marke’s sand-colored castle on one side of the stage with a vibrant forest, in which first moonlight shines through the trees and then sunlight reflects off their redness as dawn breaks. Stars twinkle during the “O sink hernieder” love duet.

For the third, at Tristan’s ancestral home in Brittany, the action unfolds on a gray-green rock. The sky darkens during the concluding “Liebestod,” the ground turning a steely aqua, before the characters wind up being silhouetted by bright white light shining behind them against the sides of the cliff. The staging is literal to Wagner’s instructions and is thrilling to watch unfold. The singers are garbed in velvety costumes of burgundy, cherry red, royal purple, green, gold and blue. Duane Schuler designed the lighting.

Linda Watson was a moving Isolde, her voice growing throughout the night. Her very highest notes were slightly unsteady, and he acting at times was more motherly than wifely, but it was a winning portrayal.

John Treleaven’s Tristan was low octane. He seemed to be conserving his voice in the first two acts, saving it for the punishing third act, perhaps the most difficult to sing in the tenor repertoire. Instead of a clarion heldentenor cutting through the thick orchestration, his voice disappeared into the mix and failed to make an impression at times. He let loose near the end but lacked the heroic heft the best Tristans possess.

Lioba Braun was an affecting Brangaene, especially her warnings during the “Liebesnacht” that daylight was approaching. Kristinn Sigmundsson used his warm bass to convey both Marke’s regal authority and his pain. Brian Mulligan, a promising baritone, was menacing as Melot. Tenor Gregory Warren impressed as both the Young Sailor and Shepherd, and baritone Matthew Moore was affecting as the Steersman.

Director Thor Steingraber, who oversaw the San Francisco revival in 2006, had some interesting touches. Tristan and Isolde grasp each others hands after drinking the potion before embracing. Melot doesn’t just wound Tristan at the end of the second act, Tristan grabs Melot’s sword and plunges it into himself. During the “Liebestod,” the seemingly dead Tristan rises, walked behind Isolde and puts his arms around her as the final strings faded to silence.

In the somewhat dry acoustics of Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, music director James Conlon led a propulsive performance rich in detail, with Tristan and Isolde on collision course before uniting. The woodwinds were shaky at the start but gained confidence throughout the night, and the strings were rich.

This production, commissioned by founding general director Peter Hemmings, was one of the company’s first statements. Under Placido Domingo, the current general director, big things are ahead, with Woody Allen making his opera directing debut in Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” on the opening night of next season, which also will include the first two installments of the company’s first-ever Ring Cycle.

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