A Baritone Walks in Bernstein's and Mahler's Footsteps

New York Times

17-04-2025

Good morning. It's Thursday. Today we'll take a walk with a Dutch baritone who visits the haunts of great composers when he is in New York. We'll also look at what could be an opening move against one of President Trump's adversaries, the New York attorney general.
Thomas Oliemans arrived wearing a baseball cap from Zabar's on the Upper West Side. He said it got him reduced admission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which gives a price break to New York residents.
But he's not one. He is a Dutch baritone who is appearing as Papageno in Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' at the Metropolitan Opera. It is the same role that he sang at the Met two years ago when, on a day off, he walked 40 blocks to see where George Gershwin and Sergei Rachmaninoff had once lived. A jaunt like that was a way to decompress, he said then.
Now it was the morning after another performance, and he had new places to walk to. He wanted to see where Leonard Bernstein and Gustav Mahler had lived — two larger-than-life musicians and larger-than-life personalities who had both been music directors of the New York Philharmonic. Mahler presided in the early years of the 20th century, Bernstein much later.
Both were also composers as well as conductors. Bernstein once lamented that there was never 'enough time and energy to do both things,' which was 'one of the reasons why I'm so sympathetic to Mahler; I understand his problem.'
And both were the subjects of very different movies. Mahler was played by Robert Powell in 'Mahler' in 1974, which The New York Times called 'crashingly unsuccessful.' Bernstein was played by Bradley Cooper in 'Maestro,' which was nominated for seven Academy Awards last year, including best picture and best original screenplay.
So the first stop was Central Park West and West 72nd Street, home to both, decades apart. 'This corner is spectacular,' Oliemans said as he stopped in front of the Dakota, on the north side of the block. Bernstein lived there from the 1970s until his death in 1990. Oliemans marveled at the strikingly detailed recreation in 'Maestro.'
On the south side of 72nd Street is the site of the Hotel Majestic, which was so extravagant that The New York Times published lists of who had checked in under headlines like 'Guests at the Hotel Majestic' or 'Hotel Majestic Arrivals.'
Oliemans said that Mahler had looked out the window of his suite on the 11th floor of the Hotel Majestic one day in February 1908 as a funeral procession for a firefighter was passing by. The muffled sound of a drum 'moved Mahler so much he used it in his 10th symphony,' Oliemans said. (Mahler sketched out Symphony No. 10 two years later but died without orchestrating it. And the Hotel Majestic was demolished in the late 1920s for an Art Deco apartment house that was called simply the Majestic.)
The next stop was 15 blocks away. Oliemans led the way through Central Park, stopping for a moment at the statue of Beethoven near the Naumburg Bandshell. Along the way he talked about an episode from Season 2 of the 1970s police drama 'Columbo.' It was about 'an overcharismatic conductor' obviously based on Bernstein, he said — except for the part where the conductor kills his wife.
The destination was another storied apartment house, the Osborne, at 205 West 57th Street, where Bernstein lived in the 1950s.
So did the pianist Van Cliburn, who got wake-up calls from Naomi Graffman, who worked for Cliburn's manager at Columbia Artists Management in those days. She and her husband, the pianist Gary Graffman, moved into the Osborne in 1962, after Cliburn had moved down the street. Naomi Graffman died in 2019. Gary Graffman, who is 96, still lives there.
The Osborne is diagonally across Seventh Avenue from Carnegie Hall, where Mahler conducted more than 70 concerts and where Bernstein became a sensation in 1943, substituting with the Philharmonic with no rehearsal when the conductor Bruno Walter called in sick.
'Bernstein's ascent to the top of the accepted classical world and of Broadway is all here,' Oliemans said, looking up at the Osborne. 'Everyone said, 'You can't do both,' but he wrote 'West Side Story' here.' It opened in 1957, the same year Bernstein was named to succeed Dimitri Mitropoulos as music director of the Philharmonic.
'And that's only 1957,' he said. 'For many others, that would have been the pinnacle, to write something like 'West Side Story' and to be the chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, but for him it was a beginning point, where by the time he was living in the Dakota he was 'the maestro' in capital letters.'
Expect a sunny day with a high temperature around 63. In the evening, clear conditions will continue, along with a drop into the mid-40s.
Suspended for Holy Thursday.
The latest New York news
A Trump official scrutinizes N.Y.'s attorney general over real estate
It could be the opening move against one of President Trump's foremost adversaries. The administration has looked into real estate transactions by New York's attorney general, Letitia James.
My colleague Jonah E. Bromwich writes that the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a criminal referral letter to the Department of Justice this week, saying that James 'appeared to have falsified records' related to properties she owns in Virginia and New York in order to get favorable loan terms.
The letter was dated April 14, one day after Trump posted a story involving the claims against her on Truth Social and called her a 'crook.'
It is unclear whether the claims are substantive enough to warrant criminal charges.
The letter about James, whose office filed a lawsuit in 2022 that accused Trump of overvaluing his assets by billions so he could receive more favorable terms on loans, cited documents concerning two properties: a house in Norfolk, Va., that she bought with a niece in 2023, and a Brooklyn house she has owned for two dozen years.
When she bought the house in Virginia, she signed notarized paperwork saying that she would use it as a principal residence.
Roger Stone, Trump's longest-serving political adviser, has been one of several right-wing critics to point out that she did not live in Virginia and accused her in heated language of committing mortgage fraud. Stone directed a social media post at her on Tuesday, warning, 'Look for the F.B.I. on your doorstep one morning soon.'
A spokesman for James said she was 'focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this administration weaponizes the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution. She will not be intimidated by bullies — no matter who they are.' A press representative for the Federal Housing Finance Agency declined to comment.
Grand Time
Dear Diary:
I was on a downtown A in November 2023 when I noticed a happy family sitting across from me. Mom, dad and the children all appeared to be having a grand time.
It was relatively warm for the season, and dad was wearing shorts. He obviously did not care if anybody noticed that he was also wearing an ankle monitor on his left ankle.
As a criminal defense lawyer, I certainly noticed. When I got off the train, I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. He smiled back at me.
— Robert Beecher
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Stefano Montali and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [e-mail].
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