The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra of southwest Washington is the latest to hit the wall.
It needs just $100,000 to meet its dues this month – but that’s one-fifth of what it makes in a year.
The blight is spreading. Read more here.
photo: Joel Davis/The Oregonian
caption: The Vancouver Symphony practices in 2005 in the auditorium at Skyview High School. The 32-year-old symphony is in danger of shutting down unless it raises $100,000 by the end of the month.
Remember when Abba won Eurovision in 1974 with that ghastly song, Waterloo?
The man who directed the orchestra had dressed up for the occasion as Napoleon.
His name was Sven-Olof Walldoff and he’s just passed away, aged 82.
He’s in here, somewhere.
And Here’s some video.
Highlight of the Leipzig Bach Festival next week is the first staging in centuries of Zanaida, by Johann Christian Bach, who spent the best years of his life in London from 1762 as music master to Queen Charlotte. He died here in 1782 and is buried in St Pancras.
Zanaida is being conducted by David Stern and signals a tentative J. C. Bach revival. The French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky has recorded an album of arias for EMI and several others are showing interest in a composer who strongly influenced the young Mozart.
Some more info here, in German.
He was one of the leading pianists of the 1970s, recorded on Decca and generally regarded as a remarkable artist.
Then he disappeared. Whatever became of Jean-Rodolphe Kars?
The name leaped back to life last week as I reviewed a poor compilation of Liszt cuts and a quick round of research revealed the whole story.
Kars fell in love with Messiaen’s music and his religious faith, following the call (like Liszt) to holy orders. He was baptised in 1976 and became a priest ten years later. No more piano. Only masses and confession.
Here’s his short account (in French) of his spiritual journey. Messiaen told him: ‘being a priest is the most beautiful thing on earth’.
Kars was born Jewish in Calcutta to Austrian parents who fled the Hitler invasion. Raised without faith, he found it in Messiaen.
Here’s video of Kars the pianist and here of Kars the priest.
Monica Mason is retiring this summer and there has been a worldwide search for a successor.
I had a tip-off some months ago that they were going to appoint an insider, and indeed they have.
The new boss is Kevin O’Hare, who has danced and desk-jocked in British ballet all his life.
The press release has just landed. It should be a smooth handover by Monica to a safe pair of hands.
PRESS RELEASE
14 JUNE 2011, 10.30AM
KEVIN O’HARE APPOINTED NEW DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL BALLET
Simon Robey, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Opera House, announced today the appointment of Kevin O’Hare as Director of The Royal Ballet following the retirement ofDame Monica Mason in July 2012. Kevin O’Hare has been Administrative Director of the Company since 2009.
On his appointment Kevin O’Hare said: “This is a great honour for me. Under Monica Mason’s inspired leadership The Royal Ballet has had a great ten years. I am equally ambitious for the Company and dance in general. I plan to bring together the most talented artists of the 21st century to collaborate on the same stage – world class dancers, choreographers, designers, and musicians. I will aim to use all the traditional and new platforms now available to engage our audiences in our classic repertoire, and The Royal Ballet’s unique heritage. I want to continue to invigorate audiences with new work and emerging talents and I am thrilled that Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon – two of the world’s leading choreographers – have agreed to join me and Jeanetta Laurence, Associate Director to become part of the senior artistic team. Both Wayne and Christopher share my exciting ambitions for the Company. ”
Kevin was trained at The Royal Ballet School, joining Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet in 1984, becoming a Principal with Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB), as it then became, in 1990. His repertory included all the leading classical roles and works by Balanchine, Cranko, Van Manen, Tudor and Tharp. He also created many roles, working with Ashton, De Valois, MacMillan, David Bintley, and Peter Wright. He retired from dancing in 2000 to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, training in Company management. He returned to BRB in 2001 as Company Manager, and joined The Royal Ballet as Company Manager in 2004, becoming Administrative Director in 2009. Kevin served on the Board of Governors of the Royal Ballet School 2000 – 2009.
Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, added, “All of us were impressed by Kevin’s outstanding vision for building on the achievements of the last ten years. Kevin has a fantastic track record as a dancer, and understands the importance of nurturing dancers at all levels of the Company. He has championed a range of new choreographic initiatives, and possesses all the skills needed to be a visionary artistic leader and producer. I look forward enormously to working with him in this new role.”
Simon Robey said, “I would like to thank my colleagues on the search committee, Michael Berkeley, David Clementi, Nicholas Hytner, Peter Wright, Tony Hall and Robert Wallace for all their work on what was a rigorous and exhaustive world wide search. We have seen some outstanding candidates over the past few weeks and it is a pleasure to be able to announce that the right person for this important position has a life long knowledge and first hand experience of the Company and its repertoire, as well as having some great plans for the future.”
Michael Berkeley, Chairman of the Governors of The Royal Ballet also confirmed, “Kevin, like Monica, has made a happy transition from dancer to senior management where he has shone brightly. His plans build not only on the great heritage of The Royal Ballet but look forward to a new partnership with two of the world’s outstanding choreographers.”
-ENDS-
The smoke has yet to clear on the Dutch front line since last Friday’s Cabinet decision but word has just reached me of a significant closure provoked by the government’s arts cuts.
The National Touring Opera lost 60 percent of its subsidy and is ceasing operations, its artistic administrator, Nicolas Mansfield reports in a comment on Slipped Disc. Mansfield was due to succeed Guus Mostart in 2013 as artistic director.
The Nationale Reisopera takes between four and six opera productions to fifteen large theatres across the country each year. There are well-known operas from the standard repertoire and less familiar works from the Baroque period as well as contemporary operas. Current work includes Wagner’s Ring, Bohème and Lucia di Lammermoor. The website has put up a petition for supporters to sign.
State funds for the performing arts have been cut from Euros 236 million to 156 million.
LATE EXTRA: In a subsequent message to the industry, Nicolas Mansfield has clarified his previous post:
The Dutch government has announced that they intend to cut us by 60% as of 1st January 2013. The consequences of such a cut are obvious and we are clearly fighting our corner on all fronts in order to get this decision reversed. We are most certainly not closing the Nationale Reisopera with immediate effect and it is business as usual until the end of 2012.
Hopefully things will be clearer soon and we can look forward to a new chapter in our future.
With many thanks for the warm messages of support we are receiving. Spread the word!
All best wishes,
Nicolas
*
From other sources, it appears that the only survival hope for Reiseopera is for Opera Zuid to be liquidated. There is not enough money for both to continue fulltime operations.
José Omar Davila is an orchestra conductor.
He differs from the rest of his profession by the nature of his disability.
José Omar, 26, was born with Down Syndrome. He conducts the Children’s Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and, in his own country, may well be the best-known maestro after Gustavo Dudamel, such has been the wave of publicity that is presently following his career. Like Dudamel, he has risen through the Simon Bolivar Music Foundation, established by José Antonio Abreu.
Judging by reports, his repertoire consists mostly of showstoppers – Hallelujah chorus, Ode to Joy and suchlike. But his ability is being taken seriously and responsibly by the media.
I find it nothing short of magnificent that a national foundation charged with developing musical potential among deprived kids can also take into account the musical aspirations of a young man with Down’s. Abreu is an even bigger man than we thought.
Here’s the first of five Spanish-language youtube TV segments on José Omar’s story. Prepare to be challenged, uplifted and moved.
It’s not a famous band, nor a big-city trophy, but the closure announcement of the Bellevue Philharmonic in the state of Washington brings to four the number of American symphony orchestras that have gone out of business this season.
Honolulu, New Mexico and Syracuse have been liquidated altogether. Louisville and Philadelphia have filed for bankruptcy protection. And I keep hearing rumours of more to come. At the current conference of the League of American Symphony Orchestras, I’m told, everyone was talking about the crisis and refusing to address the historic causes.
Bellevue, like Syracuse and Honolulu, has been around for half a century. The board cited ‘long-term realities’ for giving up. In other words, there isn’t the audience, the funding base or the civic pride to sustain an orchestra in Bellevue, Wa.
The music director, who will bow out on 4 July, is Michael Miropolsky. See also here.
photo courtesy Eric Linger, all rights reserved
The Birmingham Mahler cycle ended last night with a late substitution when Magdalena Kozena, Simon Rattle’s partner, pulled out of Das Lied von der Erde with a demonstrable lack of voice. She started losing it in rehearsal at Aldeburgh on Friday, prompting Jane Irwin to drive five and a half hours down from Preston, only to be left on the sidelines as Madge struggled bravely through the piece.
By Birmingham, however, she had no voice left and a vacancy was declared. Good sport Jane stepped up in a green satin number and with notable aplomb.
Glyndebourne has announced the withdrawal of French soprano Sandrine Piau from Handel’s Rinaldo because she has a bad knee.
That’s a new one to me. I’ve known singers to pull out for anything from polyps to pregnancy, but the knee has very little to do with the vocal apparatus – at least, it didn’t the last time I checked a soprano’s anatomy.
Think of Joyce DiDonato who sang her way through Barber of Seville on a broken leg. Joyce would not have broken stride for a twisted knee.
So why’s Sandrine pulling out of Glyndebourne? What’s the real story?
All credible submissions will be treated with the appropriate discretion.
Press release follows:
Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2011 – Cast Change Announcement
Owing to an unfortunate injury to her knee, Sandrine Piau is unable to rehearse the role of Almirena in the new production of Rinaldo. The role will performed by Anett Fritsch, except for the performance on 9th July which will be sung by Miriam Khalil. Glyndebourne wishes Ms Piau a speedy recovery.
Anett Fritsch Soprano
Almirena/Rinaldo
Glyndebourne debut
Notable engagements: Mimi/La bohème (Stadttheater Bielefeld); Frasquita/Carmen (Oper Leipzig); Marzelline/Fidelio (Tiroler Festspiele); Valencienne/Die lustige Witwe, Pamina/Die Zauberflöte, Gretel/Hänsel und Gretel, Constanze/Die Entfuhrüng aus dem Serail, Blanche/Les dialogues des Camélites, (Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf); Pamina (Tiroler Festspiele); Gianetta/L’elisir d’amore, Flower Girl/Parsifal, Sandman, Dew Fairy/Hänsel und Gretel (Opera Leipzig); Flower Girl (Anhaltinisches Theater Dessau);
She has been a soloist in oratorios and cantatas by Bach, in Haydn’s Creation, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Zelenka’s Magnificat, Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Elias and Orff’s Carmina Burana. She was a prize winner at the International Chamber Opera at Schloss Rheinsberg and in 2001 she won the first prize at the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. She has sung Messiah in Bonn, Brahms’ German Requiem at the Tiroler Festspiele and was part of a Handel live broadcast with MDR Kultur (MDR German Radio).
She was born in Plauen, Germany. She studied at the Plauen Musical Conservatory and the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Music Academy in Leipzig.
Miriam Khalil Soprano
Almirena/Rinaldo 9th July
Glyndebourne debut
Notable engagements: Musetta/La bohème (Edmonton Opera); Susanna/Le nozze di Figaro (Opera Lyra, Ottawa); Mimì/La bohème (Opera Hamilton), Laura/Luisa Miller, Confidante/Elektra (Canadian Opera Company), Leah/Swoon (World Premiere), Pamina/Die Zauberflöte (COC Ensemble Studio); she created the role of Elizabeth D’Aulnières in Charles Wilson’s World Premier of Kamouraska (Opera in Concert, Toronto). Other roles include; Rosalinde/Die Fledermaus; Governess/The Turn of the Screw; Micaëla/Carmen; Dido/Dido and Aeneas; Electress Marie/Der Vogelhändler; Carolina/Luisa Fernanda. Concert and Oratorio works include Ravel’s Shéhérazade; Brahms’ German Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Bach’s Christ Lag in Todesbanden; Vivaldi’s Gloria; Mozart’s Requiem; Pergolesi’s and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater; Handel’s Messiah.
Forthcoming engagements: Highlights for her 2010-11 season include singing Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, Canadian composer Omar Daniel’s Neruda Canciones with The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Governess/The Turn of the Screw with Against The Grain Theatre (Toronto), and her debut with Pacific Opera Victoria as Frasquita/Carmen.
She studied at The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Ottawa. In 2007 she won first place in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions for the Great Lakes Region. She is a recent member of The Steans Institute for Young Artists in Ravinia, The Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, and the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio.
Rinaldo opens on 2 July and runs until 22 August. The new production Rinaldo is currently sold out, please call the Glyndebourne Box Office for returns 01273 813813.
For press enquiries please call the Press Office on 01273 812321 or email pressoffice@glyndebourne.com
On the way to Birmingham for a Why Mahler? talk, followed by Das Lied von der Erde, I hear that Magdalena Kozena, mother of the youngest Rattles, has cried off.
The Czech mezzo had difficulty with the voice, I’m told, at the first performance in Aldebuurgh on Friday and Jane Irwin had to drive 250 miles to get there as there as standby. Here, she’s the main act.
Madge is out, Jane in. Should be interesting. Will let you know.
The rightwing Dutch Cabinet has overruled a commissioned report from its arts council and decided to go ahead with hard-nosed cuts to the culture budget.
The overall reduction will be in the order of 25 percent – compared to 15 in the UK – and, contrary to Britain, there will be closures.
Among those facing the chop are the Dutch Music Information Centre and the Theatre Institute, both of which act as essential archives for their art forms.
There is a proposal on the table to merge the Rotterdam Philharmonic (cond. Nezet-Seguin) with the Residentie of the Hague (Neeme Jaervi).
The worldclass Holland Festival will lose one-fifth ot its budget. No wonder its director is leaving for Australia. Others will surely follow.
This season’s tulips are uniformly black.
Here’s a brief English summary.
