The Russian President signed a decree today, announcing the reorganisation of the news agency Ria-Novosti and the broadcaster Voice of Russia. Both will be brought under direct Kremlin control.
Another glimmer of free speech has been snuffed out.
Here’s Ria announcing its disappearance.
Gennady Rozhdestvensky takes a bow with cast after last night’s performance of Death in Venice at the Moscow Conservatory.
Britten’s opera, after Thomas Mann’s novella, describes the raging desire of an aging writer for a young Polish boy. Rozhdestvensky described the performance as ‘one of the most important concerts of my career’. You may read into that remark whatever you wish. Cast included Ian Bostridge, Peter Coleman-Wright, Iestyn Davies and students of the Conservatory.
photo: Richard Jarman
Some 80 students and staff at the Conservatoire supérieur de Lyon, France, were ordered to leave the building last night after a burst water mains caused the earth to move on the hill above the building. No-one was hurt. Large parts of the building remain inaccessible.
An exhibition on one of the most beautiful singers ever to grace the 0pera stage will open tomorrow in Vienna. Lisa Della Casa, who died last year, is being remembered at the scene of some of her greatest triumphs.
The plight of the Milwaukee Symphony is even graver than we thought. A joint appeal from the management and the musicians, supported by the Journal- Sentinel, reveals that the organisation does not have enough cash left to finish the season. Several regular donors have balked at being asked for yet another bailout gift and there is some question at to whether the community at large recognises the continued value of having an orchestra.
There will be much impassioned advocacy done in the coming weeks. Perhaps the persuaders should start by distributing the latest evidence on how much the arts contribute each year to the US economy. Read it right here.
Piotr Beczala, booed on the opening night of Traviata, posted on his Fb page:
My last production in La Scala… I think. They should engage only Italian singers … Why I spend my time for this” schmarrn” … Arrivederci …
He later clarified: I am a professional Opera Singer, have a contract with Teatro alla Scala and will finish it.
I shown my professionalism also yesterday in Traviata, was not actually agree with the vision of my character by stage director , but I played it as good I could… the result of my work was …my first ever buuuuh…the another result is now :I come to italy only for vacations.Thanks all for support , I am very proud of my friends and fans ,all Your reactions and words are important to me and give me strength and motivation for the future!
UPDATE: Two days later, the Guardian followed up our story.
This is Rachmaninov’s D-minor piano concerto as seen from the trombonist’s perspective. The trombonist in question is Denis Nesterov of the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. We think he may qualify as the inventor of the classical video selfie.
The pianist Yevgeny Kissin announced tonight that he would travel in future only on his new Israeli papers. He also issued this statement:
“I am a Jew, Israel is a Jewish state – and since long ago I have felt that Israel, although I do not live there, is the only state in the world with which I can fully identify myself, whose case, problems, tragedies and very destiny I perceive to be mine. If I, as a human being and artist represent anything in the world, it is my Jewish people, and therefore Israel is the only state on our planet which I want to represent with my art and all my public activities, no matter where I live. When Israel’s enemies try to disrupt concerts of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra or the Jerusalem Quartet, I want them to come and make troubles at my concerts, too: because Israel’s case is my case, Israel’s enemies are my enemies, and I do not want to be spared of the troubles which Israeli musicians encounter when they represent the Jewish State beyond its borders. I have always deeply despised chauvinism and have never regarded my people to be superior to other peoples; I feel truly blessed that my profession is probably the most international one in the world, that I play music created by great composers of different countries, that I travel all over the world and share my beloved music with people of different countries and nationalities – but I want all the people who appreciate my art to know that I am a Jew, that I belong to the People of Israel. That’s why now I feel a natural desire to travel around the world with an Israeli passport.
The concert was dedicated to Vladislav Tornovoi, a 23-year-old gay man tortured to death in southwest Russia in May.
The Finnish soprano Hanna Rantala pays tribute to her teacher Tom Krause, who has died, aged 79.
photo: Marion Kalter/Lebrecht Music&Arts
Tom Krause was one of my voice teachers. I attended numerous master classes and learned to know his gentle, humorous and wise way of teaching and living. He wasn’t only a great singer and artist, he was a warm-hearted human being and a wonderful teacher. In the beginning of each master class he would often state, that we’re all together on an exiting adventure towards learning how to sing.
British jazzman Stan Tracey has played his last. Jamie Cullum tweets: ‘He played like a demon right up until his last days on earth as an Eightysomething.’ His best-known work is a score for Dylan Thomas’s radio play.
photo: Lebrecht Music&Arts
Our shrewd judge Steve Rubin feels let down by the Met’s new show:
photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Robert Carsen’s Met debut was an evocative and beautiful production of EUGENE ONEGIN, which this season was summarily replaced by Fiona Shaw’s drab, conservative interpretation of the Tchaikovsky masterpiece. Now the tables have been turned as Carsen’s new production of FALSTAFF has caused the scrapping of Franco Zeffirelli’s universally adored 50-year-old take on Verdi’s final opera.
Carsen is much too intelligent and interesting a director for this undertaking to be dismissed in the manner Shaw’s was. But his FALSTAFF is a very mixed bag. Most perplexing is why he reset it in post World War II England. The sets don’t look particularly English; the final scene in Act II in fact looks like a Fifties American suburban kitchen.
His design team has a field day with flamboyant and often funny costumes, but why else we are the 20th century eluded me. Carsten always seems to favor walled-in sets and that’s the case here, where the unit sets goes kerflooey in Act III: outside the Garter Inn is nothing but a drab room where the prime attraction is a very hungry live horse munching away and upstaging poor Ambrogio Maestri as a sodden and defeated Sir John. The magical final scene is Windsor Great Park has stars in the heavens a aplenty, but the walls just don’t cut it.
He worked wonders with the cast, all of whom threw themselves into the often frenzied proceedings with abandon. The merriment reaches antic heights in the hamper scene, but flawed timing totally wrecked what could have been a very funny finale.
Musically, the surprise of the evening was that James Levine would have allowed such pedestrian casting. Nanetta, Fenton and Ford were all two sizes too small for the Met, and the amply endowed Angela Meade’s resplendent soprano was not nearly bright enough for Alice, although Meade was so likable and funny as an actress one forgave her.
Maestri was a wonderful Falstaff, singing with a gigantic voice and even larger bearing. He lacks the subtlety to pull off his little ditty about being a page to the Duke of Norfolk, but it was thrilling hearing his robust baritone sail through this glorious music. Stephanie Blythe, also blessed with a voice that matches her girth, was in great form as Dame Quickly. All the secondary characters were terrific.
The beloved Levine is incapable of turning in a lackluster performance, but something was off last night. There were joys and new insights in abundance, particularly the accompaniment to Ford’s Act II solo, but, despite gorgeous orchestral playing, the endeavor felt earthbound.
The audience seemed to have had a fine time.
