This just in from a conductor who’s watching the live stream on a screen a few hundred metres from the theatre:

Diana Damrau missed her entrance in Act II, party scene in Traviata. The orchestra went on without singing and almost stopped for a really long embrarassing time. This is at La Scala Opening night, with Traviata, conducting, live streaming worldwide. Apparently, she just did not reach the stage on time.  Daniele Gatti, conducting, will want to know why.

UPDATE: Despite the lapse, Damrau was greatly applauded at the end. Our observer writes: She has sung a very convincing performance, the incident should tell more about the stage personnel at La Scala than about her. Both the conductor and producer were booed.

Somethig to cheer them in this bleak midwinter. Read here.

The German conductor received a kicking in Vienna for a lacklustre Magic Flute. Now he’s being savaged for poor Mozart with his own orchestra. This is not the year of the Christoph.

Read Anne Midgette here.

A Slipped Disc reader writes: As a longtime NSO subscriber who witnessed all of our Music Directors from Dorati, Rostropovich, Slatkin, Ivan Fischer, Mr. Eschenbach’s concert this week was the worst from a Music Director this orchestra has ever had. It is alarming if the level of the orchestra will really go down under Mr. Eschenbach’s leadership.

Photo: Masterclass 2011, photo (c) Marion Kalter/Lebrecht Music&Arts

Tom Krause, one of the first post-War Finns to conquer the world stage, died on December 5, aged 79.

After a spell as a member of the Hamburg State Opera, he made a 1963 Glyndebourne debut at the Count in Richard Strauss’s Capriccio and bookings followed at the Met, Salzburg, Paris and Milan.

He was highly esteemed for Mozart roles. UPDATE: Read an exclusive tribute by one of his pupils here.

This message just in from our friend David Conway in Kiev:

A stark warning was issued this weekend. The MSO, which had been thought to be in recovery, has suffered a terrible financial year. A press release said it is ‘in danger of running out of money and faces possible extinction if additional pledges cannot be secured to fund the MSO’s much more modest, prudent budget and business plan for the future.’

The musicians, already reduced from 88 to 79, are facing a further drop into the 60s. Executive director, Mark Niehaus, a former trumpet player in the orchestra, said: ‘In this critical time in the existence of the MSO, we have reached an unprecedented level of collaboration among the key players in the organization: the musicians, the music director, administrative staff, and partners.’

With Edo de Waart as music director, Milwaukee seemed to have negotiated itself out of a Minnesota-like existential crisis. Now the future looks less certain.

The Ukrainian-US violinist Oleh Krysa is in hospital recovering from injuries he received in a road crash that killed his wife, Tatiana Tchekina, assistant professor of accompanying at Eastman School of Music.

Their Volkswagen was hit by a driver coming at them on the wrong lane of the eastbound interstate highway.

Tchekina, 69, was a member of a well-known Moscow family of musicians. Krysa, 71, is a professor of violin at Eastman and an international soloist.

We extend sympathy to their family and wish Oleh a full recovery.

A statement from Eastman: Professor Tchekina was a valued member of our faculty who influenced the lives of the many students with whom she collaborated on performances and competitions. As a world-class musician, she had an international career both as a solo pianist and in collaboration with Professor Krysa.  Our thoughts are with Oleh, and their family and friends at this very difficult time.

There’s a bit of a fuss going on in Hampstead about essential safety work on the ponds. Guess who has an uninformed opinion?

Clare Stevens, a tireless performer, riffs through the memory bank:

At around the time when I started singing for him he had famously been arrested for being drunk and disorderly in the street outside the church, on his way home from the pub on the other side of York Street, but conducted his own defence in court and arranged to get off on the technicality that when the police spoke to him he was actually inside his own house. Some years later he was sacked by the church after one argument too many with the rector – and one too many irreverent post-Evensong voluntary – and moved to the South Coast. he died far too young after suffering a heart attack on the organ bench.

Full story here.

A former Roman Catholic high-school choir director in Ohio has been indicted by a grand jury on 13 sex charges.

Zachary R. Ruppel, 27, faces trial for compelling prostitution, importuning and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and on 10 counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor.

Ruppel was choir director at St. Francis DeSales High School in Columbus from 2010 until June this year.

The Catholic Diocese of Columbus issued this statement: “St. Francis DeSales High School and the Office of Catholic Schools has cooperated fully with law enforcement during the course of their investigation of Zachary Ruppel, and school administration has reached out to student, parents, and teachers to come forward with any information that may be pertinent to this investigation. “

We have been informed of the death of Frau Professor Ira Hartmann-Dressler, one of the most highly regarded voice teachers in Europe. No further details or image presently available.

We reported a few days back the theft of a valuable viola in Brussels. Here’s the outcome:

Hello, It’s Maria Jose Igual. I wrote you few days ago because my viola was stolen in my apartment. And now I’m writing you because I found it today! yes! It’s unbelievable! It seems somebody went to sell it to cash but just on the corner of my street, and they called because they knew it. And there it was, with the two bows! only they took the resin! amazing! I start to believe in miracles…