We’re excited by reports of a rare upcoming production of Weill’s last opera, Lady in the Dark. It opens May 17 in Mainz, a farewell show by outgoing director Matthias Fontheim.

It opens with the editor of a fashion magazine on a psychoanalyst’s couch.

What’s not to love?

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Kurt Weill, NY, 1946 (c) Stone

Staatstheaters Mainz Premiere 17. May 2014, 19.30. Also: 22.May, 3, 13, 15, 19, 24. June, 2, 5 July.

We have been accused at times, quite unfairly, of being a tad harsh on that derivative, soporific, life-draining operation known as Classic FM. ‘Never a good word to say about us,’ we’ve heard its bosses complains.

Well, here’s one.

On Tuesday, April 15, Sir Neville Marriner’s 90th birthday, all music broadcast on Classic FM will be conducted by him. Prior to that, from Saturday March 29 Classic FM will relay Neville Marriner at 90 Week, climaxing with a broadcast of Sir Neville’s 90th birthday concert from the Royal Festival Hall with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields – the ensemble he founded in 1958.

Well done, Classic FM.

Neville is the most recorded conductor after Herbert von Karajan and the kindest man that ever set foot on a podium. It is fit and proper to honour him in this way. Good programming, too. Press release follows.

 

neville marriner

Classic FM, Global’s national classical music station, has announced a major celebration of Sir Neville Marriner to mark the British conductor’s 90th birthday.

 

For the first time in its 21-year history, Classic FM will play one conductor’s recordings for an entire 24-hour period. On Tuesday 15th April – Sir Neville’s birthday – every single piece of music broadcast on Classic FM will be conducted by him, as the station honours this remarkable musician.

 

Preceding this unique takeover, from Saturday 29th March Classic FM will devote a week of special programmes to the conductor.Neville Marriner at 90 Week will culminate in an exclusive broadcast of Sir Neville’s 90th birthday concert on Friday 4th April from the Royal Festival Hall with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields – the ensemble he founded in 1958. Sir Neville has worked with the Academy for over fifty years and remains Life President.

 

The celebratory week will include an interview with Sir Neville and his son, the clarinettist Andrew Marriner, both of whom will be guests onCharlotte Green’s Culture Club on Sunday 30th March (3pm to 5pm). The programme will also feature an interview with the current Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, violinist Joshua Bell. Later that evening (7pm to 9pm), David Mellor will present an affectionate tribute to the conductor with some of his finest archive recordings.

 

From Monday 31st March, Jane Jones will host five special Full Works Concerts (8pm to 10pm), dedicated to profiling the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. On Monday, Jane begins with an exclusive broadcast of a concert recorded for Classic FM at London’s Cadogan Hall in January, which sees Joshua Bell lead the orchestra in Bach’s Violin Concerto in E and Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 (‘Eroica’). From Tuesday to Thursday, many of Sir Neville’s most acclaimed recordings with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields will be played, whilst on Friday the celebrations continue with the broadcast of the conductor’s 90th birthday concert, recorded on Monday 1stApril at the Royal Festival Hall with the Academy.

 

Further celebrations during the week will include a special edition of Saturday Night at the Movies with Howard Goodall (5pm to 7pm) in which the film score discography of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields will be profiled, while Classic FM morning presenter John Suchet will feature the orchestra’s brand new recording of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 14 and 27 with pianist Ingrid Jacoby, conducted by Sir Neville, as Classic FM’s Album of the Week.

 

That’s the gossip in the German tabloids. Wild exaggeration.

Dorny was on 300,000 a year for a five-year contract he had yet to begin. If he claims unfair dismissal, which may be expected, he’d be lucky to get a two-year payoff after the threat to resign and other abuses claimed yesterday by the Saxon government.

What is remarkable in this case is the silence of Dorny’s lambs. Normally, when an arts chief get sacked, ‘friends of’ are out front briefing the media. In this case, there has been no defence, no friends. Dorny, from his earliest job at the London Philharmonic, was ever a bit of a loner.

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The Saxon arts minister Minister Sabine von Schorlemer held a press conference today with the Staatskapelle music director Christian Thielemann in an attempt to dispel any confusion over her sacking of the Semper Oper director, Serge Dorny.

 

The minister said Dorny had emailed her with a long list of changes he wanted to make – to the company’s logo, marketing, the programming of the Staatskapelle, and more. In the email, he apparently threatened to resign if his demands were not met. When no agreement could be reached with him, the minister said, Dorny was given notice.

‘I would have preferred it if the affair could have been settled quietly and in mutual agreement. But that was impossible after the last meeting which I don’t want to go into further,’ said von Schorlemer.

She added that working with Dorny had proved more difficult that envisaged and that he had spoken badly of Semper employees.

Thielemann said that relations between him and Dorny had initially been ‘cordial’. They shared common interests, such as wine. However, when Dorny opposed plans to stage a new Ring over the 2015-17 seasons, ‘I was speechless…’ He added: ‘Lyon is a different world. He’s president there and has all the power.’

Asked about his own role in Dresden, Thielemann said he was contracted to conduct 15 times a season. ‘I feel very comfortable in the Semper Oper,’ he added.

 

UPDATE: Von Schorlemer later told MDR television that Dorny issued her with an ultimatum: either she agree to all of his conditions or he’ll quit. She said he acted like he was the Sun King, without any consideration for the Semperoper team.

Thielemann also told MDR: ‘I ascertained that he wasn’t interested in working together. While we shared a Schnitzel and a glass of wine privately, he went to the minister afterwards and asked her to disempower me. I don’t know if that’s really such a fortunate way to behave.’

It’s getting nasty again in Rome. Graham Spicer reports from Milan that theatre staff are theatening to strike opening night. The Mayor, Ignazio Marino, says if they do that again he’ll shut the place down for good. Riccardo Muti, the music director, has indicated he will leave if the unrest continues. His daughter Chiara, is directing Manon Lescaut, and Muti is working with Anna Netrebko for the first time.

Unless the strike goes ahead.

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The Detroit music director is worried abiut the declining visibility of Afro-American artists. He writes:

Over time, the contributions of African-Americans profoundly changed the American musical landscape and paved the way for others. Well before such artists as André Watts, Henry Jay Lewis, William Grant Still, James DePreist and Thomas Wilkins, however, black musicians were forging paths in all parts of the world, albeit in small numbers.

In their time, Beethoven and Haydn were both described as Moors. The former wrote some of his most significant music for the black violinist George Bridgetower. Before that, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges was France’s most prominent black composer. And in England, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor had considerable success with a work he wrote entitled “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.”

So where are they now? And why so few?

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A major blow for Avid, the tech company that took over Sibelius software and got rid of its core development staff.

Avid was today dropped from the Nasdaq share index after questions about its performance. Full report here.

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Avid closed at $4.93 yesterday, down more than 28% from Friday’s close. Avid was first listed on NASDAQ in 1993 and its share price had once reached as high as $66 in 2005

The star violinist Vadim Repin has pulled out of a Liverpool concert with an excrucuating tendonitis of the shoulder.

The concerto he was due to play this Thursday was Andrzej Panufnik’s. Not many soloists, outside Poland, know it off pat.

Amazingly, the US violinist Tai Murray does. She flies in for a Merseyside debut amid cheers of relief.

tai murray

Really good news. People who steal instruments get caught.

harry manx

Breaking News : Commander Thomas Argenbright of the Ohara Airport Police called Harry Manx at 5pm Monday in Montreal to let him know they have apprehended the suspect of the theft of Harrys’ Mohan Veena in Chicago. As of that time the whereabouts of the instrument were still unknown. Commander Argenbright commented that catching the suspect was a priority for them as the story had gained so much attention in Chicago. We will keep you posted of further developments.

Rani Souza

It was always a tacky thing to make a musical out of the human miseries of the Profumo scandal, but the fallen Lord of the West End complains that he hasn’t had a hit in 20 years so he wasn’t going to be put off by such niceties. Stephen Ward opened before Christmas amid great media razzamatazz.

It has now been announced that the show will close in March, after a four-month run. You may wish to catch the last performances at discounted prices. Or not.

stephen ward

Diego Maradona, multimillionaire and World Cup cheat, has sent the following message to the embattled Caracas government:

Por todas las mentiras que están diciendo y creando los imperialistas.

Yo estoy dispuesto a ser un soldado de Venezuela para lo que manden, porque la verdad estos señores, si se les puede decir señores, ya dan asco.

For all the lies the imperialists are saying and creating… I am ready to be a soldier of Venezuela for what they tell, because the truth these gentlemen, if you can call them gentlemen, and they suck.’

Long live Chavez and long last Maduro!

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Here’s the latest image of Caracas at night:

caracas burns

Simón Díaz, famed the world over for Bamboleo, has died aged 85. He also wrote the locally popular “Caballo Viejo,” (Old Horse).

In 2002, Diaz recorded a television song, asking Hugo Chavez to listen to his opponents, while reminding demonstrators that Chavez was elected by popular franchise.

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