We hear that a press conference has been called in Seoul this afternoon to clarify the future leadership of the philharmonc orchestra.
Its is expected that the resignation of Park Hyun-jung, the bullying chief executive, will be announced. But that is not the end of the story.
Park, who is connected to a powerful political family, has accused the music diirector Myun Whun Chung, of organising a putsch against her. To lose a prominent post in these cirumstances is considered shaming in Korean culture. Park is said to be considering legal action.
1 I want to take a gun and shoot the audience.
Answer: click.
2 I love being a wife… it’s the best thing in the world
Answer: click.
3 ‘I wanted to help and support my fellow artists with a donation, because I believe in the power of art in times of conflict.
Answer: click.
4 On principle, I only sing in productions that have been created for me.
Answer: click.
5 I’m singing Wagner with Netrebko.
Answer: click.
6 I’ll quit opera in 2018.
Answer: click
7 The financial and personal investment it takes to become an opera singer is not worth the return.
Answer: click
8 We need to talk.
Answer: click.
9 Part of my heart goes with her…
Answer: click.
10 Get me out of jail
We have received reports that the Greek opera star Dimitra Theodossiou was among 478 people who endured a terrible ordeal on a burning ferry in the Mediterranean. Some 300 are still on board. According to latest information, Dimitra has been rescued and is in hospital. You can send good wishes to her Facebook page
Not altogether clear what language she’s singing, and comments have been disallowed.
Netrebko Ausschnitt from Staatskapelle Dresden on Vimeo.
Click here if video does not play.
Le Monde reports the death this weekend of its long-standing music critic, Jacques Lonchampt. He was 89.
Hired by the paper’s founder, Hubert Beuve-Méry, Lonchampt was music critic of Le Monde for 30 years.
He published a widely-read book on the Beethoven string quartets, and an autobiography.
The pianist has published a blistering attack on the dominance of directors in German theatre and opera houses, published by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Two months in Berlin, he writes, is enough to make anyone give up going to the opera.
What is it with directors? he demands. ‘Why is it that most directors find it so hard to fade into the background and stand in the shadow of the work? Where did they acquire this addiction for self-expression, pomposity and disrespect? Why there no humilityor modesty? Why this panic fear of boredom?’
Read the full article here (auf Deutsch).
h/t: Basia Jaworski
UPDATE: And read further comments here from the countertenor Andreas Scholl and others.
Robert Reich has made this extraordinary proposal on his Facebook page:
Tis the season to be charitable, or at least make a charitable contribution that can be deducted from 2014 taxable income. But if you’re very rich, charity seems to begin at home. No more than 30% of the charitable deductions of America’s wealthy go to the poor. Most go to institutions the rich favor – art museums and opera houses they attend, “think tanks” and political groups whose policies they agree with, and elite universities they graduated from. Yet because such contributions are deducted from their taxable incomes, the government in effect provides these institutions with 35 to 40 cents of every dollar “contributed.”
Wouldn’t it make more sense to limit the full charitable deduction to institutions that focus on the poor, and allow only half the deduction to other nonprofits?
If Reich gets his way, museums and opera houses will have to shut across the USA while soup kitchens won’t receive an additional cent. More than 1,300 people have shared his comments on FB and debate is raging.
Sample responses:
– Bob, that’s a swing and a miss. Museums, symphonies, even elite colleges, are not just for the 1%ers. They can’t afford substantial cuts through reduced deductible contributions. Go after capital gains and offshoring corp assets first.
– I run an opera company in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, called Center Stage Opera. We depend on donations to stay afloat, and our ticket prices start at only $25 (with discounts for students and seniors). We provide more community service to disadvantaged kids, seniors, and adults than anything else we do. We bring educational programs into schools, from elementary through college; we bring recitals and concerts into retirement homes; we provide entertainment programs for abused women’s shelters and homeless shelters; we collect clothing, canned goods, and toys for various charitable organizations at our main stage performances…. the list goes on and on. We also set aside a good number of tickets to our main stage productions for low income children and their parents (at our last production of La Traviata we had 60 disadvantaged kids in our audience, none of whom paid a single penny). We never turn anyone away from any performance because of an inability to pay.
– The whole institution of being a non-profit needs to be looked into. Some of the CEO’s of these non-profits receive unrealistically large salaries.
– You haven’t thought this one through very well, Mr. Reich. Funding the arts often transforms depressed areas into places with increased employment opportunities for a wide variety of people. Look at Mass MOCA, for example. Look at neighborhoods and small towns revitalized by non-profit theaters.
Robert Fitzpatrick, dean at Curtis, 1986-2009, shares with Slipped Disc his fond observations of a much-mourned master.
Claude and Pamela Frank; portrait by Alexandra Tyng
I first met Claude Frank in 1988 after his life-long friend, Gary Graffman, invited him to join the Curtis faculty. He had a handful of students, some of whom he shared with Leon Fleisher among others on the faculty. Claude came to Philadelphia by train once a week to teach for several hours and was always a congenial presence in the Common Room and the faculty lounge. He was the epitome of the erudite, continental gentleman, always at ease, who immediately made everyone else comfortable in his distinguished presence.
One of the most memorable musical events in the history of Curtis occurred in Spring 1989 when Pamela, Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir’s daughter, played her graduation recital with her father at the keyboard. It was one of the first student recitals in memory that was reviewed by the local press. A few years later, Claude and Pamela repeated this success when they played the complete violin sonatas by Beethoven in a series of three concerts offered without charge by Curtis to the public. This provoked a virtual riot among disgruntled concertgoers who could not get in to the small recital hall, named Curtis Hall at the time, with a capacity of 235. At the second concert, the faithful were lined up hours in advance (doors always opened at 7:30 PM for the 8 PM recitals). Dozens were still turned away!
What I remember most about Claude Frank is the elegant playing of his students who seemed to share his concept of tone production, his seemingly effortless technique, and his consummate ability to shape a phrase so that the listener felt a spirit of rightness without any hint of righteousness. Claude allowed each student to develop a special musical personality and I’m sure that most of them still hear his fatherly comments when they play the repertoire which they studied at Curtis, Yale, or during masterclasses that he gave around the world. I know that some of them are already continuing Claude Frank’s legacy through their own teaching.
Bravo and thanks, Claude, for your magnificent musical life.
Robert Fitzpatrick
(Former dean at Curtis, 1986-2009; currently provost and dean at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music)
An unmissable parody of Song of Love, immortalised by a master’s touch in an act he performed several times at Curtis. Claude died yesterday, much loved, aged 89.
And a bonus birthday gift.
(A note on the performers: The pianist, Johannes Dickbauer, was a violinist student of Pamela Frank. Jose Maria Blumenschein, the violinist, is now concertmaster of the Radio Orchestra in Cologne, and the cellist, Nick Canellakis, is a YouTube phenomenon. Pamela suggested this birthday tribute encore for her father who was in attendance at the event, in 2006 or 2007.)
It’s one of the big calls in any singer’s career: are you free to sing ‘Et Incarnatus Est’ for the Pope on Christmas Eve? Oh, and a global TV audience of 700 million.
Chen Reiss, a London-based Israeli soprano, shot off to Rome and delivered the credo to perfection.
Pope Francis, informed of the casting only a day beforehand, is reported to have said: ‘I approve very much, because Mary was also Jewish.’
Manfred Honeck conducted.
As part of its media blitz to deflect accusations of embedded sexism, the Vienna Philharmonic has announced that a father and daughter will, for the first time, form part of its lineup at the New Year’s Day extravaganza.
The father is principal viola player Heinrich Koll, 63, a VPO member for 24 years.
His daughter, Patricia, 26, is a violinist.
What the publicists fail to mention is that Patricia is not a member of the Vienna Phil. She is asterisked on the membership list as one of those ‘members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra who do not yet belong to the association of the Vienna Philharmonic’.
As ever with the Vienna Phil, it’s schein über sein, all show and no real change.
