A programme on French public radio discussing Manet’s painting ‘Olympia’ was taken down by Apple, apparently because art discussions  are not suitable for general audiences.

Read Libération here.

manet olympia

Public television in Seattle has broadcast a report on the state of equality in the US podium.

In the top 25 US orchs, with budgets over $15 million, there is only one music director – Marin Alsop at Baltimore.

But down the budgetary scale there does seem to be an upturn, slow at it may be. Watch.

ioannides

photo: Sarah Ioannides

Yorkshire, as Ed Milliband discovered to his election-trail embarrassment last week, is different.

Opera North (based in Leeds, Yorks.) has just announced its new season.

It features English Rose soprano and all-round good sport Leslie Garrett in the world premiere of a chamber opera set in a gay nightclub.

Further details: Mark Simpson’s chamber opera, Pleasure, tells the story of Val (Lesley Garrett), who works as an attendant in the toilets in Pleasure, a hedonistic gay club in the north of England. When Nathan, a beautiful and unpredictable young man, arrives in Pleasure and leaves a gift for Val, it marks the beginning of an emotional and violent night.

Like, different.

Rest of the season follows.

leslie garrett

 

 

OPERA NORTH ANNOUNCES FULL 15/16 SEASON INCLUDING KISS ME, KATE, ANDREA CHÉNIER, INTO THE WOODS AND THE RING CYCLE

Opera North’s 2015/16 season opens in style with a brand new production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, a co-production with Welsh National Opera. A landmark of 20th century American musical theatre, Kiss Me, Kate is directed by Jo Davies following critical and audience acclaim for her previous productions of Carousel, The Marriage of Figaro andRuddigore.

 

Staging Porter’s witty, jazz-inflected reworking of The Taming of the Shrew, with classic numbers including ‘Too Darn Hot’ and ‘Always True to You in My Fashion,’ is the realisation of a longstanding ambition of Opera North’s, and follows on from the Company’s previous productions of pieces by Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, George Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein. This new production of Kiss Me, Kate is designed by Colin Richmond with choreography by Will Tuckett, and features casting from both opera and musical theatre, including Quirijn de Lang as Fred Graham/Petruchio and Jeni Bern as Lilli Vanessi/Katherine.

Giordano’s Andrea Chénier is given a new production by Annabel Arden, exploring the chaos of revolution and the role of the artist in a time of political turmoil. Conducted by Oliver von Dohnányi, the cast includes Rafael Rojas as Chénier,Robert Hayward as Gérard and Annemarie Kremer as Maddelena, returning to Opera North following memorable performances in the title role of Norma (2012) and as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito (2013).

Much-loved works return to Opera North’s repertoire, bringing together the ensemble talents of a new generation of UK and international singers. Our productions of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Donizetti’sL’elisir d’amore have been enjoyed by audiences throughout the North and further afield; the latter two, in particular, demonstrating Opera North’s international reach – Così has played at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in New York andElisir at Spain’s Ópera de Oviedo.

 

Tom Cairns’ intense and powerful production of Jenůfa also returns, now with Swedish soprano Ylva Kihlberg (Emilia Marty, The Makropulos Case, 2012) in the title role and Susan Bickley as the Kostelnička, conducted by the young Serbian conductor Aleksandar Marković.  As well as making his Opera North main house debut, Marković will open theOrchestra of Opera North’s 2015/16 symphonic concert programme in September, with a concert at Huddersfield Town Hall as part of the Kirklees Concert Season.
The Orchestra of Opera North plays a vital role in concert series in the Yorkshire region and stands alone in its ability to perform as both an opera and a concert orchestra. Its approach is fresh and enthusiastic and offers Opera North great versatility in our performance capabilities. Concert highlights in 2015/16 include Richard Farnes continuing his tenure with a performance of Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra, part of both the Kirklees Concert Season and the Leeds International Concert Season, and Jac van Steen conducting a programme of classical and neo-classical repertoire including Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in the Royal Concert Hall, Harrogate.

Another returning artist is Howard Shelley, back after his Chandos recording of Beethoven’s complete works for piano and orchestra with the Orchestra of Opera North, to play and conduct Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto, Op 73, ‘The  Emperor,’ while David Angus returns to conduct Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7.

 

New collaborations and commissions

 

A new chamber opera, Pleasure, receives its world premiere at the Howard Assembly Room at Opera North in April 2016. It is the fourth new opera commissioned and produced as part of a three-year partnership between Aldeburgh Music, The Royal Opera and Opera North. Created by the young composer Mark Simpson and writer Melanie Challenger, the opera tells the story of Val (Lesley Garrett), who works as an attendant in the toilets in Pleasure, a hedonistic gay club in the north of England. When Nathan, a beautiful and unpredictable young man, arrives in Pleasure and leaves a gift for Val, it marks the beginning of an emotional and violent night. This new production is directed by Tim Albery, with set and costume designs by Leslie Travers.

 

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, a major artistic collaboration between Opera North and the West Yorkshire Playhouse, will be staged in June 2016. It brings together two of Leeds’ top arts organisations for their first ever large scale co-production, directed by West Yorkshire Playhouse Artistic Director James Brining.

 

Casting for Into the Woods will draw on the musical and dramatic strengths of the versatile members of the Chorus of Opera North, the Company’s core full-time professional ensemble, many of whom regularly take principal roles in Opera North’s productions.

 

Howard Assembly Room and Opera North Projects

 

The 2015/16 season will continue to see a stunning range of guest artists giving performances in the Howard Assembly Room, a venue in the heart of Leeds with an eclectic programme of music, film, performance and talks that is continuing to build its reputation for varied, exciting and unusual programming. Leading international artists visiting the Howard Assembly Room in 15/16 include the sufi singer Sain Zahoor, Tuvan throat singers Huun-Huur-Tu, the Brodsky Quartet, pianist Freddy Kempf, tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Simon Lepper, and in a new collaboration withLeeds Lieder, Kate Royal and Joseph Middleton.

Many of the events in the Howard Assembly Room are commissioned, curated and produced by Opera North Projects, which creates an alternative strand of work across different artforms, with a focus on collaboration. Current projects includeLulu: A Murder Ballad, created and co-produced with The Tiger Lillies in 2014, which now tours to London for the first time with a week of performances in November 2015 at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House.

 

The company continues to redefine the artform for new audiences, taking two Opera North Projects commissions to festivals stages at Latitude and Wilderness in Summer 2015. I am Yours, Yours am I’, will travel to Latitude as the Thursday night takeover in the ‘Faraway Forest,’ a site-specific open air setting for the ethereal love duet ‘Pur ti miro’ from Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea (Thu 16 July 2015).  The Devil’s Jukebox, a tour of five centuries of Faustian music curated by cellist Matthew Sharp, will be the Saturday night headliner on the arts stage at Wilderness Festival(Sat 8 August 2015).

 

Opera North Projects commissions around The Ring include a new folk-based performance exploring Northern mythology and traditional songs, and the annual Liberty Lectures series in the Howard Assembly Room taking the theme of Apocalypse from Götterdämmerung.

 

 

The competition, which has yielded some major talents – Sonya Yoncheva (2010), Erwn Schrott (1998) – is coming to London for the first time in July. The finals will clash with the opening weekend of the BBC Proms.

Bad timing, Plácido. (Oh, he’s conducting, too).

domingo operalia

Press release:


 

COMPETITION FINAL: SUNDAY 19 JULY 2015, 6PM

“My purpose in Operalia is to help identify not only the best voices, but also to discover those singers whose personalities, characters and powers of interpretation show that they have the potential to become complete artists. Individuals such as these become tomorrow’s stars.” Plácido Domingo

Operalia, Plácido Domingo’s major international singing competition, is being hosted by Covent Garden for the first time in its 22 year history.  The competition starts on Monday 13 July with a public final at the Royal Opera House at 6pm on Sunday 19 July.

Founded in 1993 to discover and help launch the careers of today’s most promising young opera singers, Operalia is open to singers of all voice types between the ages of 18 and 32.  The competition has for over 20 years promoted artists of the calibre of Angel Blue, Joseph Calleja, José Cura, Joyce DiDonato, Carmen Giannattasio, Ana María Martínez, Ailyn Pérez, Erwin Schrott, Nina Stemme, Rolando Villazón and Sonya Yoncheva.  Contralto Claudia Huckle, who won the Birgit Nilsson Prize in 2013, is the first British singer to have been awarded a prize.

The competition – which is hosted by a different city every year – receives hundreds of applications, from which only 40 are chosen to participate and compete in front of a jury of 10 leading industry professionals including general managers and casting directors from some of the most important international opera houses.  Although Plácido Domingo does not vote himself, he is actively present throughout the competition offering advice on artistic and career development to all of the participants.  While the quarter-finals and semi-finals are closed to the public and are carried out in audition form, the competition final on Sunday 19 July will see Plácido Domingo conduct the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in a Gala Concert on Covent Garden’s main stage.

Committed to excellence, elegance and consistency, Rolex is once again proud to present Plaìcido Domingo’s Operalia, the World Opera Competition, marking its 14th consecutive collaboration since 2001.

“Plácido has created this legacy of defining what our generation of singers should be about…  We watch him giving back to us as young artists and we think ok, not only are we hopefully lucky enough to have a career but there’s also an afterlife to that and we need to make sure that we’re bringing along the next generation behind us.” Joyce DiDonato

 

It has been a while. The composer died in 2007 and complications with his performing and recording rights mean that his music hardly ever gets a hearing. So a new Decca release by a young Italian pianist who had worked with Stockhausen and won his approval presented a good opportunity to test how the music had stood the test of time.

It’s my album of the week on sinfinimusic.com. Click here to read.

Vanessa Benelli Mosell_Stockhausen1_credit Alain taquet_500

The company has posted an operating loss of A$2 million in fiscal year 2014, down slightly from $2.4 million the previous year. Chief executive Craig Hassall said this was ‘an outcome we cannot sustain over time’.

Box-office performed well below expectations. Rehearsals have been shifted to mornings, to free up the auditorium for outside hires and savings are being sought in every department. Lyndon Terracini’s position as artistic director will be under increased scrutiny.

sydney opera evacuated

Jim Wilkinson is retiring as president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Symphony, after emerging once before from retirement to dig the orch out of a wide-ranging crisis.

His successor has just been announced. She’s  Melia Peters Tourangeau and she flies in from Salt Lake City, where she’s president and CEO of Utah Symphony and Utah Opera.

Ms T is 43. And she has brought Utah out of the wilderness. Looks good for Pitts. Read here.

 

Tourangeau-Photo-jpg

It was Deborah Borda’s most brilliant innovation when she was running the New York Philharmonic Orchestra – a 45-minute 6.30pm concert, followed by drinks and snacks, that enabled city workers to sit out the tail-jams in comfort at Lincoln Center and get some social life before heading home on empty autoroutes. Other orchs copied it around the US, then forgot about it.

Now, two decades later, Zurich has copied the idea. Th Tonhalle announces it in a new programme this morning:

 

RushHour_1

On three Thursdays (10.12.15 / 11.02./17.03.16) there will be the opportunity to escape the rush hour and spend the after-work hours at the Tonhalle. The new format TOZintermezzo presents an orchestral work performed by the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under the guidance of Lionel Bringuier. Hazel Brugger kicks off the event with a poetry slam. Drinks and snacks will be served at the end of the approximately 45-minute concert, and the audience has the opportunity to meet all the performers.

Somehow, Zurich manages to dull it down.

 

For as long as anyone can remember, Leopold Andreev was the go-to double-bass player in Moscow. A player in the Bolshoi orchestra and teacher at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, Andreev would get first call if the Borodins wanted to play the Schubert Trout quintet, or Rudolf Barshai was forming a new ensemble. He was the best on bass.

andreev

The violinist Stefan Arzberger, charged with attempted murder after an incident in a New York hotel, has failed in an appeal to have his passport returned so that he can travel again with the Leipzig Quartet. He has been ordered to return to court for a further hearing on June 18. Here’s a statement by his attorney:

‘We appeared today in court asking the judge to permit Stefan to travel internationally with his Quartet. This request was denied once again, notwithstanding the very strong evidence that he is not guilty of the charges and the undeniable fact that he, too, was the victim of a crime the evening in question.

‘We will now continue preparing our defense, which will include the forensic analysis of hair samples to identify, if possible, the drug that was likely administered to him by the person who stole his property and fraudulently used his credit and bank cards, and we will also consult with an expert in pharmotoxicology and a psychiatrist to better understand the circumstances that led to the charges. We thank the many hundreds of people who have expressed support for Stefan during this very difficult time and will keep you updated regarding developments in the case.
Any help for Stefan is welcome!

‘We look forward to a positive outcome so Stefan can put this behind him and return to what he does best – making beautiful music with his Quartet.

Richard Levitt’

leipzig quartet

Saturday night, Lisette Oropesa opened an exuberant production of Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment at Pittsburgh Opera.

Sunday morning, she ran the Pittsburgh Marathon.

lisette

Talk about breathing exercises… Has any other opera singer run 26 miles the morning after a premiere?

lisette2

Here’s an extract from her lead review:

Soprano Lisette Oropesa’s Marie was a triumph May 2 at the Benedum Center, utterly winning in both the role’s vocal challenges and the physical demands of Curran’s staging. Her voice is wonderfully suited to the role, warm and rounded in tone but also pure, and sparkling in coloratura. “The Song of the Regiment” started with a lovely vocal flourish, then proceeded with irresistible elan.

Two recitals on May 8 and 9 in Oakville have been called off by the pianist after doubts came to light about the organiser’s credibility.

Documents seen by Slipped Disc reveal that the concert organiser, a developer by name of Les Holdway, made claims of being linked to two charities and gave assurances that he had made payments  both to the concert venue and to Steinways for a grand piano.

None of these commitments was validated.

On Friday, Lisitsa ordered Holdway to take down the concert announcements and refund those who had purchased tickets. Holdway had offered to put on the concerts ‘in defence of freedom of expression’ after the Toronto Symphony buckled to local Ukrainian pressure and cancelled a concerto by Lisitsa, who has tweeted anti-Kiev material. The TSO action provoked a wave of sympathy for the soloist among the Toronto public and media. Holdway’s hapless intervention has not helped her cause.

lisitsa toronto

UPDATE: From Valentina Lisitsa’s cancellation email:

Dear Mr.Holdway,

I don’t know what the reasons are behind your intent to make the concerts on May 8 and 9.  Whether you saw an opportunity as an entrepreneur to make some money on my “five minutes of fame” – or you genuinely tried to do a good deed for the society, inspired by the publicity that surrounded my cause – it’s not for me to judge.
At this point I accept nothing but cold, hard facts that I could verify.
1. You don’t have the charities you said you have. I don’t care about semantics or legal terms or whether they are “in process or being” this or that… The fact is – you don’t have them now. You didn’t have them when you called me to arrange the concerts. By advertising the concert as FUNDRAISER for CHARITIES you mislead people and made me an unwitting participant in this deception.

3. You say you paid over 9000 in expenses for rentals etc in preparation for the concert.
I am yet to hear from Meeting House whether you made %100 nonrefundable deposit. But their rent for commercial and non-profit events is public information. It’s 1/10th of the number you named. Need I say more?
4. I spoke with Steinway and was told that: first of all you didn’t pay them. Second, you downgraded from a concert grand to a small piano without even asking me.
For me it’s enough “evidence”.
Please kindly request Ticketmaster to issue the refunds to the audience.
I will make a statement on Facebook about the cancelation.
I thank you for a hard lesson you gave me: I should be less trusting of people in a future, no matter how good their intents may seem.

Sincerely,
Valentina