A Barcelona court has ordered a forensic medical specialist to examine the great soprano in her home and report back on the state of her health.
Ms Caballé 82, failed to show up for a court hearing two months ago to settle her outstanding tax obligations. She pleaded ill health. The judge is now demanding evidence of her medical condition.
The diva faces six months jail and a quarter-million Euro fine over a long-running tax avoidance charge.
A new study by the Voice Project finds more than 37 million people in Europe who are actively engaged in choral singing. That’s 4.5 percent of the continent’s total population.
Send this stat to your nearest politicians next time they suggest cutting music in schools.
Download the report here.
The Metropolitan Opera’s general manager has been talking money to Bavarian Radio. He claims to have saved $22 million on this year’s budget and to have earned a profit of $17-18 million on the Met’s cinema streaming (not making clear whether this is in one year, or ten).
He makes no mention of the company’s ever-widening deficit, or of his own inflated wage.
Catch the interview (dubbed in German) here.
I well remember the night Aprile Millo sang her first Turandot at the Met and Birgit Nilsson, who owned the role, sailed serenely down the aisle by way of benediction.
Last night at the Liceu in Barcelona something similar happened.
The fabulous Ileana Cotrubaş came backstage to meet two Violettas in La Traviata, Anita Hartig and Elena Mosuc. Hartig was making her debut in the role. She won’t forget the moment as long as she lives.
Hartig with Leo Nucci in David McVicar’s production
The Athens Festival has called off a Carmen production due to open in the last week of July. A website announcement says:
The Greek National Opera, due to the current situation, announces the postponement of the production of “Carmen” which was scheduled to be performed for the 26,28,30,31 July at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.
The new dates for the production will be announced soon.
Cast members have not yet been directly notified. The production was by Stephen Langridge. The role of Carmen was to have been shared between Rinat Shaham and Géraldine Chauvet.
The Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler has named Robert Ehrlich as its Rektor for the next four years.
Ehrlich, 50, is a Belfast boy who has been professor of recorder in Leipzig.
According to this local NPR report, the state legislature of Rhode Island has passed a law strengthening the role of singing and instrument playing in the public school curriculum. Anyone have more information?
Excuse the name confusion. There will be lots more of this if the two men manage to get on.
Peter Theiler is the new Swiss intendant of the Semper Oper, where Christian Thielemann is music director.
Theiler says it’s time to internationalise Dresden.
Thielemann prefers the German model.
Maybe it won’t last all that long.
This is the concert hall of the Zhuhai International Convention & Exhibition Centre, opened nine months ago and managed by a team from Beijing’s National Convention Centre.
The ceiling and chandeliers are copied from Vienna and the hall is pitching for visiting orchestras. An 800-seater, it’s not far from Hong Kong and Macau.
h/t: Béla Kuti
‘I love Mozart performed by Clara Haskil,’ the Pope tells a colloquium of Catholic journos. ‘Mozart fulfils me. But I cannot think about his music; I have to listen to it.’
More here.
The US tenor Bryan Hymel has pulled out of six performances of Rigoletto in Santa Fe next month.
He says his doctors have advised ‘a period of rest to deal with the exhaustion caused from a heavy performance schedule this past season.’
He is to be replaced by Bruce Sledge.
