The singer, 74, underwent surgery to remove his gallbladder in New York yesterday. His media representative said: the ‘surgery went very, very well. He is recovering satisfactorily and we expect that he will be discharged in the coming days.’
He collapsed last week in intense pain after conducting a rehearsal for Tosca at the Met. The operation was intended to be ‘minimally invasive’ – that is, a small incision, after which the patient is usually sent home on the same day. However, confirmation that he will spend several more days in hospital suggests that the procedure may have been more extensive.
Gallbladder removal – cholecystectomy – is categorised as major abdominal surgery.
We wish Placido (seen here in Il Postino) a speedy recovery.
She sang 28 roles at La Scala over 35 years, as well as playing Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata 648 times around the world.
Virginia Zeani turns 90 today. Friends in West Palm beach, where she lives in retirement, are putting on a concert tonight with soprano Elizabeth Caballero.
Romanian born, Zeani made her professional debut on May 16, 1948 at the Teatro Duse in Bologna as Violetta. She reached La Scala in 1956 as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare opposite the fine Italian bass Nicola Rossi-Lemeni; the cast also included Franco Corelli and Giulietta Simionato.
She had met Rossi-Lemeni earlier in Florence where Tullio Serafin had chosen Zeani to replace Maria Callas as Elvira in I Puritani. Nicola proposed to Virginia at La Scala. Their son, Alessandro, was born a year later.
While performing Giulio Cesare, Zeani was also rehearsing for the world premiere of Frances Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites, for which the composer had chosen Zeani to sing the role of Blanche.
A great life in opera.
The judges dithered until after midnight before reaching a verdict. When it came, the public favourite won.
Seong-Jin Cho, 21, of South Korea received his ovation with appropriate humility.
But the long deliberations led to leaks that the verdict had been close.
Just behind Cho, in second place, came Charles Richard-Hamelin, 26, from Francophone Canada. On a day that Canada elected a Francophone prime minister, this was almost a double celebration.
In third place was Kate Liu of the USA.
Extra prizes:
Fryderyk Chopin Society Prize for best performance of a polonaise (3 000 €) – Seong-Jin Cho
Polish Radio Prize for best performance of mazurkas (5 000 €) – Kate Liu
Krystian Zimerman Prize for best performance of a sonata (10 000 €) – Charles Richard-Hamelin
The new BMW 5 series is said to ‘resemble a prestigious music conductor wearing a tuxedo’.
But who?
Him?
(c) Creutziger
Him?
Her?
The enterprising Chicago violinist Rachel Barton Pine has acquired a 1732 Stradivarius violin for her Foundation, which loans out fine instruments to up-and-coming soloists.
The ‘Arkwright Lady Rebecca Sylvan’ Strad came to Rachel as a gift from retired New Mexico music professor Joseph Sylvan, who inherited it from his father.
Rachel herself plays a 1742 Guarnerius. Her foundation has helped more than 70 artists.
The Court of Appeal in Paris has banned the sale of Dmitri Chernyakov’s 2010 Munich production of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites.
The cae was brought by the Poulenc and Georges Bernanos heirs, who called the production ‘a betrayal’.
Now the BelAir label has been ordered to remove the video from sale.
Here’s the rotten news: Vandals have stolen the statue of the Cunning Little Vixen from the park in Hukvaldy where the opera’s composer was born (and caught his death of a cold).
The statue was made of bronze, and that has melt-down value.
The good news, Jan Hališka tells us from Hukvaldy, is that a replacement has been swiftly cast and will be erected in the park any day now.
‘The gorgeous mezzo soprano Patricia Kern … passed away yesterday,’ reports her former student, the Canadian bass-baritone Trevor Bowes.
Welsh born, Patricia was a star of Sadlers Wells in the 1960s, going on to appear at Covent Garden, Chicago and Washington DC before becoming an influential teacher in Toronto.
Patricia was 88. She was widely treasured and will be widely missed.
Her Lieder voice has an almost-vanished Ferrier timbre.
When Behzod Abduraimov turned up at Radio France last week to rehearse the third Prokofiev concerto, he found the piano inadequate – flat, colourless, no dynamic contrast. They promised him a replacement.
He came onto the concert stage, sat at the piano, put his hands on the keyboards and pressed down.
The same flat old piano.
What do do?
Behzod played on, signalling to the conductor, Vasily Petrenko, to tamp down the orchestra so that he could make himself heard.
Interesting review here by Bertrand Boissard (en francais).
We’ve had a message from Iva Návratová, artistic director at Trossingen, about why this happened 90 minutes before this weekend’s orchestral concert.
Ida writes:
The rostrum (additional stage) for the piano wasn’t solid enough. Apparently, the stage technicians have not extra strengthened the part of the stage, where the big and heavy Steinway came. One side tilted and of course no one could be able to keep the force of the moving piano….
We actually have not seen how this is happened. When we came, we saw already the result.
