The violinist tells Die Welt today that a $12 million lawsuit by his porn-star ex-girlfriend is ‘absurd’:
I am going public, because I am being forced to. I have no other choice. She has made private things public against my will and I feel that she is blackmailing me. Ashley and I, we had been together from October 2014, she lived in my apartment in New York, where we often lived together when I was in town. I separated from her in February 2016…
This all adds up to blackmail. I am constantly asking myself at the moment: What kind of woman is this who I was so much in love with?! And when she now adds a photo as proof, where you can see a bruise above her rib – well I am not the person who caused this bruise.
Read more here.
Alan Wilkinson, who founded Music in Country Churches in 1989, has died at the age of 86.
An English gentleman of the old school, unfailingly courteous and polite, and backed by a formidable knowledge of music and musicians, over 27 years he arranged an annual series of high class concert weekends in some of the finest English rural churches. Names such as Bartoli, te Kanawa, Brendel, Rostropovich, Zukerman, Perahia, Lang Lang, Marriner, Kissin, Pires and von Otter, together with equally fine orchestras and ensembles, were drawn in by Wilkinson’s charm and persistence, and ensured a loyal and knowledgeable audience, raising along the way well in excess of half a million pounds to support the upkeep of English rural churches. The series will continue, but English music has lost a unique and much-loved figure.
David Bernard reports:
In the Fall of 2009, while I was preparing for a concert with the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, I became intrigued with the use of the slow movement of Mozart’s D Minor piano concerto (K. 466) under the rolling credits at the end of the movie “Amadeus”.
Normally, the music used under closing credits is a montage of music used throughout the movie, but this case, I felt the use of the entire second movement through the credits was inspired. I wanted to know who chose this selection, and why.
So I tracked down Peter Shaffer (whose death was announced yesterday) and had a very nice phone call with him in early December 2009. Some highlights of the call:
– He chose every piece of music in the movie, except K. 466 under the credits. He thought Milos Foreman chose it, but did not know why.
– He was responsible for a key change in the “Amadeus” play. Shaffer felt that Salieri thinking everything by Mozart was wonderful and spectacular got boring. He changed the plot so that when Salieri sees the Requiem for the first time, he recognizes its greatness, but does not like it due to its dark and foreboding nature. According to Shaffer, for most of the movie, we are exploring the impact of Mozart on Salieri. With this change in the play, we are recognizing the impact of Salieri on Mozart.
– He absolutely loved the “little” G minor symphony (K. 183), which is why he chose it to open the movie. He called the “big” G minor symphony (K. 550) “annoying”.
UPDATE: Picture posted by LA Opera. A clue below.
I am saddened to share news of the death of Marianne Zeitlin, author, musician and devoted wife for 61 years to the refined violinist and teacher, Zvi Zeitlin.
Marianne was 90.
Here’s her reminiscence of working with the Stravinskys.
As Placido Domingo sang that line in the third act of last night’s revival of Verdi’s Nabucco at Covent Garden, few in the house failed to register the pathos.
Domingo is 75, still singing for all he’s worth.
Wherever he appears, there are critical mutterings in the media that he’s not a ‘real’ Verdi baritone, or that he shouldn’t be taking up stage space at his advanced age.
On the strength of last night’s performance – and it showed great strength – these cavils are irrelevant.
Domingo is a Lear-like Nabucco, capable of summoning a swell of sympathy even in megalomania and dementia. No matter whether he’s proclaiming himself God or stumbling around in search of his spear, his voice has more colours in its palette than the next three cast members put together and he has yielded nothing of his stage presence, his ability to dominate. Not having heard him sing live for two years, I found no distracting signs of decline.
The power is slightly dimmed and the body creaks a bit as it bends, but this is a great singer who carries on bearing the flame – not because he’s chasing money or acclaim but, in exemplary and traditional fashion, to convey what he knows to the next generation.
A member of the Vienna Philharmonic messaged yesterday that he’d not heard a false note from him in a week of work. Nor did I. The pitch is perfect and the projection supple. Never having been a Domingo groupie, I warm to him more as the clock goes on. I was greatly moved by Domingo’s Nabucco. Who can ask for more? And what courage to sing a line that channels total attention to his own senescence.
For the rest, Jamie Barton had mesmeric moments as Fenena and Liudmyla Monastryka was a chilling Abigaille. The chorus was outstanding and the orchestra slightly under-cooked; Maurizio Benini conducted.
Designer Alison Chitty and the costume department disgraced themselves with three shapeless overcoats for the leading characters.
photo: ROH/Catherine Ashmore
UPDATE: Critics persists in graceless pursuit, here.
The Orquesta de Valencia, one of the best in Spain, has consulted its musicians on whether to renew the contract of its Israeli music director, Yaron Traub.
The players voted 50-16 to let him go, with nine abstentions.
The decision, however, is not binding on the orchestra management.
A former Barenboim assistant Traub, 52, is son of the long-serving Israel Philharmonic concertmaster, Chaim Taub.
The Vienna State Opera has been shocked by the sudden death on Sunday night of Erich Wessner, 68, a career-long company member.
Erich joined the chorus in 1981 and was promoted to soloist ten years later.
He retired in 2008.
At a time when English National Opera is being pushed to the brink of extinction, it’s a bit upsetting to see that Covent Garden inflated its payroll last year to 1,057 people, a net increase of 33.
More discomfiting still, 19 of these people earned over £100,000.
That’s rich.
Looking at the staff list, everybody now seems to be a Head.
In the Audiences and Media department, there is a Director (Lucy Sinclair), a Head of ROH Media, a Head of Film and Broadcast, a Head of Publishing and Interpretation, a Head of online content.
In Press and Communications, there is a veteran Director (Chris Millard), a Head of press and communications, a Head of ballet press, a Head of opera press and various managers.
So many heads, so little media activity.
Independent analysis of the Royal Opera House accounts shows a huge wake hike for the music director. Sir Antonio Pappano was paid £737,424 in 2014/15.
This breaks down to salary of £104,186 plus conducting fees of £633,238.
An ROH spokesman said he conducted a lot more nights last year. How many nights is two-thirds of a million quid?
Other high earners were chief executive Alex Beard (£266,875) and Royal Opera director Kasper Holten, who made £235,183 in salary, plus £14,900 in fees.
Pappano, 56, has given sterling service to the ROH over 14 years a music director, but he needs to move on before he becomes part of the furniture. Vienna Opera is vacant and Munich comes up in 2020.
Although he grew up in the US, he has never hit it off with US orchs and opera houses. On the plus side, no opera music director after Levine is more trusted by the best singers.
He is also music director at Santa Cecilia in Rome.
UPDATE: ROH swells the payroll.
Keith Cerny, founder of the Hart Institute for Women Conductors at Dallas Opera, has published a sampling of the hopes, fears and prejudices he receives from candidates all over the world.
Examples:
– In Europe as a woman, you very seldom get the chance to show your proper abilities and talents in conducting. (Germany)
– In the Czech Republic, has not been professionally involved any female conductor so far.
– I have only been subject to discrimination at two particular moments in my career, and this was more likely due to my pregnancies. (US)
– I was the only female conductor in my country for ten years.(Israel)
More here.
The brilliant English playwright Peter Shaffer, author of Equus and Amadeus, has died in Ireland, aged 90.
His alternative life of Mozart, seen through the eyes of his bitter rival Antonio Salieri, completely overturned the public image of Mozart as a heaven-sent angel.
