From the running blog of an anonymous American opera singer in Europe:

My male friends have also constantly relayed endless stories about working with directors that feel that because they are out of the closet that they can say any filthy thing they like to the new counter tenor.

“He says I’m gay and I don’t know it, he keeps touching me and whispering filthy things in my ear.”

If I was a mechanic, I could point to how fast I could change someone’s oil, or as a lawyer: a conviction rate.  But for us musicians, it’s just up to someone’s “idea” of what they think a role should sound like.  Even when you seemingly have the facts on your side.  (I’ll list some of these facts a little later to demonstrate my point.)

Read on here.

robot berlin

Two mezzos discuss roles. Both believe in a religion of hard work.

Joyce thinks it can also be fun. Dame Janet stares her down.

Wonderful conversation.

didonato janet baker

Anja Kampe, Kirill Petrenko’s (former) partner (pic), has pulled out of Verbier ‘for family reasons’.

That’s a blow.

Until the great Swede comes off the bench to take on the August 4 Wagner concert.

 

KAMPE-Anja-2009---WEB

UCLA psychiatrist and composer Dr. Kenneth Wells says:

‘I always wondered why there were so many stories of people going mad and killing themselves. Why couldn’t someone tell a powerful, compelling and entertaining story that lifts us up and gives us hope?’

Read on here.

shrink opera

From the Melbourne Herald Sun:

OPERA and pole dancing will make an unlikely match in a contemporary take on the classic La Traviata to be performed at table top dancing venue The Men’s Gallery from Saturday.

Award winning Opera Australia director Julie Edwardson says taking the classic tale out of the theatre and presenting the story in a real-life contemporary setting should appeal to a broader audience….

As part of the mission to engage a new and younger audience to experience opera the shows are free to under 25’s.

opera pole dancer

Desperate? It’s full-frontal opera fail.

 

photo: Ian Currie

What tune was on the departing PM’s mind? All can now be revealed.

It’s Gone with the Wind.

Apparently.

According to the FT: ‘Effective payment rate from online video site halves to $0.001 per stream in 2015’.

Youtube is owned by Google.

Google steals the world.

youtubesorry

The pianist ‘for the rest of our lives’ has announced his engagement on social media.

trifonov engaged

Daniil Trifonov’s message reads: With Judith, celebrating our engagement in my favorite Russian restaurant in New York ❤️

 

It’s on Thursday, if you’re free.dallas singalong1

press release:

Dallas – The community is invited to join together at a free concert of uplifting and healing music on Thursday, July 14th at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora Street in Dallas. The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. and last approximately 90 minutes.

The Dallas performance community hopes to aid the healing process by offering a place for our city to unite in song. Led by Credo, a Dallas-based community choir, and in partnership with the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, DALLAS SINGS / DALLAS STRONG is a musical response to the tragedy that occurred on July 7th. Why hold such a concert? Leonard Bernstein said, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

Singers from all over the Dallas-Fort Worth area will participate in a massed choir performance. “We have invited members of every church, synagogue, and community choir in the Metroplex to join us not only in singing out against violence, but also to sing out for peace, love, and unity. The Dallas Police Choir has also been extended an invitation to perform.” Says Jonathan Palant, founder and director of Credo. “Already, we know of singers from Credo Choir, the Dallas Symphony Chorus, Turtle Creek Chorale, Dallas Independent School District, Cathedral of Hope, The Women’s Chorus of Dallas, Temple Shalom, and from many churches who plan to join this massed choir.” Palant continues, “We cannot sit idly by hoping change will come while doing nothing. We have been given a voice and we are going to use it.”

Due to the nature of this event and the short planning time available, not all performers have been finalized, but the current roster includes appearances by local opera star Ava Pine and Dallas favorites Denise Lee, Paul Mason, and Liz Mikel. Several speakers, both religious and lay leaders, will offer thoughts and words of encouragement.

Anyone wishing to sing in the massed choir is asked to enter the Meyerson Symphony Center through the glass doors on Flora Street by 5:30 p.m. and follow signage toward the stage. There is no pre-registration. Sheet music will be distributed at the start of rehearsal. There is no charge to sing and all singers are welcome. Attire for performers is business casual.

United Way of Metropolitan Dallas has established a dedicated relief fund to provide supportive services, including mental health resources for victims and families of both first responders and civilians who were involved in the tragic shootings on July 7. United Way is committed to helping long term through the difficult time ahead, and will work with service providers and corporate and civic leaders to help with the healing. Please consider making a donation today. UnitedWayDallas.org

dallas singalong

 

The German government paid 20 million Euros for the conductor’s new Middle East  project in Berlin.

Culture minister Monika Grütters (below) has now committed to pay 5.5 million Euros a year for running costs.

Up to 100 Arab and Israeli students are expected to enrol.

The chamber music concert hall is a mini-marvel, designed by Frank Gehry and with acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota.

 

barenboim-said-gruetters

The crabby Uwe Eric Laufenberg has been complaining about his new conductor, Hartmut Haenchen, hastily summoned to the relief of Parsifal after Andris Nelsons walked out.

Hanechen, he says, is more of a precisionist in the Boulez mould than an imaginative artist like Nelsons. He also brought his own orchestral parts, which proved ‘irritating’ at first.

‘It’s very different from Nelsons.’

laufenberg

Cheerfully giving up hs job the British prime minster was clearly heard humming a little theme as he walked through his front door at 10 Downing Street.

But which theme?

Could it be the opening of Shostakovich’s first violin concerto?

UPDATE: here’s another clue.