And is she really three years old, as stated?

3-year-old-playing-piano

Could Lang Lang play like that at 3?

The roof of the Opéra de Saint-Etienne was so badly damaged in the current Atlantic storms that tonight’s performance of Norma has been called off.

It’s by no means clear when normal service will be resumed.

Norma featured Clara Polito, Judith Gautier and Jean-Noël Briend, conducted by José Luis Domínguez Mondrágon in Stéphane Braunschweig’s production.

 

La tempête autour de l'Opéra-théâtre n'est pas terminée

Euphonia Studio is about to use its opera cast in three stage plays. Interesting idea.

Cheaper, too.

Press release:

Opera Company Goes Straight!

Challenging the commonly-held assumption that opera singers can’t act, Euphonia Studio attempts to prove to the contrary in a highly entertaining triple-bill of short plays by Anton Chekhov. 

Updated to a modern-day, north-of-England setting, The Proposal, On the Evils of Tobacco and The Bear feature a cast of young opera singers – Edward Jowle, Sophie Dicks and Hannah Jane Peel – using their voices in a completely different way to usual…without singing a note! 

Adapted and directed by Euphonia Studio Artistic Director Alisdair Kitchen, the production is playing in London from December 6th-10th at The Drayton Arms Theatre, and travels to Rye, East Sussex for a one-off performance in association with the Rye Arts Festival.

The London run also includes free entry to an exhibition of sculpture by legendary director Sir Jonathan Miller, drawing by the extraordinary twin-artists The Lake Twins, and work by Alisdair Kitchen inspired by Euphonia Studio’s recent production of The Turn Of The Screw.

More info here.

euphonia

The Metropolitan Opera is bringing out a box set of its first season as Lincoln Center – 1966/67, if you were around.

It’s an uncalculated risk.

Some opera lovers may not think much has improved in 50 years.

met-box

The set contains 10 complete performances, including the world premiere of Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra; Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli in Turandot; Joan Sutherland as Lucia di Lammermoor; Jon Vickers as Peter Grimes; Die Frau Ohne Schatten, led by Karl Böhm, with Leonie Rysanek and Christa Ludwig; Aida, with Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merrill, and Grace Bumbry; Otello, with Montserrat Caballé, James McCracken, and Tito Gobbi; Renata Scotto as Madama Butterfly; Rigoletto with Cornell MacNeil; and Marc Chagall’s production of Die Zauberflöte with Roberta Peters and George Shirley.

 

Less famous than Pierre Henry or Pierre Schaeffer, Jean-Claude Risset who died yesterday in Marseille worked at the Bell Labs in the early 1960s creating electronic simulation of brass instrument sounds.

His inventions, demonstrated below, were adopted extensively.

Risset was 78.

jean-claude-risset

Vasily Petrenko, music director of the Royal Liverpool Phil since 2006 and an occasional columnist in the Anfield football programme, will receive an honorary citizenship tomorrow.

Vasily says: ‘I’m deeply honoured to receive this recognition from the city which my family and I have made our home.  I have always known Liverpool to be one of the world’s great music cities, and since coming here in 2006, I’ve experienced first-hand the great passion for music that is at its heart.

‘I would like to offer my thanks to the city, Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson and his colleagues, our audiences and supporters.  They continue to believe in and support Liverpool Philharmonic’s vision to be one of the world’s great music-making organisations, deeply rooted in our city, and an ambassador for Liverpool as a great place to live, work, study and invest in.’

petrenko gold jacket

He looks pleased.

 

The New York Youth Symphony (est. 1964) has a distinguished roll of past music directors and alumni.

They include: Leonard Slatkin (Detroit SO), Myung-Whun Chung (Tokyo Philharmonic), David Alan Miller (Albany SO), Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Fort Worth), Marin Alsop (Baltimore), Cho-Liang Lin (Soloist), Gary Levinson (Dallas Symphony), Michael Tiscione (Atlanta Symphony), Lawrence Dutton (Emerson Quartet), Kenneth Mirkin (New York Philharmonic), Joel Smirnoff (Juilliard String Quartet), Fred Zlotkin (NY City Ballet), and Pedro Diaz (Metropolitan Opera Orchestra).

The new music director is Michael Repper, a Peabody graduate who succeeds Joshua Gersen.

No pressure.

 

 

michael-repper

We regret to report the death at the weekend of Alix Bourbon, a livewire in French music.

She founded the Alix Bourbon vocal ensemble and the Groupe Vocal de Toulouse, working closely with Michel Plasson and the city orchestra.

alix-bourbon

It’s linked to a tour, with an eye to post-Brexit.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has launched a Chinese-language website to coincide with its forthcoming tour to China at the end of December 2016.

www.thecbso.cn has been specifically designed for Chinese audiences to provide information about the Orchestra’s history, the tour dates and an introduction to Birmingham in both Chinese and English.

Digital consultancy Tiger Creative, the CBSO’s newest strategic partner, delivered the development and technical China infrastructure for www.thecbso.cn as strategic support for the tour and as a base to grow CBSO brand recognition in China.

Tiger Creative specialises in insight, digital technologies and mainland China infrastructure, and supplied translation support and strategic direction on the tailoring of the new CBSO website for the Chinese market.

The CBSO will tour to China for the first time in the orchestra’s history in December 2016. The tour will start with two concerts on Friday 30 and Saturday 31 December 2016 at the Opera House in Guangzhou, twin city to the orchestra’s home of Birmingham in the UK. The orchestra will then visit Changsha Concert Hall for its New Year’s Day concert on Sunday 1 January 2017, followed by a performance at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on Tuesday 3 January and a final concert in China’s capital Beijing at the National Centre for Performing Arts on Thursday 5 January. Leading the CBSO as conductor for this historic tour will be Vassily Sinaisky, and the renowned violinist James Ehnes will join as the soloist.

 

Mirga_Grazinyte_Tyla-hair

The two sides are talking again in Pittsburgh and we hear a deal may be near.

This morning, the musicians called off their picket.

pittsburgh-strike

CANCELLATION – Cecilia Bartoli’s concert at the Barbican 25 November 2016

 

We are very sorry to inform you that Cecilia Bartoli’s concert on Friday 25 November in the Barbican Hall has been cancelled.

 

A spokesperson for Cecilia Bartoli said:

 

“We regret that Cecilia Bartoli is suffering from a heavy cold, and is deeply sorry that she has to cancel this concert.”

 

Full refunds will be offered to ticket holders.

bartoli as maria

The Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena was awarded the Premio Nacional de Musica last night in Madrid.

It’s worth 30,000 Euros.

Before the award touched his hands, he announced that he was giving it away to primary music education.

‘I had lessons when I was seven,’ said Juanjo. ‘If I became a prestigious music director, it is because money was invested from below.’

El dinero lo destinaré a la enseñanza de música a tempranas edades, como se hizo conmigo cuando tenía siete años de manera altruista. Ahora todo el mundo se puede vanagloriar de un director de orquesta prestigioso, pero todo viene porque hay que invertir desde abajo.

More here.

juanjo-mena

Juanjo Mena, 51, is chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cincinnati May Festival.