We reported earlier this week that Martha Argerich is replacing the Italian pianist at Aix.

Apparently, he has suffered a nasty fall and will be out of action for at least a month.

Nadine Sierra, 28, tonight won the 2017 Richard Tucker Award, which carries a $50,000 cash prize and buckets of prestige.

She has already won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Marilyn Horne Competition. She is presently singing Lucia di Lammemoor in Venice.


photo: Merri Cyr

Manfred Jung died in Essen on April 14 at the age of 76.

Hired by Hervert von Karajan for the 1975 Salzburg Easter Festival, he sang Siegfried in Götterdämmerung in Bayreuth’s centennial Ring, and went on to appear on many world stages.

We’re hearing that Alexander Markovic has resigned from Opera North.

He was appointed in February last year and started work, very promisingly this season.

Here’s what the company is saying:

Richard Mantle, General Director of Opera North, has announced that he has today accepted the resignation of Aleksandar Markovic as the Company’s Music Director. Mr Markovic will formally leave Opera North at the end of his first year in July 2017.

Mr Markovic is currently on extended leave and it has been mutually agreed that he will not return to the Company for the remainder of the season.

 

 

The American violinist Jennifer Koh speaks movingly about growing up as the child of North Korean refugees in rural Illinois. ‘It was not fun to have eggs cracked into my hair every morning on the bus. I used to get beat up by other kids in my school, all the time.’

Jennifer began to understand her parents through reading post-Holocaust literature. ‘My Mom started her life begging for food at the side of the road.’

She speaks with remarkable candour in this new interview with Zsolt Bognar, brought to you exclusively by Slipped Disc.

They are the most put-upon, misunderstood, undervalued, empathetic and altogether quintessential members of the operatic ecology. So why don’t we try harder to be nice to sopranos?

Think what they have to put up with. Click here for the 16 stations of the soprano world.

Artem Kolesov, first violinist of the Chicago-based Yas Quartet, has been outraged by reports of gay oppression in Chechnya. So he decided to publish a video testament on being young, Russian and gay.

Artem, 23, has addressed his statement in Russian (with English subtitles) to his homeland, aware that in doing so he could face penalties if ever he returns.

This brave, heartfelt, sometimes tearful confession is compelling viewing. It is as much about being Russian in the 21st century as it is about being gay.

Watch.

Robin Ticciati sicked out of last night’s Eugene Onegin.

 

He was subbed by staff conductor,  Joel Revzen.

 

His Russian National Orchestra gave him the big 60th birthday greeting in Bogota, Colombia, a few hours ago. But the Russian pianist and conductor did not show a trace of emotion or recognition.

Does he know the tune? Is he playing poker?

The violinist Nicola Benedetti has told an online chat session that she is no longer together with the cellist Leonard Elschenbroich after a ten-year relationship.

The pair became friends as teenaged fellow-pupils at the Yehudi Menuhin School.

 

They are still touring together. We wish them both well.

 

We are used to others covering for Martha’s occasional cancellations, but this substitution may be unprecedented.

She has agreed, at three days’ notice, to take over for an unwell Maurizio Pollini at Renaud Capucon’s Easter festival in Aix-en-Provence.

Incroyable…