Six different nationalities have made it to the final round, starting tomorrow:

Jaehong PARK (S. Korea)
Sara DANESHPOUR (USA)

Xiaoyu LIU (Canada)
Yevgeny YONTOV (Israel)
Szymon NEHRING (Poland)
Daniel Patrica CIOBANU (Romania)

MusicalToronto reports that two male danceers from the current Louis Riel production were violently attacked on the city streets during the night of May 1.

Colleagues are saying the attack may have been both homophobic and racist.

Read here.

The German soprano Agnes Giebel, whose career began late in 1947, quickly became a fixture with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Otto Klemperer and the Leipzig Thomanerchor with Günter Ramin.

Admired as a Bach recitalist of rare purity and precision, she also explored the music of Schoenberg, Hindemith and Henze and continued singing up to 1990.

The family today announced news of her death, in Cologne, on April 24.

Curtis Library has published Bernstein’s grade card for his second year at Curtis, 1940-41.

Besides conducting, his classes included piano with Isabella Vengerova, orchestration with Curtis director Randall Thompson, solfège with Renée Longy Miquelle, and form and counterpoint with Richard Stohr. Bernstein is reported to be the only one of Reiner’s students to receive an A in conducting.

Joseph Kovacs arrived in New Jersey in 1948 as a Hungarian refugee.

Having spent the war in northwest Germany, playing in various orchestras, he was quickly hired as concertmaster of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra by its conductor, fellow-Hungarian Nicholas Harsanyi.

He taught violin at Westminster Choir College and founded the Collegium Musicum of Princeton in 1972.

His wife Dorothy, a flute player, died in 2007.

Armando Cañizales was a viola player in an El Sistema youth orchestra.

On Tuesday, he exercised his civic right to demonstrate against a government that is destroying his country and killing its citizens.

A shot rang out.

AP reports:

On Wednesday, Armando Canizales, 17, was killed after being struck in the neck at a protest in a city east of Caracas. Video shows the young man in jeans and a black jacket being rushed by two men on a motorcycle to an ambulance as friends cried, “No, Armando!”

“A young man who had all his life ahead of him,” said Gerardo Blyde, the mayor of Baruta. “He was just fighting for a better country.”

First production pics from Vienna show a certain thickening around the middle. Obviously put on for the role.

Photo: Wiener Staatsoper/ Michael Pöhn

Report from the Venezuelan-born pianist, Gabriela Montero:

On Monday, Eduardo Mendez (Executive Director of El Sistema), “Cachorro” (Gustavo Dudamel’s right hand man) and other members of El Sistema, were photographed marching for Maduro’s regime.

Yesterday, Armando Cañizales, a 17 year-old musician from El Sistema in Caracas, was murdered by the very same regime these people were legitimising – and have propagandised for 18 years – just a few days ago. Armando was protesting with the overwhelming majority against the barbarism that is now Venezuela’s reality.

Barry Chan, a musician with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, flew to Vienna with his double bass for essential maintenance and repair. When the work was done, he flew home on British Airways, landing in Hong Kong on May 2. Here’s what Barry tells Slipped Disc.

‘I was shocked when I saw my instrument at the extra large luggage counter, total of six locks on the case were all opened with only one lock half broken but still trying to hold the case together. The case was opened, with lots of serious scratches, and I could see the powder of the case stick near the scratch which prove that it is new and obviously had a hard crush as few places the varnish had been cut away. The feet has gone, together with the botts behind the case are all gone, and the case can no longer be closed because of the deformation.

‘I report this immediately to the British Airways counter located between the baggage claim counter seven and eight and got reply from them that British Airways does not have to bear any responsibility on the damage caused and I can only ask the insurance company for further claiming procedure.

‘Inside the case, was a 150 year-old double-bass worth around $300,000, covered with a thick bag which can give the bass the highest protection. After I arrived home and tried it, I discovered a huge crack on the scroll which make the instrument no longer playable, a big repair is needed again. The scroll was original, made 150 years ago and kept very well until the day I came back. The only way cause this damage is to give an enormous force from the back of the head, at the same time I found the horrible scratch on the head of the case too, so I am so sure my double bass has been dropped onto a hard surface from a high position with the head pointing down.

‘It brought me so much trouble on handling it and huge loss from the repairment, time and instrument value while the broken place is at the most expensive place of the instrument.’

We have asked British Airways for a response.

Does anyone have further suggestions?

UPDATE: British Airways contacted Slipped Disc less than 40 minutes after we posted this report. We have put them in direct contact with Barry and hope for a positive outcome.

2nd UPDATE: Statement from British Airways:

Our colleagues take great care with our customers’ luggage, so we’re very sorry to hear about this. Our customer service team will be in contact with Mr Chan to help resolve his issue.

The transitioning tenor Rolando Villazon – more director these days than singer – has pulled out of this weekend’s Metropolitan Opera gala, effectively  signing off as one of the company’s frontline artists.

Villazon, 45, won’t be terribly missed.

Here’s the current list of participants in Sunday’s $950+ per ticket show:

Marco Armiliato
Piotr Beczała
Ben Bliss
Stephanie Blythe
Joseph Calleja
Javier Camarena
Dwayne Croft
Diana Damrau
David Daniels
Joyce DiDonato
Plácido Domingo
Yusif Eyvazov
Michael Fabiano
Renée Fleming
Juan Diego Flórez
Elīna Garanča
Susan Graham
Vittorio Grigolo
Günther Groissböck

Christopher Job
Mariusz Kwiecien
Isabel Leonard
James Levine
Željko Lučić
Angela Meade
Latonia Moore
James Morris
Anna Netrebko
Kristine Opolais
Eric Owens
René Pape
Matthew Polenzani
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Rolando Villazón
Michael Volle
Yunpeng Wang
Pretty Yende
Sonya Yoncheva
Dolora Zajick
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus

They had the Glyndebourne intendant Sebastian Schwarz on the Today programme this morning, explaining why the world needs another vocal competition.

He gave what amounts to three reasons.

1 They will be performing for a jury of intendants who are in a position to give them a job.

2 They are being asked to specialise – it’s Mozart only in the first year.

3 They will be on television.

Deconstructing these reasons from the bottom up.

3 The TV is Sky Arts which, at Eglish National Opera, drew a viewership so small it was literally immeasurable.

2 No intendant will back a singing career on the basis of a single Fach (unless it’s Wagner).

1 No intendant will (see above).

So what’s the point of the Glyndebourne Cup?

The elephant in the studio which no-one mentioned is the BBC’s Cardiff Singer of the World competition, which kicks off in six weeks’ time.

Cardiff is this country’s foremost singing contest. It is receiving a diminishing amount of BBC airtime.

Glyndebourne’s bee-keeping director may have spotted a hole in the hive.

After the three-year battle with cancer, Bernard Labadie has been announced today as principal conductor of the Orchestra of St Lukes from 2018-19, succeeding Pablo Heras-Casado.

Labadie recently stepped down from the head of Les Violons du Roy, which he founded. He has been replaced there by Jonathan Cohen.