The English soprano Louise Alder has won round three of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
She joins Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar and Anthony Clark Evans in Sunday’s final.
We are indebted to the soprano Katherine Cooper for an introduction to this unexpectedly challenging series.
Since there is no repertoire specified on the cover, we assume it must be Infidelio.
Do not miss, in the same series, Making Out to Mozart.
With a magic flute, presumably.
Daniel Harding has pulled out of The Rake’s Progress this summer at Aix-en-Provence with a wrist injury.
The Norwegian Eivind Gullberg Jensen steps in.
Harding’s is the seventh major cancellation this week.
The orchestra is putting on the premiere of Andrew Norman’s children’s opera, A Trip to the Moon.
It involves vocal soloists, some young instrumentalists and a mixed adults and children’s choir. There will also be a Youth Choir. Half of this choir is made up of refugees who arrived in Germany, mostly from the Middle East.
Welcome to Berlin.
(c) Monika Rittershaus/Berlin Phil
Not a month goes by without the music director of one little-known North American orchestra taking the same post at another, and arranging to commute between them.
This is a common occurrence.
Less common nowadays is the phenomenon of a leading conductor holding several jobs in different countries. Herbert von Karajan held the record in the 1950s with five – Vienna State Opera, Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, La Scala (German rep) and the Salzburg Festival.
One current champion, we think, works in triplicate. That would be Jonathan Nott at Geneva, and Tokyo and Junge Deutsche Philharmonie (he has given up Bamberg).
Can anyone beat that?
Well, there’s Rossen Milanov with four, or possibly five.
Any other busy batons out there?
press release:
Bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel will replace baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Saturday, August 26, opera gala program at Tanglewood. Led by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons, the program will feature Sir Bryn, soprano Kristine Opolais, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in an evening of opera and song. Further program details will be announced at a later date. Mr. Hvorostovsky withdrew from the concert in May for reasons of health.
The National Opera of Lithuania has received a letter from Gianluca Marciano, announcing his decision to boycott the company following the dismissal of its general director on corruption charges.
Marciano a popular guest at the theatre said the dismissal of Gintautas Kėvišas was a horrible mistake and a great loss to Lithuanian music. He wrote: ‘Jealousy and politically motivated acts should not affect culture. Kėvišas brought to the Lithuanian audience wonderful orchestras and soloists, won himself recognition by highest professionalism. It is a shame this is not understood by his country’s government.’
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has just announced its new president.
He is Jonathan Martin, President & CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2012. They won’t like that in Texas.
In today’s LA Times, John Rockwell tells of his struggles to bring Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar to the stage and his excitement that the LA Phil are about to perform it, ahead of Harrison’s centenary.
Heartfelt “Young Caesar” may have been, but a success it was not. It has suffered a long, tortured history. I reviewed its premiere at Caltech for the Los Angeles Times in 1971. Then it was a chamber opera for five players of mostly Asian or Asian-inspired instruments, plus the rod-and-stick and shadow puppets, singers and a narrator. I praised the considerable beauties of its instrumental music and set pieces but complained about the protracted recitatives, the “long, arid patches of spoken narration” and the “precious, self-indulgent libretto by Robert Gordon.” I concluded by grumping about “pervasive, embarrassing ennui.”
There was a subsequent performance in San Francisco, but Harrison and Gordon recognized the need for improvements. In 1987, the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus in Oregon commissioned a new version (with assistance from another beloved Californian, the patron Betty Freeman). Harrison added choruses, eliminated the puppets and revised the orchestration for Western (albeit equal-tempered) instruments.
Read on here.
The Chinese pianist, still suffering from an arm injury, has cancelled upcoming concerts in London and Munich.
The LSO has flown in Leeds winner Denis Kozhukhin in a like-for-like substitution in Bartók’s second Piano Concerto.
Bavarian Radio, more daring by half, has called in the showman percussionist Martin Grubinger for an evening of bang-bang.
Lang Lang is 35 today.
A journalist has found 20 close similarities to the SparkNotes crib site on Moby Dick.
Maybe it wasn’t Bob that copied it. Maybe one of his staff…
The Russian pianist Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev, grandson of the formidable, Tatiana Nikolaeva – has signed to Decca Classics in partnership with Universal Music Australia.
His first album, titled ‘Moments Musicaux’, will include two Études by Tatiana Nikolaeva.
He doesn’t look much like his Gran.
