You might think it has from this report on the academic website, The Conversation.
The headline reads: The Venezuelan government’s newest opponent is a state-funded orchestra
And the author, Yana Genchova Stainova, a post-doc at Dartmouth College, concludes: ‘Now, El Sistema musicians are defying their expected roles and summoning their musical skills to oppose the very government that funds them. Beyond fueling political action with creativity, the musical and social skills that these young people have acquired embody the human values that are fundamental to the creation of a new political community. The collective practice of making music is forging bonds of solidarity – trust, the ability to listen – in a fractured society.’
But Dr Stainova has no new information on which to base this conclusion, other than scattered press reports of isolated incidents. There has been no turnaround at El Sistema. As far as any objective assessment is possible, El Sistema and its local leaders are still right behind the oppressive Maduro regime.
But let’s not confuse academic thinking with actual facts.
This is a brilliant press release for Bregenz’s forthcoming Carmen.
Despite naming a host of irrelevant pop celebrities, it fails to mention who’s singing Carmen.
Read, and wonder.
UK: Wednesday 28th June 2017 – Event Cinema specialists CinemaLive are pleased to announce they are working in partnership with C-Major Entertainment to bring George Bizet’s Carmen on the Lake (Bregenz, Austria) to close to 300 cinemas in the UK on Thursday 14September.
This will be a uniquely staged spectacle under CinemaLive’s recently launched brand The World’s Most Spectacular Operas that showcases stunning operas from around the globe in cinemas, making them accessible to UK audiences.
Seebühne(or floating stage), with its 7,000 seat open-air amphitheatre, is the location for the French composers most successful opera. With a set designed by British artist Es Devlin, who has designed sets for stars such as Adele, U2, Take That and Kanye West, the stage sits on the water near the shores of the stunning Lake Constance in Austria. This romantic and dramatic setting regularly welcomes opera lovers from all over the world, where the productions are extravagantly original and innovative and frequently use the waters of the lake as an extension of the stage.
For stage director Kasper Holten, the former Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, this “opera about destiny and obsession” centres on “two people who are treated as outsiders, whose paths cross and who cling to each other in a passionate but unhealthy relationship.”
Georges Bizet’s captivating music, with its instantly recognisable Spanish sounds is known to one and all. Music directors Paolo Carignani and Jordan de Souza will lead the musical direction of this production, with the Bregenz Festival Chorus and Prague Philharmonic Choir accompanied by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
For the past 5 years, CinemaLive have distributed Opera Australia’s Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour productions to cinema audiences in the UK & Ireland. These productions have now been seen by over 75,000 people on the big screen. Productions have included Madama Butterfly, Turandot and Aida (which in 2015 broke the UK & Irish box office record to become the highest grossing recorded opera of all time).
Close to 300 cinemas across the UK will screen Carmen on the Lake captured in Bregenz, Austria on Thursday 14 September. For participating cinemas visit www.cinemalive.com
photo: Bregenzer Festspiele / Dietmar Mathis
UPDATE: Five days later, full casting has been announced:
Carmen
Gaëlle Arquez
Don José
Daniel Johansson
Escamillo
Scott Hendricks
Micaëla
Elena Tsallagova
Frasquita
Jana Baumeister
Mercédès
Marion Lebègue
Zuniga
Sebastien Soulès
Moralès
Rafael Fingerlos
Remendado
Simeon Esper
Dancaïre
Dariusz Perczak
Nicola Benedetti has told CBC Radio that the pressure to produce younger audiences has gone too far.
The Scottish violinist, 29, is quoted as saying:
‘One thing is to criticise the audience for being old, as if that’s negative. I can;t believe how terrible that is and how offensive it is to categorise a group in that way and to encourage a generation gap.’
Libby Abrahams, one of a cluster of boutique agents who fled a crumbling IMG, has signed a very young British conductor Ben Glassberg.
Ben, who is about 23, is assistant conductor at Glyndebourne this summer and founder of the London Young Sinfonia.
Libby’s other artists include Teodor Currentzis, Tomas Hanus and Helene Grimaud.
King Carl Gustav and Queen Silvia of Sweden will attend the festival for the first time, it has been announced.
They will attend the first night of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, directed by Barrie Kosky, conducted by Philippe Jordan.
The death has been announced of his author, Michael Bond, aged 91, yesterday in London.
Here’s his theme tune.
In what our local orchestra says is ‘an unusual move’, the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla has added the title of chief executive officer to John Axelrod’s role as music director.
The decision has been approved by the Spanish city in the hope that the conductor, a Harvard grad, will find ways of raising private and corporate funds to dig the company out of a deep black hole.
