Michael Shmith, a star of The Age newspaper in Melbourne for 36 years, has resigned as its opera critic because the paper no longer allocates space to the art form.

Michael writes:

In early August, I resigned as The Age’s opera critic. I didn’t particularly want to do so, and my decision was neither pre-emptory nor forced upon me. I left because of the sad but inevitable realisation that The Age’s arts page no longer truly represented or upheld the critical standards that were once imperative to its existence and whose values remain of vital concern to me. And when I say ‘me’, I mean, by default, the artform I had the privilege to review.

Opera is but one of the many artforms under review in The Age(that proud title long ago consumed in the swirling smog of something called Fairfax Media). But arts space has shrunk to the point where there is often just the one page Monday to Friday, with no page on Saturday, and an inordinate amount of copy to run. If you equate the exponential with the extant – the ever-increasing number of performances, exhibitions, and other cultural events in this city juxtaposed with the dwindling budgets (particularly for freelance writers) and forever-shrinking space available in which to publish reviews – it is easy to see how the arts editor’s role has metamorphosed from being able to exercise reasonable judgement in what to run to more drastic, slash-and-burn decision-making.

So it came to pass with opera reviewing for The Age.

On a personal note, I remember when Michael, as arts editor of The Age, used to publish my columns from the northern hemisphere because he believed – rightly, at the time – that Melburnians needed and wanted to know what was going on in the world beyond their horizons. My mailbag was full of intelligent responses. The Age was a serious paper with a serious purpose. No longer, it seems.

It may come as a surprise, but it’s not Christian Thielemann, the present music director who has appeared 150 times in programme books, including credits in 1981-83 as Daniel Barenboim’s musical assistant.

Actually, Barenboim has conducted there more than anyone – 160 times, according to Bayreuth records.

Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the 2015 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, has abruptly switched US agencies from factory agency Opus 3 to sole trader Charlotte Lee at Primo Artists.

No reason has been given – none ever is – but Cho is one of the more thoughtful artists on the piano stool and he won’t have taken the decision lightly.

Charlotte Lee looks after just five other artists: Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell and Nicola Benedetti; pianist Beatrice Rana and conductor Cristian Măcelaru.

Cho said: ‘I am very excited to join the roster of Primo Artists who represent many of the most distinguished artists in classical music. I’m really looking forward to working closely with Charlotte Lee and to our new collaboration!’

Eleanor Stubley, the McGill University musicologist who has been missing for a week, was found lifeless last night in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest neighbourhood.

Police said there was nothing to indicate she was the victim of a crime.

Stubley, 57, associate dean of Graduate Studies at McGill’s Schulich School of Music, was confined to a wheelchair as a result of multiple sclerosis.

She had just begun a sabbatical on July 1.

In memoriam Bruce Zemsky.

Nino Machaidze:

11 beautiful years together 💖 Not only my wonderful manager, but my sweet friend, incredibly special person, part of my family and part of my life 💖 This was Bruce for me 💖😔 The person that believed in me from the very first moment, person that has been with me in every important moment of my career and my life, the person that together with Alan always protected and supported me in every step of my career, the person with whom we could just talk about life and about funny things for hours, the person that did for me soo much and has been for me like second father 💖It’s exactly how he was calling me “Mia adorata figlia” 💖😔 We had special relationship and I still can’t believe i will never hear his voice anymore and will never meet him anymore 😔 I cried for whole day 😔 I have been and will always grateful that life gived me the possibility to meet Bruce Zemskyand i will always grateful for everything he did for me 💖 You will always in my heart and in my mind Bruce 💖😔 We will miss you 💖😔

Rolando Villazon:

Bruce Zemsky, my first agent to whom I owe so much, has passed away. I will always remember his smile, the warmth of his heart and his love for opera and voices. His time on earth was fruitful. He will always be loved and missed. Thank you always, my dear Bruce.

Jonas Kaufmann:

After a short serious illness, my manager and friend Bruce Zemsky left us. Together with his business partner, Alan Green, Bruce has been closely involved with me since the beginning of 2001 and has contributed significantly to my career. The Australian Opera Company will devote today’s performance of “Parsifal” to Bruce Zemsky.
Jonas Kaufmann.

Nach kurzer schwerer Krankheit ist mein Manager und Freund Bruce Zemsky von uns gegangen. Zusammen mit seinem Geschäftspartner Alan Green war Bruce seit Anfang 2001 eng mit mir verbunden und hat maßgeblich zu meiner Karriere beigetragen. Die Australian Opera Company wird die heutige Aufführung des “Parsifal” Bruce Zemskywidmen.
Jonas Kaufmann

Anita Rachvelishvili:

I miss you! I miss you terribly! Bruce Zemsky was an amazing human being and a good friend!
R.I.P my dearest Bruce! I miss you so much!
Ciao mio caro! Ti voglio tanto bene ❤️

Nelly Miricioiu

In my life I have few people that hold a special place in my heart. Bruce Zemsky was such a person who I loved both for his warmth and our shared passion for music!
We lost a very special friend!
Bruce together with Alan Green heard me in Europe and that moment was the beginning of a special friendship and my career in USA!
They understood my artistry and support me both as an artist and as a friend
It’s a sad day for me as I know it will be for many other artists and colleagues!!
Bruce dedicated his life to music and people!
He left too early,he was only 62 years old!
Rest in pace dear Bruce and thank you

Massimo Giordano

It was very sad to hear of the death of my friend and agent Bruce Zemsky. He was the one who, with Alan Green, stood by me during the very difficult moments of my career.
Thank you Bruce, may God help you find happiness and peace. You will be missed!

Hibla Gerzmava

It was very sad to hear of the death of my friend and agent Bruce Zemsky. He was the one who, with Alan Green, stood by me during the very difficult moments of my career.
Thank you Bruce, may God help you find happiness and peace. You will be missed!

Ramon Vargas

Con profunda tristeza he recibido la noticia del fallecimiento de Bruce. Después de casi 25 años de colaboración nos decimos adiós. Bruce era un trabajador incansable, amaba las voces y a los artistas. ¡Que descanse en paz! Un abrazo en donde estés Bruchito…

Ramón y familia

Alfredo Daza:

When I was around 22 years old, I met a man, that offered me to be my agent.. I will never forget our first travels and your artistic even sometimes economical help in those first years.. Rest In Peace dear “papa gringo” #BruceZemsky , thank you for believing in me..

Kyle Pfortmiller:

I’ve been broken-hearted since I received the news about the death ofBruce Zemsky. He and Alan Green have meant so much to me since 2003. I feel as if any tribute I try to pay to his kindness and heart and passion toward the art form and towards singers will be feeble and pale. So, instead, two quick stories of why I will miss him and why he means so much to me.
Story 1:

I would often joke after an audition that if things didn’t go well, I could become a garbage collector (a long time inside joke with a HS friend). I’d say they had great comp and benefits and a strong union. The last time I said that – over a decade ago – Bruce stopped me in my tracks and said, “What? Kyle, don’t joke about not being in this business. Now get in the cab. It is about to rain. We can talk on the way to the office.” Still makes me smile.

From the Rome-based composer Rodrigo Ruiz:

I feel completely heartbroken, sad, angry, outraged, and abused. I’m in Bayreuth with Kerenza (Peacock), her dad and my family. We came here to experience one of Wagner’s most incredible achievements: The Ring Cycle. What we have gotten so far is a new surrealist, nonsense play by Frank Castorf with incidental music by Richard Wagner.

More than anyone else before him, and possibly also after him, Wagner wrote and lived by this philosophy: music and drama are both inseparable things. In fact, he coined the term Gesamtkunstwerk, meaning “complete work of art”, to describe the inseparable relation between all the different art forms that make opera what it is. In an opera, the plot, the text, and the music are all part of a single whole. Those are things that are set, and that can’t be changed. Period. There are plenty of things that can be interpreted within that frame to make extraordinary new, fresh and compelling productions. If pianists for the past 200 years have found enough freedom within the music notation in Beethoven’s piano sonatas to produce a myriad different original, fresh and exciting interpretations, how much more freedom could a director find when there are costumes, makeup, wigs, props, sets, lighting, psychology of the character, and much more to deal with? Maybe it’s just easier to come up with random nonsense, cash in on their check and go home than to spend the kind of time a musician spends honestly and humbly studying the masterworks with a sense of awe and gratitude to be able to interpret them. In the current state of things, it almost seems like the music establishment wants us to feel grateful they’ve left us the music.

I won’t go into detail about all the absurd things the director came up with; it would take several encyclopaedic volumes to do that, and we’ve all seen the worst of Regietheater in stages all over the world. Here we’ve had a master class on it. But, as if the desecration of the work wasn’t enough, I’ve been shocked by the things the artists, both men and women, have gone through. In this production we’ve seen them in barely-there underwear, inappropriately touched and kissed, beaten, tied to a rope by their neck, undressed, mimicking fellatio and sex, women dressed and treated as prostitutes, cameramen taking up-skirt shots of women artists shown live on an on-stage screen, and even two inflatable crocodiles having intercourse. Most artists I’ve spoken to are unsurprisingly not willing to do any of these things on stage, but since directors always find someone else that is willing to sell out, they end up running themselves out of a job. They are forced, then, to accept anything and everything just in order to get food on their table and pay the rent.

What can we do? Honestly, I don’t know. All I could think of was not clapping, making eye-mask wearing a new form of protest by the audience (which I will try out tomorrow in Götterdämmerung), and creating awareness through social media. I’m truly saddened by all of this, and I feel very powerless to do anything. If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Wagner’s reactions to some of the things happening to his operas on stage during his lifetime are better summed up in his own words: “Having created the invisible orchestra, I now feel like inventing the invisible theatre!” Today, I truly wished he had.

From Kerenza Peacock, British violinist:

It breaks my heart that I could not applaud the performers at the end of tonight’s opera. I have come on a once-in-a-lifetime expensive trip to Bayreuth to watch Wagner’s Ring Cycle. For over a century, music lovers have come here as a pilgrimage. What made it even more special was that I was able to bring my Dad, and it truly was a pilgrimage for us. He doesn’t like flying so we travelled by train for 11 hours from England. The music is divine. The production is anything but. I am truly open to innovation in production and set design; fresh ideas, minimalism, embracing new technology. But what we have been faced with has disturbed me.

I have never complained publicly about any performance, and I never thought I would be writing a “Disgusted from Ipswich” type message, but I actually feel the need to speak out. I used to say I didn’t like opera when I was younger. But I set out to actually study it in an effort to understand it, instead of just dismissing it. And I have come to a deep appreciation and love of Wagner. I believe he is giving important spiritual teachings within his operas, and layers and layers of meanings. Whoever made this production clearly has barely read the libretto, let alone contemplated its deeper meanings. I came here in search of beauty. What we were confronted with was ugly on every level, a cheap Motel scene, a stage crammed full of every possible device to distract from the beautiful music and libretto. Lust and greed displayed every second, distracting from the virtues being described in the music. Giant faces of Chairman Mao and Lenin (WHY?) and lewd sex acts. The character that represents the Divine Mother forced to strip and seduce. And all this ugly rubbish made the plot make NO SENSE. It ruined the story; vital props like the sword were not where they were supposed to be, characters were talking to someone who was off stage, extra characters or noisy props were on stage. There were endless distracting TV screens. I want to ask the producers, ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO THE MUSIC??? Why do you think anything needs to be added to Wagner’s tale of love and virtue? If I wanted to see all that I would have just watched a cheap soap opera. The beautiful duet at the end of the 3rd opera was ruined because the singers were surrounded by moving plastic inflatable crocodiles, that would have fitted in a pantomime in Milton Keynes circa 1972.

I covered my eyes with my hands and just listened. And why did I choose not to clap the singers? I have wrestled with this a lot, but have decided we have to speak up as artists. I have many times been asked to do or wear something inappropriate in a performance. We have to speak up against the system that is bullying us (especially female performers) into doing things we are uncomfortable with. The argument is that there are always performers willing to take your place. But when we have studied hard from a young age these master composers, why cheapen their (and our) efforts by our fear? By agreeing to take part, these performers are accomplices in this damaging production. A score of such incredible beauty demands our respect and our care. When a new baby is born, we acknowledge it is miraculous and we take care to surround it with love and light, softness and purity. We would never dream of exposing it to the ugliness I witnessed on stage tonight. Should we not nurture our precious and rare masterpieces the same way?

The faithless ban on musicians by St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate, the National Musicians’ Church, reported last week exclusively by Slipped Disc, has resulted in an online petition to persuade the church to reverse its decision.

You can sign the petition here.

‘Our ministry as the National Musicians Church continues to be a core part of our Church’s identity and vision,’ proclaims the Reverend David Ingall, even as he breaks faith with the musicians of London.

Time to get the Archbishop of Canterbury involved.

ORF reports a 17 percent market share for this weekend’s TV screening of Aida from Salzburg with Anna Netrebko in the title role.

An estimated 473,000 viewers tuned in from the outset, this highest rating since Salzburg’s Bohème 2012, with Netrebko as Mimi.

The Putin regime has upped the pressure on director Kirill Serebrennikov by refusing to return his passport while pursuing a criminal investigation into its authenticity.

Kirill Serebrennikov has a busy international career, especially in Germany. He is due to stage Hansel and Gretel in Stuttgart in October. Rehearsals are due to start any day now.

By confiscating his passport the Russian authorities are killing his career until he toes the Putin line.

More here.

Classical musicians do all sorts of things to grab a sliver of attention, but this violist’s attempt to play Bach on the Great Wall is wrong for all sorts of reasons.

First, the Great Wall is one of the wonders of the world. It does not need Bach.

Second, there is no artistic reason for playing there.

Third, you can’t hear much because of the howling wind.

Don’t watch here. 

photo: Classic FM

It was August 12, 1992 when we learned that John Cage was no longer with us, dying in a New York hospital and narrowly missing the milestone of his 80th birthday.

At the time, it seemed like the end of an age of iconoclasm, of composers who proclaimed that music is whatever they proclaim it to be.

But as time passes, Cage’s ideas deepen and extend far beyond the coterie of the avant-garde. No living American composer has got where he or she is today without engaging with Cage in some shape or form. Any number of progressive rock and pop performers have read Cage.

And many soloists have been stunned by the sheer, transfixing beauty of his work for single instruments.

John Cage lives on in some places he least expected.

Here’s a stash of working musicians’ tributes.

photo (c) Betty Freeman/Lebrecht Music&Arts

From Michael Song, in Ottawa:

Currently at the airport and Westjet won’t let me bring my cello on board even after buying a ticket for it… We bought the ticket for the 2 part flight through a different airline and they refuse to allow me to carry my $100,000 cello and bows on the plane.