Broadway star Sierra Boggess has withdrawn from the role of Maria in the BBC Proms concert of West Side Story in order she says, to give more opportunity to singers of Latin origin.
Here’s what she writes:
‘Last week, it was announced that I will be singing in a concert of West Side Story at Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms in London. Because it was a concert presentation and not the show proper — I had signed on to lend my voice to honor Leonard Bernstein in his centennial this year, with an orchestra I have loved singing with for years, following in the long list of sopranos who have all sung the score before me.
‘After much reflection, I’ve realized that if I were to do this concert, it would once again deny Latinas the opportunity to sing this score, as well as deny the IMPORTANCE of seeing themselves represented onstage. And that would be a huge mistake. Since the announcement of this concert, I have had many conversations about why this is a crucial time, now more than ever, to not perpetuate the miscasting of this show. I apologize for not coming to this realization sooner and as an artist, I must ask myself how I can best serve the world, and in this case my choice is clearer than ever: to step aside and allow an opportunity to correct a wrong that has been done for years with this show in particular. I have therefore withdrawn myself from this concert and I look forward to continuing to be a voice for change in our community and our world!’
What on earth would Lenny have made of that?
And why did the BBC go to a Broadway star when there are so many fine Marias close to home?
UPDATE: If Maria has to be Latina…
The Handel and Haydn Society has chosen Debra Nagy as its principal oboe.
Cleveland based, Debra is a member of Apollo’s Fire and founder of Les Delices.
I’m listening to a new Delos recording of the Walton viola concerto, Bax’s Phantasy for viola and orchestra and Vaughan Williams’s viola suite.
The soloist is Hong-Mei Xiao and she plays an English viola made in London in 1790 by Jacob Ford. And pretty good she sounds, too.
But what really catches the ear is the Budapest Symphony Orchestra conducted by Janos Kovacs, playing this fine English stuff as if they’d been born in Berkshire and this was their daily scones and tea.
I guess they record so much film music in Budapest that English pastoral splashes come naturally to their fingers. Still, I cannot remember when I last heard a London orchestra give a more seductive account of our national soundscape.
Not to be outdone by royalty, the ‘opera singer’ has given birth to her second child.
Named ‘ Xander Robert Selwyn Levitas’.
She explains: ‘His middle names honour our late fathers who live on in our little ‘Defender of Men’ (Meaning of Xander). Our family, our home and are hearts could not be more full of love & we are incredibly grateful for the gift of being parents to these beautiful children. Cwtches to you all xxx’.
Likewise.
press statement:
The Board of Directors of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMC) has received and accepted the resignation of artistic director Noel Edison. The TMC thanks Noel for 21 years of artistic excellence with the TMC…. Moving forward, the Board and Administration of the TMC have begun a review of TMC’s anti-harassment policies and of the chorister guidelines. The TMC’s Creating a Safe Creative Space initiative will include updating policies; providing more education and training to TMC staff and singers on the policies and on the organization’s expectations about mutual respect; and ensuring that TMC’s process for addressing complaints is clearly understood. The TMC thanks its extended community for supporting the organization and the choristers during this time.
Noel Edison was suspended six weeks ago over allegations of sexual harrassment.
A new one for our collection of inappropriate record covers.
A Vienna tabloid newspaper today named the instrument of a musician who has been suspended by the Staatsoper and the Philharmonic for misconduct.
Slippedisc.com, which broke the story, has undertaken along with other media not to publish any information that might disclose the man’s identity until the Staatsoper and the Philharmonic have completed their internal investigation.
The inquiry was triggered by the man’s dismissal last week from his position as lecturer at the University of Music and Performing Arts (mdw). The university’s rector Ulrike Sych said in a statement yesterday that the man’s actions had violated ‘human dignity and rights’ and his removal was ‘not negotiable’.
No opera company is putting out as much new work as Oper Frankfurt promises for next season. Here’s the list, announced today:
2018/19 Season
New Productions
Peter Eötvös
Tri sestry (Three Sisters; first ever performance in Frankfurt)
Sunday September 9th 2018
Conductors: Dennis Russell Davies and Nikolai Petersen
Director: Dorothea Kirschbaum
Set Designer: Ashley Martin-Davis
Costume Designer: Michaela Barth
Olga Neuwirth
Lost Highway (first performance in Germany)
Wednesday September 12th 2018 (Bockenheimer Depot)
Conductor: Karsten Januschke
Director: Yuval Sharon
Set Designer, Video Designer, Light Designer: Jason H. Thompson, Kaitlyn Pietras
Costume Designer: Doey Lüthi
Peter I. Tschaikovsky
Iolanta (first ever performance in Frankfurt)
Igor Stravinsky
Oedipus Rex
Sunday October 28th 2018
Conductor: Sebastian Weigle / Nikolai Petersen
Director: Lydia Steier
Set Designer: Barbara Ehnes
Costume Designer: Alfred Mayerhofer
Giuseppe Verdi
Il corsaro (The Corsair; in concert / first ever performance in Frankfurt )
Wednesday November 7th 2018
Conductor: Francesco Lanzillotta
Chorus Master: Tilman Michael
Vincenzo Bellini
I puritani
Sunday December 2nd 2018
Conductor: Tito Ceccherini
Director: Vincent Boussard
Set Designer: Johannes Leiacker
Costume Designer: Christian Lacroix
Co-production with Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège
Giuseppe Verdi
La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny)
Sunday January 27th 2019
Conductor: Jader Bignamini / Gaetano Soliman
Director: Tobias Kratzer
Set and Costume Designer: Rainer Sellmaier
Uwe Dierksen
Mina (World Premiere)
Saturday, February 2nd 2019 (Bockenheimer Depot)
Conductor: Uwe Dierksen
Director: Ute M. Engelhardt
Set and Costume Designer: Mara Scheibinger
Bedřich Smetana
Dalibor
Sunday February 24th 2019
Conductor: Stefan Soltesz
Director: Florentine Klepper
Set Designer: Boris Kudlička
Costume Designer: Adriane Westerbarkey
Franz Schreker
Der ferne Klang (The Distant Sound)
Sunday March 31st 2019
Conductor: Sebastian Weigle / Florian Erdl
Director: Damiano Michieletto
Set Designer: Paolo Fantin
Costume Designer: Klaus Bruns
George Frideric Handel
Rodelinda
Sunday May 12th 2019
Conductor: Andrea Marcon
Director: Claus Guth
Set and Costume Designer: Christian Schmidt
Co-production with Teatro Real, Madrid, Opéra de Lyon and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona
Karol Szymanowski
Król Roger (King Roger)
Sunday June 2nd 2019
Conductor: Sylvain Cambreling
Director: Johannes Erath
Set Designer: Johannes Leiacker
Costume Designer: Jorge Jara
Bruno Maderna
Satyricon (first ever performance in Frankfurt)
Gian Carlo Menotti
The Medium (first ever performance in Frankfurt)
Saturday June 15th 2019 (Bockenheimer Depot)
Conductors: Simone Di Felice / Nikolai Petersen
Directors: Nelly Danker / Hans Walter Richter
Set Designer: Kaspar Glarner
Costume Designer: Cornelia Schmidt
From notes to the forthcoming AGM of The Wagner Society:
11. Item for discussion – President’s Masterclass
“I, the President of the Wagner Society, wish to clarify to the Members, exactly why the Annual Event “The President’s Award for a Public Masterclass”, which was announced by the Society as one of their Singing Competition 2017 prizes, to which my husband Adrian Müller and I always donate our services, will not take place.”
(Requested by Dame Gwyneth Jones, President of the Society)
Also:
10. Item for discussion – AGM Byelaws
As the AMENDED AGM BYELAWS OF THE WAGNER SOCIETY, circulated to members on March 28th, 2018 appear to diminish important rights of the membership, this should be discussed within the membership at the AGM on May 16th, 2018.”
(Requested by Dame Gwyneth Jones, President of the Society & Adrian Muller)
The violinist Renaud Capucon is the first non-German resident to return his ECHO prize after this year’s award to a pair of Auschwitz-joke rappers.
The protests continue. The award is discredited.
Renaud writes:
J’ai décidé de rendre mes Prix ÉCHO Preis pour protester contre l’attribution de ce Prix a un groupe de rap dont les paroles des textes sont racistes,antisemites et indignes de la dignité humaine. Toute forme d’art,et bien évidemment la Musique doit être au service de la réconciliation entre les peuples,du dialogue entre les Cultures et du respect de chacun. Renaud Capuçon
UPDATE: The Leipzig Gewandhaus has returned its three ECHO awards.
(Nothing from the Berlin Philharmonic?)
First Charles Castronovo was called in at the last minute to replace Bryan Hymel in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette after Hymel failed to recover in time from a Munich bug.
Now Castronovo has called in sick. Next up for tonight’s performance is Andrea Shin, a Korean who will make his Met debut.
He is covering three different roles at the Met this season, but does not seem to have sung Roméo before.
Toi-toi to all.
To give perspective to Hamburg Staatsoper’s excuses for sacking a soprano at four months pregnant, consider the case of Layla Claire who (we hear) sang the title role of Alcina at seven months at the Händel-Festspiele Karlsruhe in February.
Layla and her baritone husband John Chest welcomed the birth of their second child on April 17.
John will sing Pelléas at Glyndebourne this summer.
Our congratulations to the happy family.
