Katharina Wagner, co-director of the Bayreuth Festival, plans to visit Israel next week. She intends to sign up the Israel Chamber Orchestra to perform at the Wagner shrine next summer, according to an orchestra spokesperson. Bayreuth has yet to confirm.
Katharina was openly angling for an invitation to Israel in an interview she gave last month to the Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Bayreuth has much to gain from reconciliation and Israel may be more inclined to deal with a new generation of Wagners, one that had no hand in the active promotion of Nazism.
Nevertheless, whichever way you look at it, the rapprochement is a crude piece of real-politik, equally cynical on both sides.
Katharina Wagner, co-director of the Bayreuth Festival, plans to visit Israel next week. She intends to sign up the Israel Chamber Orchestra to perform at the Wagner shrine next summer, according to an orchestra spokesperson. Bayreuth has yet to confirm.
Katharina was openly angling for an invitation to Israel in an interview she gave last month to the Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Bayreuth has much to gain from reconciliation and Israel may be more inclined to deal with a new generation of Wagners, one that had no hand in the active promotion of Nazism.
Nevertheless, whichever way you look at it, the rapprochement is a crude piece of real-politik, equally cynical on both sides.
Fascinating statistic just in on the wires. Germany has abolished state subsidies to 35 orchestras since 1992, leaving 133 still in funds out of an original 168. The figures comprises opera houses, symphony orchestras, radio bands and chamber ensembles.
The number of musicians employed in state-funded orchestras is down by 18 percent from 12,159 to the present 9,922. The source is the German Orchestral Association (DOV).
This sensible, gradual rationalisation, a part of the reunification process, contrasts starkly with the latest government plans in Holland to shut down classical radio, with the consequent abolition of three salaried orchestras. Read De Volkskrant for details (in Dutch).
The amount saved would be 31 million Euros.
See here for further planned cuts.
Fascinating statistic just in on the wires. Germany has abolished state subsidies to 35 orchestras since 1992, leaving 133 still in funds out of an original 168. The figures comprises opera houses, symphony orchestras, radio bands and chamber ensembles.
The number of musicians employed in state-funded orchestras is down by 18 percent from 12,159 to the present 9,922. The source is the German Orchestral Association (DOV).
This sensible, gradual rationalisation, a part of the reunification process, contrasts starkly with the latest government plans in Holland to shut down classical radio, with the consequent abolition of three salaried orchestras. Read De Volkskrant for details (in Dutch).
The amount saved would be 31 million Euros.
See here for further planned cuts.
Next in our occasional series of musicians and their ablutions, here is the great British mezzosoprano Sarah Walker as you have never seen her before.
Wondering who the director was, I asked Sarah to explain the concept of the pose. It was, she replied, in ‘The Sanctuary in Floral St during the (Harry) Kupfer Pelléas & Mélisande in 1981 when it was my habit to rush round the corner and take a quick swim followed by a dip in the Jacuzzi before the curtain calls!’
Once again Britannia, as Sarah proclaims on her website, waives the rules.
Next in our occasional series of musicians and their ablutions, here is the great British mezzosoprano Sarah Walker as you have never seen her before.
Wondering who the director was, I asked Sarah to explain the concept of the pose. It was, she replied, in ‘The Sanctuary in Floral St during the (Harry) Kupfer Pelléas & Mélisande in 1981 when it was my habit to rush round the corner and take a quick swim followed by a dip in the Jacuzzi before the curtain calls!’
Once again Britannia, as Sarah proclaims on her website, waives the rules.
