I’ve had a message on behalf of the conductor Jun Märkl, saying he is making every effort to visit Japan, despite the tour cancellation after a vote by musicians and staff by the National Orchestra of Lyon.
Märkl, who is half-Japanese and is leaving Lyon at the end of the season, is putting together a benefit concert in Tokyo, his agent reports.
Good for him.
Just in from my agent, Jonyn Geller, on Twitter:
music sales in US down 64% in 11 years – loss of showcase for product responsible
Bits keep falling off the classical agency wing of Universal Music, and I wonder why.
The raft of artists that agents Jeffrey Vanderveen and Manfred Seipt brought to the media giant three years ago has been getting thinner and thinner as clients drift back to their previous haunts, never having found the pot of gold they were promised.
Van and the Man tried last year to pull off a deal with the British corner store HarrisonParrott, but since that went down the agency wing that was supposed to act as flypaper to Universal’s record labels has simply stalled.
No new artists. Only one conductor on the books (and you won’t have heard of him) and widening discontent among the clients.
The firm has four big earners: Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, Thomas Hampson and Karita Mattila.
Karita quit today. She’s taking her US career back to Alison Pybus at IMG and putting her Europe diary in the hands of Simon Goldstone at Intermusica, the man behind Joyce DiDonato.
That’s a big loss for universal. Not quite as much as the $14 million they have already squandered on the agency, but big name, big prestige, big blow. One other biggie, I hear, is also wavering.
Sounds like someone in a suit needs to take a smart view of the faltering business.
How often do you hear a Korngold piece that is not the violin concerto?
Well, here’s a chance. You’ll have to fly to Glasgow for it but, hey – it’s Korngold, it’s Shakespeare, when will you get another chance?
Photo: The Adventures of Robin Hood” (a broadcast of Erich Korngold’s music for the film, with Basil Rathbone narrating the story)
Much Ado About Music
A night of theatrically inspired words and music featuring the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
and a semi-staged version of Much Ado About Nothing
Shakespeare’s irresistible comedy Much Ado About Nothing forms the centrepiece of an evening of theatre and music at Glasgow City Halls on Saturday 28 May. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) is joined a trio of leading actors [to be announced] and students from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in an abridged performance of Shakespeare’s play featuring incidental music by one of Hollywood’s most celebrated composers, Erich Korngold.
A story about reluctant lovers Benedick and Beatrice who are deceived by the malicious hands of Don John, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s most popular comic plays and is directed for this performance by Jonathan Best. A pioneer in film composing, Erich Korngold is most famous as the composer of rapturously romantic film scores to swashbucklers Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and his scores have been recognized ever since as classics of their kind.
Berlioz’s operatic version of the play, Béatrice et Bénédict, famous for its rousing overture, opens the show and there’s a chance to hear orchestral extracts from Humperdinck’s rarely performed Königskinder (The King’s Children), a fairy-tale opera from the composer of Hansel and Gretel.
Box Office: 0141-353 8000
Ends
For further information, please contact:
Stephen Duffy, Marketing Communications Executive, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
The Glyndebourne opera festival is about to announce live screenings of three productions at the Science Museum in London.
Breakthrough? Well it’s not penicillin but it’s rare bridge thrown across what C P Snow called the Two Cultures.
Glyndebourne, under Gus Christie’s and David Pickard’s enlightened leadership, is breaking out of the arts ghetto and seeking synergies with science and technology. The festival is going green with electricity derived from its own wind turbine. Talks have also been going on for some time with the Science Museum to explore common promotions and agendas. Sunday at the opera is a new one for science. Next year, maybe, we’ll have molecules and Mozart. The Science Museum, by the way, already has a dancer in residence.
Details: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg live on Sunday 26th June, Don Giovanni (pre-recorded) on Sunday 31st July, The Turn of the Screw live on Sunday 21st August. Tickets from: £30.00-£50.00 on sale from 9am 23 May. Booking: Tel: 0870 870 4868 or visit the website www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/glyndebourne
Even more radical is Glyndebourne’s new link up with the Guardian newspaper, which will carry the last night of the sold out production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg live online via guardian.co.uk and glyndebourne.com. The streaming will be available for seven days after the initial broadcast and will be free of charge to viewers. It will be followed by a second relay of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw in August.
This is the first such link-up between any UK newspaper and an opera company. More remarkably, the Guardian lives on the left in slutwear
and Glyndebourne draws its funding from city folk and the filthy rich, stipulating a black-tie dress code.
Now what was it Isaiah said about lions lying downs with lambs? and which one here’s the vegetarian?
Oh, I could get so excited… we live in revolutionary times.
