I hear word that Diego Matheuz has been appointed principal conductor at La Fenice in Venice.

He’s 27, Venezuelan, another product of the Sistema. Here‘s the agent’s biog.

That Dude, he’s starting to breed.

The year after next is a big one for Bayreuth – 200 years since the birth of the saviour – oops, founder.

So the director who gets to stage the 2013 Ring will face all the sentimental scrutiny associated with major musical anniversaries.

It should have been Wim Wenders, but he couldn’t see eye to 3-D eye with Katie Wagner.

She announced his replacement this morning.

It’s Frank Castorf.

Frank who?

He’s been running the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxembourg-Platz in Berlin for almost 20 years and has a reputation for daring productions.

Outside German-speaking territory, he’s very little known.

It’s the final in Moscow tonight of Operalia, billed as Placido Domingo: The World Opera Competition.

An orchestra of the finest musicians in the Russian capital is being assembled to accompany the hopeful contenders for the grand prize. Past winners include Erwin Schrott and Rolando Villazon.

A professor at the state university, an acquaintance of mine, was approached to play cor anglais  in the orchestra. He has just told me the pay he was offered for a day’s rehearsal, plus concert.

It was 1,000 rubles. That’s 25 Euros (£20, $30). Apparently most of the orchestra of the Stanislavsky theatre are working for less.

Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world. A coffee costs $10. A whole concert fee can be drunk in rehearsal breaks.

I am publishing the miserable fee scale in order to bring it to Domingo’s attention, assuming he is unaware. Placido is a generous man who often shows solidarity with less fortunate musicians lower down the order, most recently with the locked-out musicians at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. This might be a good occasion once again to demonstrate that humanity.

The final concert will be broadcast online tonight here at 1945 Moscow time.

A colleague in Oslo reports:

VG, the country’s largest tabloid, is situated across from the government buildings. It had a glass front, a mall inside, and then another glass front around the actual offices and a glass roof. The blast broke every single window pane, and the glass roof fell in.

Amazingly, there was no one at the time in the mall.

But the newspaper was paralysed, its offices inaccessible. What to do? The editor leased six suites at the nearby top-class Hotel Bristol. “We had our personal computers but lacked the big data that could process and send stories to the printing plant – so we bought one!”

They put out a complete paper yesterday.

That’s proper journalism, the real thing.

Here‘s the link.

You know who she is without my having to name her.

Deborah Borda, boss of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl, former boss of the New York Phil and the force behind the Dude.

Deborah has spent her entire working life managing orchestras: she knows their problems deeper than anyone alive. We discuss which American orchestras are likeliest to fail, how they can connect with a different audience, why Dudamel is such a phenomenon, what really happened at the Met when Joe Volpe retired, what to look for in a conductor …. and much about her own life and times.

Deborah Borda as you’ve never heard her before. Monday 25th, 9pm UK time on BBC Radio 3… and streamed online for a week.

The most depressing images that come to mind from the short, tragic life of Amy Winehouse are of her being hounded at every turn by hack photographers, who knew they could always place an angry Amy image with tabloid newspapers. This one’s from the Daily Mirror, and it is by no means the worst.

(c) mirror.co.uk, all rights reserved

And it was not just tabloids. This is the Daily Telegraph (c) all rights reserved:

The photographers knew that Amy had serious addiction problems. So did the journalists and editors who commissioned and bought their stake-out pictures. Their hounding of a fragile personality cannot have helped her known condition.

As official inquiries gather momentum, I would like Lord Justice Leveson to raise two pertinent questions:

1 Was Amy Winehouse the subject of phone hacking by any newspaper?

2 Was the press justified in door-stepping an artist whose mental state was known to be fragile?

It’s too late to save Amy, but others equally vulnerable have a right to be protected.

The Daily Telegraph published a photograph of the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, enjoying a day of Test cricket at Lords. The imputation was that he should have been managing the fiscal crisis back at the office.

The Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel has pulled out of the Verbier Festival, where he was meant to be singing Tosca. No reason has been gieven, but coming so soon after the very public withdrawal of Gidon Kremer it accentuates the sense of crisis at the Swiss mountain Festival.

Terfel, unlike Kremer, is not a stranger to cancellations. Last night he stood in to the festival’s relief for Thomas Quasthoff in Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

But his pullout could not have come at shorter notice, or hit the festival harder. Those present say the atmosphere is exceptionally tense.

One has to sympathise with the festival’s director Martin Engstroem, whose birthday it is today.

Here’s the press statement (in French). Terfel is replaced by Ambrogio Maestri.

Verbier – 22 juillet 2011 / Le baryton Ambrogio Maestri remplace Bryn Terfel dans Tosca le dimanche 24 juillet.

Bryn Terfel a le regret de devoir renoncer à sa prestation dans Tosca le dimanche 24 juillet. Il est remplacé par le baryton Ambrogio Maestri dans le rôle de Scarpia. Ambrogio Maestri a déjà chanté ce rôle plusieurs fois notamment à Torre del Lago et a débuté dans le rôle de Falstaff sous la direction de Ricardo Muti à la Scala. Il s’est fait connaître dans les rôles de différents opéras, dont entre autres Rigoletto, La forza del destino, La Traviatata ou Il Trovatore. Il s’agit de sa première apparition au Verbier Festival.

AND….. Now they’ve cancelled the annual barbecue and raclette, but that’s because it’s too cold… see here.

Lear Auerbach, a young Russian-American composer, has taken it upon herself to address Gidon Kremer’s dissatisfaction with the festival ratrace.

Here’s her open letter, just in:

Dearest Gidon,

The great violinist has sent me the original, private letter that he sent to the Verbier Festival, announcing his withdrawal. I publish it with his permission and with that of Martin Engstroem, the Verbier director to whom it was addressed.

Kremer took offence when Verbier announced that he was cancelling because he was unwell. In fact, his grievance appears to lie deeper, in the way the few super-famous classical musicians are exploited. It is the first coherent declaration of dissent to the celebrity culture in classical music.

I present the letter verbatim, in the original English:

(June 28th ,2011).

*******************************

Dear Martin,

Today, unfortunately I have some upsetting news for you. After many weeks of questioning myself, and a barrage of conflicting thoughts, I have finally decided to withdraw my participation in this year’s Verbier festival.

While I do not want to hurt you, I can only imagine how disappointed you will be. Please believe me, when I say that I really do not have any other choice.

We all get older, this is a fact we can’t deny this and this somehow demands more responsibility towards our actions. It concerns as well the important question of where and why we say “yes” or “no”.

It is wonderful, that Verbier provides so many opportunities for young musicians to share the music. I especially value the enthusiastic work of the Festival orchestra. I am also aware of how important it is for you, to celebrate all your friends birthdays and anniversaries. And among these highly valued performers are also some of my own very dear friends.

Nevertheless the question to myself remains: what am I personally doing on this summit of “names” and both old and new celebrities?

Having all my life served music and composers, a repertoire which is established as “classic” and one which, for decades I had to fight for to be heard, I now feel that I need to make a choice. I simply do not want any more to be part of “parties for the sake of parties”. To be one of a group of so many splendid artists is not something that I want to justify or confirm.

Some decades ago an American newspaper wrote a contradicting but ironic punch-line about me: “he is so much out, that he is in”. Time has come for me to feel, that I want to be “in” in everything I am doing. It is not easy for me to explain why, but I do feel that in Verbier, I am an “outsider”.

You would wonder: “Gidon! How can you say such a thing, being surrounded by so many friends, who respect you, who love to play with you, who look up to you? Aren’t you aware, that I myself have admired you for years?”.

Dear Martin! Please do not draw any wrong conclusions.

I am not putting up barricades because of any ambitions or desire to look at everything as a snob, as many critics do! – With their prejudice, so to say- “from above”. – No way.

I simply do not want to breath the air, which is filled by sensationalism and distorted values.  Lets’ admit – all of us have something to do with the poisonous development of our music world, in which “stars” count more than creativity, ratings more than genuine talent, numbers more than…. sounds.

This summer I have decided, after 30 years of full commitment to conclude my activity for the Lockenhaus festival. For three decades, I served the cause and can only be grateful for having had so many friends who also follow that spirit. Music itself was and remained the core of this festival, which can be proud to have given an opportunity to thousands of musical scores to have been performed. It was and remains an oasis of intimacy, in size and in orientation.

Now, finding myself rather exhausted through my numerous tours, new projects and recording sessions, I feel even more, that I should do only the things which I believe myself are still somewhat necessary. And here it is: I simply do not have enough energy to support gatherings and collaborations on highly exposed stages with “rising” or approved stars of today’s music business for the sake of ovations and name-dropping.

Yes, I know, I should be professional. Most of my life I tried to stick to my word (and I am aware that promised you that I’d come) but a time has now come in which the overall devaluation of the word “interpreter” has resulted in a misguided fixation with glamour and sex appeal.

This is not anymore “my” time. I leave it to those who believe in it, be it the audiences or the new bread of performers, who have overwhelming capacities to please crowds, but who are often themselves quite EMPTY and artistically lost, chasing a hunger for recognition over ability.

Let it be like this.

Not being a hypocrite, I simply need to gain some distance and rest from all those “fireworks”. This is the only reason that I have made this decision to step out, since I do not want this to add to the overall confusion, which has established itself within the music market in recent years.

I wish you a productive summer full of joyful meetings and “great performances” which every evening, you will announce at the usual gatherings, in circles of artists, hosts and friends.

I hope that you not only sell plenty of tickets, but as well promote the image of the festival itself, which can be honored to have such a great music lover and salesman as it’s “artistic director”.

I wish as well some day, that you find some distance from all those musicians, who use the given opportunity to share and SERVE music by simply showing up and “enjoying themselves”.

Many festivals these days unfortunately allow mixing self-enchantment with entertainment – (be it crossover or “events”) and they succeed to remain a magnet for all those, who want to be seen or hailed.

Yes I am a bit ironic and with a bitter feeling in saying these words;

REAL artists like those that we still remember, haven’t vanished completely. But the “greenery” of Verbier rather contributes to forgetting them and hails mystifications and substitutes of those, who truly served ART. Opposing such a tendency, I simply want to find peace with myself. Lately being warn out by so many dissatisfying partnerships, I simply need a rest. I do hope this will be the best remedy for the hype that surrounds many of us.

I want to conclude with these well known words from a song used by my favorite composer Robert Schumann: “Ich grolle nicht”.

Not being driven by a desire to blame anyone, but rather by self–protection (if there is still something to protect!), I need to apologize once more to you and to all those artists and friends, whom I was supposed to play with, for my inability to attend Verbier festival this summer.

Please forgive me for breaking my word and believe me, this is done to allow me to remain loyal to myself, and above all to music, which I still love.

Yours,

Gidon.

The Austrian mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman has been rushed to hospital in Bochum after being hit accidentally in the larynx by an unnamed colleague during rehearsals for Tristan und Isolde in the Ruhr Triennale.

She suffered loss of voice and has been ordered complete rest for the remainder of the summer. Details here and here.

‘I am totally shocked,’ she said in a statement.  ‘The throat is a singer’s most sensitive body part, her achilles heel.’

Ms Kulman was due to sing Orfeo in Gluck’s opera in Salzburg, conducted by Riccardo Muti.

Update: She has just announced that she is back home in Vienna, starting the slow process of recuperation. We wish her well, and soon.

There is a restaurant in Kensington where I go from time to time to have a very quiet chat with someone over lunch. The food is superb and the decibel level never rises above 30, a workable pianissimo. Best of all, I hardly ever see anyone there from the music world.

One day, eight or nine years ago, a shadow fell over my soup. A tall man, slightly stooped and sombre, stood at the street door. In contrast to the suits and boots seated around the room, he wore baggy, paint-stained pants and a torn, ancient sweater. The maitre d’ bustled over and led him to a corner table at the rear, evidently his regular spot.

I saw him there afterwards on quite a few occasions, usually with a young female colleague, as muted as the rest of us. He caught my eye once, a slow, inquisitive, somewhat shy glance, not seeking connection, rather assuming that we knew each other. I nodded. He nodded. That was it.

But his glance imprinted itself for the way it seemed to take possession of all it embraced – the walls, the space, the waiters, the diners, me. I did not shrink from it, but its assumption of ownership left me feeling as if had been observed in a private, possibly intimate, act. The artist’s eye? No, more than that. Lucian Freud had a way of making everything within a space his own.

I took to looking out for him whenever I entered that restaurant. If he was there in the corner, our eyes would gloss like a handshake, and move on. He had placed me in his perspective, as backdrop.

Self-portrait by Lucian Freud, on sale at Sotheby’s, London, January 2010, all rights reserved