The death of Robert Whitaker has been reported. He was 71.

Whitaker caught Brian Epstein’s eye when the group toured Australia in 1964 and he was giving an interview for Jewish News.  “I photographed Epstein, saw he was a bit of a peacock and a cavalier, and put peacock feathers around his head in photographic relief, ‘ Whitaker related. ‘He was knocked out when he saw the picture. After that, he saw an exhibition of collages I had at the Museum of Modern Art and immediately offered me the position of staff photographer at NEMS, photographing all his artists. I initially turned it down, but after seeing The Beatles perform at Festival Hall I was overwhelmed by all the screaming fans and I decided to accept the offer to return to England.”

He shot several iconic images

incuding the Hard Day’s Night cover

and another cover, the so-called Butcher’ Cover that was pulled before it reached the USA:

Here’s an Art Network obit.

(all images (c) the estate of Robert Whitaker, all rights reserved)

Erin Keefe.

She’s 31 and she’s been named top fiddle in the Twin Cities.

Congratulations.

The mighty voice of Cap Verde will sing no more.

Cesaria Evora arrived in Paris in a state of such weakness that doctors ordered her to cancel the tour. Report here.

Having survived a stroke and heart problems, she decided to call it quits altogether.

Known as the ‘barefoot diva’, she sang in the ‘morna’ style and was discovered only in her late 40s. She also sang fado and Spanish songs.

Unmistakable in depth of voice and ease of delivery, she was a genre entirely to herself. Here’s an irresistible video of Besame Mucho. 

Oh, you thought it was another 70 year-old Hispanic singer? No, he’s just signed a new record deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The writer of Billy Elliott, recently in conflict with Opera North over alleged homophobia, is off to Hollywood, we learn.

He’s writing a biopic of his pal and show angel, Sir Elton. Provisional title: Rocketman.

I wonder if they’ll film early scenes at the Royal Academy of Music, where young Elt was taught to tinkle, or if it’ll be cheaper to rebuild the RAM facade on set in LA.

First, he got the conductor kicked out. (According to Le Monde, the great tenor arrived late for rehearsal and didn’t like getting told off.)

Then, on opening night, the backstage crew walked out. Just another strike at the Paris Opéra.

Last night’s premiere was performed in concert version, it’s reported.

The late Kurt Sanderling will be laid to rest in a private, family ceremony in Berlin on Monday.

A memorial concert will be held on October 9 at 8pm at the Konzerthaus in East Berlin, where the great and humble man was chief conductor from 1960 to 1977.

Daniel Barenboim will play a concerto. Two of Sanderling’s sons, Thomas and Stefan, will conduct.

Gifts in Kurt’s memory can be made to “Orchesterakademie beim Konzerthaus e.V.”
Konto:6750041750
BLZ:10050000

Thomas and I will be talking about Kurt on the BBC’s Last  Word programme, Radio 4, today and tomorrow.

With 1,600 theatres signed up in 54 countries, the Met is rapidly mopping up the market for opera in cinema.

Fightback attempts by La Scla, Glyndebourne and Covent Garden are often thwarted by restrictive clauses in the Met’s contract with cinema chains.

For the moment, the Met’s initiative is mostly welcomed. But it’s steadily becoming oppressive, as we’ve shown a few months back.

 

Watch this space for developments. Meantime, here’s the latest press brag from the Peter Gelb bunker:

The Met: Live in HD Enters Its Sixth Season

With Largest-Ever Worldwide Distribution

 

Russia is the latest country to join the Met’s

groundbreaking live entertainment initiative

 

1,600 theaters in 54 countries, including new additions Israel and China,

are now part of the Live in HD network

 

The 2011-12 season of the award-winning series kicks off

Saturday, October 15, with Donizetti’s Anna Bolena,

starring Anna Netrebko

 

New York, NY (September 22, 2011)The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live transmissions to movie theaters around the world, has expanded its worldwide distribution to 1,600 theaters in 54 countries, the largest global audience the initiative has ever reached. The newest countries to sign on for Live in HD transmissions include Russia, Israel, China, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Slovenia, and the territory of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Last year, a record of more than 2.6 million Live in HD tickets were sold to opera lovers across the globe, effectively quadrupling the Met’s paying audience (approximately 800,000 people attend performances in the opera house in a Met season).

The sixth season of live transmissions begins October 15 with the Met premiere production of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, featuring Anna Netrebko in the title role. She stars in the first transmission to be shown in her native country, joined by Russian colleagues Ekaterina Gubanova as Jane Seymour and Ildar Abdrazakov as Enrico (Henry VIII).

The opera, directed by David McVicar and conducted by Marco Armiliato, is based on the final, tragic days of Anne Boleyn and has been a dramatic and vocal showcase for some of the greatest sopranos in operatic history. In addition to Ms. Netrebko, the 2011-12 Live in HD season features many of the opera world’s most prominent stars, including Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Natalie Dessay, Joyce DiDonato, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Jonas Kaufmann, Mariusz Kwiecien, René Pape, Marina Poplavskaya, Bryn Terfel, and Deborah Voigt.

The 2011-12 Live in HD season features 11 transmissions, which include a Met premiere, a world premiere, three new productions of repertory favorites, and the final two installments of a new Ring cycle. All 11 high-definition productions will be shown live worldwide on Saturdays. Most operas begin at 12:55 p.m EST, with some operas beginning earlier in the afternoon; exact starting times appear on the schedule below.  The majority of encore presentations in the United States will be shown on Wednesdays, 18 days after the live exhibition. For complete information on locations and tickets, visit www.metopera.org/hdlive.

Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels, Plácido Domingo, Danielle de Niese, and Luca Pisaroni are among the stars of The Enchanted Island (Jan. 21), a world premiere work inspired by the musical pastiches and masques of the 18th century. Devised and written by Jeremy Sams with a story drawn from Shakespeare, The Enchanted Island showcases arias and ensembles by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, and others. William Christie conducts; the production is directed by Phelim McDermott.

Tony Award-winning directors  Michael Grandage and Des McAnuff make their respective Met debuts with new productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (October 29) and Gounod’s Faust (December 10).  Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads Don Giovanni, which stars Mariusz Kwiecien in his first Met performances of the title role opposite Barbara Frittoli, Ramón Vargas, Luca Pisaroni, and debuting sopranos Marina Rebeka and Mojca Erdmann. Jonas Kaufmann, Marina Poplavskaya, and René Pape take on the demanding leading roles of Faust, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Netrebko sings her second title role this season in the new production of Massenet’s Manon (April 7), conducted by Luisi, directed by Laurent Pelly, and also starring Piotr Beczala and Paulo Szot.

Robert Lepage’s groundbreaking new staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen reaches its spectacular conclusion with new productions of Siegfried (November 5) conducted by Luisi and Götterdämmerung (February 11), conducted by Levine. Siegfried stars Deborah Voigt, Gary Lehman, Eric Owens, and Bryn Terfel; Voigt, Lehman, and Owens also star in Götterdämmerung.

Other highlights of the Live in HD season include Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, based on the life of Gandhi in an inspiring production by McDermott that stars Richard Croft (November 19); Renée Fleming in one of her greatest portrayals, the virtuosic title role of Handel’s Rodelinda (December 3), also starring Stephanie Blythe and Andreas Scholl; Verdi’s Ernani, starring rising soprano Angela Meade opposite experienced Verdians Marcello Giordani, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Ferruccio Furlanetto (February 25); and Natalie Dessay in her Met role debut as Violetta in Willy Decker’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata, also starring Matthew Polenzani and Hvorostovsky and conducted by Luisi. Complete casting and details of the season’s Live in HD performances follow below.

Natalie Dessay, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Eric Owens, Patricia Racette, and Deborah Voigt will serve as hosts for the Live in HD presentations this season, conducting live interviews with cast, crew, and production teams, and introducing the popular behind-the-scenes interviews and features; altogether the worldwide HD audience will be given an unprecedented look at what goes into the staging of an opera at one of the world’s great houses.

     The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding sponsor, The Neubauer Family Foundation. Global corporate sponsorship of The Met: Live in HD is provided by Bloomberg. Transmission of The Met: Live in HD in Canada is made possible thanks to the generosity of Jacqueline and Paul G. Desmarais Sr. The HD broadcasts are supported by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®.

 # #

Contact: Lee Abrahamian/Sam Neuman
Metropolitan Opera
(212) 870-7457
labrahamian@metopera.org / sneuman@metopera.org

 

Contact: Lisa Jaehnig
Shuman Associates
(212) 315-1300
ljaehnig@shumanassociates.net

Unlike yesterday’s letter to the Daily Telegraph, which was signed by hardcore pro-Pal sympathisers, today’s in the Guardian draws on the whole on academics with no past stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Several are known to me as reasonable people and good thinkers.

Nevertheless, their reasoning is profoundly flawed. The thrust of their argument is to take a statement by the LPO chairman Martin Hohmann that ‘music and politics don’t mix’ and contrast it with the LPO’s recent video in support of Dutch orchestras who are suffering swingeing government cuts. If the LPO can intervene in Dutch politics why, they demand, can’t some of its players demand a ban on the Israel Philharmonic?

Let me spell it out. The Dutch video was a gesture of solidarity, musicians to musicians, no politics involved.

The call for an IPO ban was musicians against musicians, using the LPO’s name to align it with one side of a political conflict. If they had asked permission to use the LPO name, it would have been refused. If they had gone ahead anyway, they would have been sanctioned by their colleagues in the orchestra – as, ultimately, happened.

This is not a political or free speech issue, simply a matter of unprofessional behaviour.

Let me add, I hope for the last time, that I believe the punishment was too severe and should be set aside, and have said as much in print.