Lorin Maazel has just tweeted that he’s selling the precious violin he has owned since he was 16.
It’s a Guadagnini of 1783 and it goes under the hammer on November 10 at a price tag of around $1 million. The proceeds will go toward the private Carstleton Festival that he holds on his estate for young performers. More details here.
The Swedish singer Ingvar Wixell has died, aged 80.
A huge bear of a man, he sang Tosca’s Scarpia Barber’s Figaro and Carmen’s Escamillo in Munich, Berlin and London, reaching the Met only in 1973 with Rigoletto.
Less well remembered was his role in choosing Sweden’s Eurovision entry for 1965, when he performed all the selected songs and took the winner, Absent Friend, to the final in Naples.
Here‘s a screen-grab from those innocent times.
His name was Roger Williams, and that may not ring an instant bell, but his 1955 recording of Autumn Leaves was the only piano solo to top the Billboard chart. It sold two million copies and has never been beaten by another piano jockey.
The original, Les Feuilles Mortes, by Joseph Kosma was a 1946 hit for Yves Montand.
Williams, born Louis Wertz in Nebraska, was 87 at his death.
Here’s his hit track.
A friend has sent me the following report from yesterday’s final rites for Yakov Kreizberg at the central cemetery, Vienna:
A wintry Saturday, 8th October, about 50 international close friends and colleagues of conductor Yakov Kreizberg joined his widow Amy and son Daniel to inter his ashes in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna. We sat in a grey marbled hall, gorgeous flowers lovingly arranged, to listen to many warm words in German and English, rendered almost incomprehensible by the acoustics of a swimming pool. Occasionally anecdotes would surface about Yakov’s sense of humour or his insatiable appetite for fruit salad.
Julia Fischer played the monumental Bach Chaconne, the joined Daniel Müller-Schott for a Ravel Duo, which was followed by a trio played by members of the Wiener Symphoniker. But finally the irrepressible Maestro himself took charge, conducting his Bruckner 7 as we filed out, following the urn carrying his ashes.. It was long cold walk through the biggest cemetery in Europe, past the graves of Beethoven and Schubert, to pay our tributes at the grave of this charismatic, energetic, brilliant musician, who can still warm our hearts.
picture: cultuurgids.avro.nl
Sir Paul married Nancy Shevell yesterday at Marylebone Town Hall.
first pic from afp
According to the JTA, the couple attended Yom Kippur services at the Liberal Synagogue in St Johns Wood the night before they married.
Ms Shevell is Jewish. So was the first Lady Macca, Linda Eastman.
Sir Paul, a vegetarian, does not eat chicken soup.
The Telegraph notes that the wedding took place on what would have been John Lennon’s 71st birthday.
I have borrowed Walter Laqueur’s vivid metaphor of the Weimar Republic for the title of a keynote address I shall be giving next week to the Dutch Classical Music Meeting 2011 (see video here).
An alarmist would be hard-pressed to exaggerate the difficulties facing classical music in the coming year – collapsing economies, reduced subsidies and an audience more fragile than ever before. Nowhere is the outlook darker than in Holland, where the government is threatening cuts of up to 60 percent and the Minister of Culture is reported to have said that, before taking office, she has never been inside an art gallery.
So what can I say to encourage a depressed and bewildered sector? Actually, quite a lot. I believe this is a time of tremendous opportunity for the arts to break out of their buildings and find new audiences. The Dutch themselves have found a slot for topical, one-minute operas on primetime television – this one about the anti-Islam party leader Geert Wilders, by Michel van der Aa.
I have a number of examples of contemporary initiatives that I will be demonstrating. If you have more instances, please let me have them – preferably with video – so that we can send people home from Amsterdam smiling.
picture: Mark Salwowski: Dancing on the Volcano
A new award has been announced in memory of Susan Chilcott, the outstanding soprano who died of breast cancer, aged 40, in 2003.
Placido Domingo presides over this important memorial enterprise which used to award several scholarships and is now searching for a single emergent talent to carry forward Sue’s memory.
If you’re a young British singer, consider it an honour to apply for this award.
Press Release New £10,000 Chilcott Award for Singers The Chilcott Award is a new £10,000 award for British opera singers between the ages of 23 and 33. The Award is offered by The Susan Chilcott Scholarship, an independent charity set up in 2005 in memory of Susan Chilcott, one of the outstanding singers of her generation, who died from cancer in 2003 aged 40. The Chilcott Award, offered biennially, replaces the Susan Chilcott Scholarships, offered annually, which since 2005 have helped over 50 young singers. The Chilcott Award will instead be offered to a single singer who, in the eyes of the panel, shows outstanding international potential. The Award is specifically designed to enable advanced training or career development. Iain Burnside, Chair of the Susan Chilcott Scholarship comments: “In awarding the Susan Chilcott Scholarships over the past six years we have all been struck by the depth of talent in young British singers. Our new Chilcott Award is about identifying an emerging UK artist who, like Sue herself, has the potential to make an international impact within the world of opera. In singing, the devil is in the detail, and we all realise that careers are the product of years of hard work. Our hope is that this new award will facilitate this hard work, and give a significant hand up to a major young artist.' The first Chilcott Award will be made in 2012, with applications now sought (closing date: 9 January 2012) and selected applicants invited for audition and interview in Spring 2012. Full details at: www.royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk Further press information from: sophiecohen@blueyonder.co.uk
Christopher Robson has kindly sent me the story behind his involvement in the upcoming Munich premiere of Glenn Gould vs Glenn Gould.
The Swiss pianist and actor Danny Exnar plays Gould. Apparently, there’s a walk-on part for Barbra Streisand.
I think I need to see this show.
Here’s Christopher’s text:
1 Glenn Gould project background In the July of 2007 the stage director Gert Pfafferodt approached me with a view to taking part in a project. He and the actor Danny Exnar had come to hear me at the in Munich a few weeks earlier, where I had put on my own show of readings and songs (Sonnets by Shakespeare & Donne, interspersed with songs by their contemporaries) called “Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music” (after one of the set of sonnets by Shakespeare). Gert was already very familiar with my work through my already 15-year association with the Bayerische Staatsoper, and had seen me perform on stage many times. However, for some reason this evening of readings helped him to make up his mind about asking me to join his Glenn Gould project.
Gert Pfafferodt and the actor Danny Exnar had been working on the
idea of a Glenn Gould show for 9 months or so by the time I met
them. Danny was born near Basel in Switzerland, and had studied piano from a young age. After leaving music school in Basel he studied a further year in Prague, principally to hone his jazz piano skills; he then returned to Switzerland – to Berne this time – to take a degree in Philosophy. Finally, he went on to study drama at the renowned “Otto Falkenberg Schule”, the drama school associated with the Kammerspiel Theater in Munich. There he met Gert Pfafferodt who, as principal professor at the school, became his mentor. After 3 years, Danny graduated in 2006 and took up a “fest” contract with the Landestheater in Tübingen. Danny left the ensemble at the end of 2010 and is now a busy freelance actor. It was then that Danny and Gert began to put together the Gould project, gleaning texts Gould’s diaries and writings, as well as his TV and film interviews.
The work in progress that I saw at Gert Pfafferodt’s studio in July of 2007 was an almost finished play in German, lasting about 45-50 minutes. Danny played Glenn Gould speaking about his childhood, Bach, music performance etc; and at one point, with the aid of finger puppets, Danny interviewed Gould through imitations of various well known German/Austrian/Swiss TV and radio Arts & Culture personalities. Danny also played excerpts on the piano of music by Bach, Gibbons and Wagner, showing what a consummate musician he was as well as being a fine actor. 2 After this showing, over wine and lunch they explained to me how they would like me to join the project and how I could fit in to it. Their initial desire was - considering his love of Wagner, the fact that Gould transcribed some of Wagner’s music for the piano, his love of the human voice, and his lifelong habit of singing with the music he played - that I should appear towards the end of the play and sing sitting at the piano (with Gould at my feet) the “Liebestod” (unaccompanied) from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”. A sort of “apotheosis”.
I immediately agreed to join the project. This was something different for me, and having just moved to live in Munich I knew that I would have time and space to work on such an interesting idea. Over the next 18 months my role slowly evolved from being just a singer appearing at the end of the play, into an actor who would be on stage with Danny from the very beginning. My role had become almost catalytic and somewhat enigmatic. The play would begin with Danny on the floor of the stage kneeling by a large tin bath filled with water, making paper boats and setting fire to them as they floated on the water’s surface. I would appear and sing an old American evangelical carol. This beginning meant to reflect Gould’s Presbyterian upbringing and the possibly repressed childhood. I would sit to one side of the stage by a table with my script/music/books etc. At a certain point in Danny’s story I would read some text from one of Gould’s letters to his parents, and supplement it with a short analysis from one of Gould’s biographers. One episode to evolve through various bits of research, discussion and improvisation was the “Barbara Streisand moment”. Glenn Gould became a big fan of Barbara Streisand when she burst on to the theatre and music scene in the early 1960s. It is possible that he actually fell in love with her, but he was certainly infatuated with her. Some years later, on hearing she was in a nearby studio one day while recording, he tried to go and introduce himself to her to express his admiration for her. Unfortunately, the studio “red light” was on and he was unable to interrupt the recording session. Consequently, he returned to his own studio. 3 Apparently, Streisand got wind of his intention and took it upon herself to go and see him herself. Upon entering his studio she expressed her admiration for him and his artistry, saying she was one of his biggest fans, and offered her hand to him with “Oh by the way, I’m Barbara Streisand!”, to which Gould responded after a few seconds with the curt repost; “I know!!”. She left the room in some confusion, and the two of them never met again.
This incident is re-enacted repeatedly in the show, until it finally breaks out into a performance of the standard crooner song “Cry me a River”. It is pure speculation as to whether they might ever have made music together – Gould did openly express his admiration and desire to do some sort of work with her - but somehow the text of the song and the idea of them meeting with such a disastrous outcome highlights the complexities of Gould’s personality in the context of the play. It is a bittersweet moment, and somewhat flamboyant.
In January of 2009, we finally took our “work in progress” public with a performance in the studio space of the Landestheater in Tübingen. There was no stage set, no design as such, just a bare stage with a piano, a couple of chairs and a small table, and the tin bath. The studio space officially seated 150, but it was in fact oversold and people were being turned away at the door on the night. The reaction was incredibly positive and we could see we were hitting a nerve with the audience.
It became clear however that there was a hole in the piece, and that the jump from the Streisand moment to the beginning of the Wagner moment, and Gould’s apotheosis, needed to filled out somehow. The next few meetings and workshops tried to resolve that with the inclusion of T.S.Eliot’s “The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock”, which I would read complete and in English. Eliot was one of Gould’s two favourite writers (the other being Christopher Fry), and the poem readily mirrors Gould’s confusion and inhibitions in regards to the opposite sex and his difficulty in expressing intimate feelings. We also experimented with the idea of bringing someone – a woman – up from the audience and dressing her in a shimmering gown and standing her on a pedestal during the reading. I was never actually quite sure what it meant, but it was an arresting visual image. 4 By this stage Gert had invited the well-known German painter and sculptor Bernd Zimmer to collaborate with us. He designed and built a giant Mobile, which hangs in space over the concert grand piano and most of the stage, and painted a massive “Cosmos” (6 metres high by 2 metres wide) which stands or hangs at the back of the stage. These were ready in time for the next performance in Tübingen in June of 2009, this time on the main stage of the 500- seat theatre.
Another hurdle fell at this point when permission and rights were secured from the Glenn Gould Estate and Gould’s publishers to use the texts that made up the bulk of the play. Although there are some improvised lines and some text that are written/invented for dramatic clarity, the vast majority of the texts are Glenn Gould’s own words, albeit translated into German by the German publisher Piper Verlag. In the last year we have slowly worked through and tried to fine tune what we had produced, and introduce one more element: a visitation – albeit very briefly – by J.S.Bach. At first I was a little sceptical of introducing such an obvious figure into the play, particularly as he is well represented musically. But as the appearance is very brief and somewhat humorous it seems to work. Some audience members may not even perceive the character as Bach, but maybe as just another strange element in our slightly quirky exploration of GG.
The show we will premiere in the Carl-Orff-Saal the Gasteig in Munich in October will now last 1 hour 30 minutes or so. Throughout the piece there is a feeling of character flux, a deliberate stance to leave the characters loosely defined. There is a fluctuating uncertainty as to whether the actors are playing specific characters at any given moment or not; this in a way reflects the uncertainty of Gould as a public figure, sort of helping to highlight the various enigmatic qualities of Gould. It is fair to say that, despite the number of books and articles written about and analysing Glenn Gould, there is still so much of the man that remains a mystery. Perhaps this is a major reason why he became the Icon which he still remains today.
5
Where do we go from here? Gert Pfafferodt’s wife, Antoinette Cherbuliez, has now set up a production company called “Cherbuliez Productions” to deal specifically with the Glenn Gould project. She is actively seeking sponsorship and dealing with issues of Rights, etc. The agent & producer Thomas Petz (who produced and toured many of Peter Brook’s productions back in the 80’s & 90’s), is now on board with us, looking at festivals and guest theatre appearances in the German speaking world through 2012. We now also have an English Language version of the play. Danny Exnar spent 3 months last year in New York, working intensively with Wendy Waterman at the Julliard and actor Ben Rappaport, to try and develop a more idiomatic accent to his already fluent English. An English language version immediately opens up the possibility of a wider audience, and we are hoping that this side of the project will prove fruitful in the coming year. Most importantly, the development of the piece is seemingly complete. Our original working title was: „Annäherung an Glenn Gould über Glenn Gould“ or “Approaching Glenn Gould through Glenn Gould” For the Gasteig premiere this has now been changed to: “GLENN GOULD vs GLENN GOULD” Christopher Robson Munich, October 2011
A kind soul has just flagged up this 2008 video of Ivry Gitlis leading a 2008 performance of the Israeli national anthem in Germany.
The tempo is brisk, the arrangement less intricate than Kurt Weill’s and the spirit that Ivry imparts is irreproachably universalist.
In his 80s, my dear friend Ivry is looking more and more like David Ben Gurion. But a lot wiser.
A fascinating blog in the LA Times fills in some of the gaps as to how Arnold Schoenberg came to write an atonal version of the opening Yom Kippur invocation, Kol Nidrei.
Recordings needs to state clearly on the can: This is the Schoenberg version. Not to be mistaken for Bruch.
Read all about it here.
The Metropolitan Opera was all cockahoop a few weeks back when Russia, China, Israel and a host of other nations joined its cinema beam-up from Manhattan central to 1,600 theatres around the world.
But international relations come with a snag. Peter Gelb has just admitted that the Jerusalem Cinematheque will not take two Wagner operas in its package – Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.
Wagner is regarded in Israel as an antisemitic antecedent to Hitler.
‘This is not censorship,’ said the cinema manager.
The German magazine Opernwelt has chosen its opera house of the year.
Any guesses? It’s La Monnaie in Brussels. Check it out. Here’s why.
Oh, and it gets best production of the year for Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots.
