In a bid to break down exclusivity and the traditional ten-year wait, tickets to one-third of next summer’s performances are being put online from October 13 for everyone to buy. We hope there are no strings attached. Don’t all rush at once.
Read the information here (auf Deutsch).
Let us know if there’s a problem.
The arthouse movie on the making of an opera with Natalie Dessay had its debut at the London Film Festival last night.
When the camera was not electrified by Ms Dessay, it was trained on the rather self-satisfied director Jean-François Sivadier or on fairly trivial details of stage preparation. The eye strayed from its intended object. One saw that the London Symphony Orchestra needed to upgrade its warm-climate wardrobe. Louis Langrée, the conductor, managed simultaneous communication in French, Italian, English and music.
All very impressive,often riveting. The reviews have been kind, the box-office deadly. The film has grossed (I’m not sure the verb is appropriate here) $6,282 in the US.
For my companion and me, the most compelling scene showed the production repetiteur, a young Italian woman, giving an exposition to a young singer of the famous clarinet solo with such passion and knowledge that Verdi himself would have applauded.
The repetiteur is mentioned nowhere in the credits. Can anyone identify her? She ought to be working at one of the top houses.
See the film for yourselves when it’s released in the UK this winter, and watch out for that inspiring repetiteur.
UPDATE; Mutual friends identify her (with her permission) as Roberta Ferrari, working at La Fenice in Venice and at the Aix festival.
Lend me a tenor.
(c)Simon Fowler)
The faltering record magazine has been sold by Haymarket Publishing, its owners for the past decade and more.
The new owners are to be the Mark Allen Group, publishers of healthcare, edcation and travel trade journals. The group is family-owned, which may help restore Gramophone to its recording roots. The magazine describes itself these days as ‘The world’s authority on classical music since 1923’.
The South African soprano Pretty Yende is flying home for a short break and a reconnection with her roots. “I’m especially interested in small rural villages,” she says. “I want at least one child in every village to play an instrument. I know there’s lots of hidden talent out there.”
Pretty, 28, is being hotly pursued by record labels after triumphs at La Scala, Vienna and the Met. She was the first winner of Placido Domingo’s Operalia and is revelling in prime roles, but taking her time and manitaining her core priorities – the growth of music in her native land.
The fabulous pipa player Wu Man won worldwide attention when a US Airways attendant broke her instrument while stowing it for takeoff on an internal flight to New Haven, Connecticut.
US Airways have now made amends and paid for Wu Man to have new instrument built in China. She is one of few to win this kind of dispute.
But she’s taking up the cause for others – an Indian sitar player, for instance, who had his instrument broken on a British Airways flight and is still fighting for compensation. “He’s angry,” she says. “It’s the same story again and again and again for musicians these days.”
Read more here.
(If you know the sitar player, please ask him to contact Slipped Disc.)
Wu Man will play her new pipa for the first time tonight.
If you were there, please share your impressions. Slipped Disc takes the view that concert and opera performances are not an appropriate forum for vocalising political protest.
UPDATE: Here’s an eyewitness report from string player Kathleen Thomson: ‘I was in Carnegie Hall. The lights went down, the orchestra tuned, and the audience energy felt invigorating. I was so excited to hear this performance of Firebird, Petroushka AND Rite of Spring, all in one evening. Gergiev takes his bow, then readies the low voices for the murmuring opening of Firebird. At that point, before the actual downbeat, human voices filled the hall, protesters. Gergiev remained poised to start, the protesters continued. A few folks clapped a bit. Voices quieted, then a second round of protests breaks out, Gergiev still poised to begin. On the second round, many audience members boos or shushed. That was the end of protests. The concert was amazing. I am so glad that no protesters vandalized the actual music by interrupting once it began.’
Press release:
Queer Nation Disrupts Carnegie Hall Performance
LGBT Rights Group Demands Putin Supporter
Oppose Russian Anti-LGBT Laws
New York, NY (October 10, 2013) — Tonight, four members of the LGBT rights group Queer Nation disrupted the performance of the Mariinsky Orchestra, led by world-renowned conductor Valery Gergiev, demanding that Gergiev oppose the Russian government’s attacks on LGBT Russians and that Russia end its war on LGBT Russians.
Queer Nation members chanted, “Gergiev, Your Silence is Killing Russian Gays!” before the Carnegie Hall performance began. The protesters, who were met mostly with applause but also with some boos, were led away by security guards. There were no arrests.
Gergiev, the artistic and general director at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, is a longtime Putin friend and supporter. Gergiev has been honored by the Russian government and by the Russian Orthodox Church, both of which championed Russia’s anti-gay laws. Gergiev campaigned for Putin in 2012. The Mariinsky Theatre has received hundreds of millions of rubles from the Russian government.
“Valery Gergiev should not be able to perform without being called out for his vocal support of Russia’s anti-gay president,” said John Weir, one of the protesters. “Gergiev’s silence about Putin’s anti-gay laws is killing lesbian and gay Russians. We’re here to break that silence.”
Earlier in the evening, Queer Nation protested in front of Carnegie Hall. Demonstrators, including several Russian gay men and women, carried a 60-foot rainbow flag that read “Support Russian Gays” and held placards. Protestors also handed out informational flyers to arriving audience members and passersby.
On October 4, Queer Nation wrote to Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director, asking that Carnegie Hall condemn the Russian government’s attacks on LGBT Russians. He declined, adding that “musical events are not the appropriate setting for political statements.”
The protest at Carnegie Hall is the latest in a series of high-profile demonstrations against the Russian government’s anti-gay laws. On September 23, four protestors from Queer Nation delayed the start of the Metropolitan Opera’s Opening Night Gala at Lincoln Center, where Gergiev conducted Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
In June, the Russian government enacted legislation that effectively bans any pro-LGBT statement in public or private and on the Internet. In July, a law banning adoptions of Russian children by people from any jurisdiction that allows same-sex marriage took effect. Currently, the Russian parliament is considering legislation that would remove children from any Russian household that is headed by a gay or lesbian parent. There has been a sharp rise in anti-LGBT violence in Russia.
The group VocalEssence had booked to open its 45th season in Minneapolis’s glamorously refurbished Orchestra Hall.
They engaged 50 union musicians. But union musicians are not allowed to perform in Orchestra Hall so long as the Minnesota Orchestra musicians are locked out.
So VocalEssence is having to move its concert to a church. The British composer Jonatahan Dove will take part.
