Joan Matabosch has presented plans for his opening season at the Teatro Real and they are eye-catching.

Woody Allen will direct Puccini’s Gianni Schicci with Placido Domingo in the title role. The opera will be paired with the little-seen Goyescas by Granados.

The veteran Spanish actress Carmen Maura (pictured) will play opposite Natalie Dessay in Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment and various Spanish designers will parade their wares on stage.

More here.

UPDATE: Anne Midgette points out below that Woody Allen directed Gianni Schicchi back in 2008 as his operatic debut in Los Angeles. This may be a revival.

A senior Iranian official, responding to reports that the Pittsburgh Orchestra is planning an ice-break visit in September, has just said they will be unwanted.

‘While the Americans pursue an onslaught against the Islamic Republic’s values, it is natural that Iranians look at these cultural diplomacy movements by the US … with utmost distrust and pessimism,’ said Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces for Basij and Defense Culture Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri.

Cao Peng is one of the best-known conductors in China. At 90, he has organised a new orchestra to make music for deprived people, in hospitals, prisons and mental institutions.

Just watch his energy in this extraordinary video. Match that, Maestro Maazel.

Vladislav Kazenin, chairman of the Russian Composers Union, died today, aged 78. In the footsteps of Tikhon Khrennikov, Kazenin enjoyed an apparatchik career under the Soviet system and beyond.

He was successively executive secretary of the Ural Branch of the Composers’ Union of the RSFSR (1966), executive secretary of the Moscow composer organization (1973) and  secretary of the Composers’ Union of the RSFSR. In 1987, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Culture of the USSR, serving until 1990. Since then, he has headed the Union of Composers of Russia.

photo: RIA Novosti, Sergei Piatakov/Lebrecht Music&Arts

Libby Larsen’s  sci-fi opera A Wrinkle in Time has been pulled by Fort Worth Opera because it cannot raise the cash in time for next year’s fest.

More here.

Elina Garanca, who had her second baby last month, has told the Vienna Opera that she won’t after all be singing in April’s Rosenkavalier. Sophie Koch has been called in to sub.