The players are London orchestra regulars. The audience is not. Not yet, that is. Just watch.

David Frost meets Baldur von Schirach, butcher of Vienna’s Jews. He tells Frost that he met Hitler first at the opera. ‘He was so well informed about music.’

Read more about the character of Richard Strauss here.

h/t Michael Haas

Peter Phillips, director of the Tallis Scholars, has a blast at his colleague John Eliot Gardiner in The Spectator today, apparently in the interest of soliciting public views on the cult of the awe-inspiring maestro. Phillips refers to…

the story that John Eliot Gardiner recently lost his temper with a brass player in the London Symphony Orchestra. His ‘notorious rudeness to performers and colleagues’ has been referred to in these pages by Stephen Walsh. What do we think of that? Do we love his music-making so much that we forgive him the odd peccadillo? Perhaps we think his music-making must be all the better for it. What is certain is that Gardiner is no Wagner: his achievements are likely to be forgotten soon after his death, as is the case with just about every conductor there ever was. If this is true, do we still indulge him?

   vs  

Phillips (c) Albert Roosenburg            JEG (Royal Albert Hall)

This just in from Bob Keefer, in Eugene, Oregon:

I’ve been fired by the Register-Guard. Since I retired from full-time work in July, I’ve been contributing a couple art reviews to the Arts section each month as a freelancer. But according to a one-line email I just received, “We won’t be needing your freelance services anymore.”

There was no explanation, but this follows closely on my public support of former colleague (arts reporter) Serena Markstrom Nugent, who was fired by the paper last month, while on medical leave, after working there 13 years. See today’s Eugene Weekly for details on that story.

Let’s just say I’m not devastated. Of course I’ll miss the opportunity to review more art shows around town, but it’s time to concentrate on my photography and writing projects, as well as working with Wordcrafters writing conference and Lane Arts Council.

See you on the Art Walk!

Small town stuff? No, a sign of the times.

The least capricious of tenors has pulled out of a prestige date with Bryn Terfel in front of the Zurich Opera House on April 26, marking the inauguration of the redesigned Sechseläutenplatz. Jonas cited ‘personal reasons’ for the cancellation. Go figure.

Bryn will have to make do with Julie Fox, Anna Goryachova and Benjamin Bernheim, the Philharmonia Zurich and conductor Alain Altinoglu.

l-r: Simon Keenlyside, Kaufmann, Terfel