During the catastrophic stage glitch that forced her to clear the Festpielhaus 20 minutes into opening night, Katharina Wagner sought to placate the media with details of her next few seasons.

2015 Nothing new.

2016 The director Jonathan Meese, who has faced criminal charges for incitement, has pledged not to introduce Nazi symbols in Parsifal.

2017 Barrie Kosky, director of Berlin’s Komische Opera, will stage Meistersinger. He’s ambivalent about Bayreuth but says ‘there’s no escaping Wagner’. Kosky is thought to be the first Aussie to direct on the Green Hill (a breakthrough oddly unreported by Aussie  media)

barrie-kosky

 

2018 New Lohengrin with Anna Netrebko as Elsa

2019 New Tannhäuser, conducted by ‘young international maestro’

2020 New Ring, probably conducted by Thielemann.

There you have it. No more surprises.

 

Eleonore Büning, the doyenne music critic of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has blasted Bayreuth with a shock discovery.

For the first time, there are empty spaces in the Festspielhaus. It’s not just Chancellor Angela Merkel who is staying away this year. So are many others who scored (and paid for) a ticket in the online lottery – and then didn’t bother to show up. Tickets can be found on the web.

Year upon year of shlock productions and weak management have alienated the audience, concludes Ms Büning. Read her here (auf Deutsch).

103. Bayreuther Festspiele - Tannhäuser

 

A revolutionary procedure at the Mayo Clinic for a very courageous schoolgirl, Mara Reed, from Minnesota.
KMSP-TV
mara reed

Julian Lloyd Webber has earned himself a few headlines, declaring that ‘most’ music contests are corrupt.

He brings no new evidence, citing only the Tchaikovsky competition in the Soviet and post-Soviet years which was widely known to be fixed.

Slipped Disc has, from time to time, exposed corruption at competitions. We praised the last Tchaikovsky contest, as it happens, for its admirable transparency and for the calibre of its winners.

The troubling question is: why does anyone take competitions seriously? Most of these events are, as Julian says, rigged by teachers and other special-interest jury members. They are a breeding-ground for cynicism and bad ethics.

The reason die their persistence is, we think, quite simple. The whole world knows that the International Olympics Committee and Fifa are two of the most corrupt organisations on earth, a self-perpetuating pair of conspiracies of time-servers and bribe-takers. So why are they not abolished?

Because every four years they put on a brilliant show – the Olympics and the World Cup – a pair of shows the world and its media cannot do without. So we turn a blind eye to blue murder in the interest of passive pleasure.

That is not – quite obviously – the case with music competitions, which are often duller than betting on flies crawling up a window. But every now and then one of them produces a Trifonov or a Giltburg and the moral outrage is set aside.

214376_Daniel-Trifonov-300x210

We wish Julian’s outcry would make a difference but, given the lack of concrete evidence and the general indifference, it won’t.

UPDATE: Here’s another reason why it won’t.

 

Dear Carlo thank you so much for your wonderful voice, talent and career !!! You have always inspired me and many other artists. as well as moved so many audiences. A great Verdian tenor. One of the best has left us but his legacy remains in innumerable recordings … Addio Carlo ! Placido.

bergonzi.3

 

I met the great tenor once, by chance.

It was late in the year 2000, and I was doing a recce of Verdi’s hangouts in the Parma region, ahead of the centennial year of the composer’s death. Late in the day, we drove into Busseto, the little village where he was born.

Not much to see on a misty November afternoon and nowhere to hang out. The cafe was open and a small knot of seniors were clustered around a table. One of them waved an arm, calling us over. Where from? London. What doing? Verdi pilgrimage. Why? Newspaper article. Big, beaming smile.

‘I am Carlo Bergonzi,’ announced the legend, ordering coffees all round.

He could not stay more than a few minutes as there was a pupil waiting for a lesson, but in those few minutes he offered reminiscences, requested updates on the state of Covent Garden and volunteered a few pearls of vocal wisdom.

Priceless moments, unforgettable.

Carlo Bergonzi died on Friday night, aged 90. bergonzi2

The Metropolitan Opera has issued a 54-page rebuttal to the musician’s 84-page proposal for non-wage savings at the company.

Dumbly, it has issued its refutations interwoven into the original document, which is now 138 pages long – so long that no-one with a life will ever read it.

Click here to see the monstrosity produced by Met management.

This was of words is being won by whoever has first say, not last.

metropolitan-opera exterior

 

 

Sebastian Baumgarten’s widely-loathed production of “Tannhäuser” came to a halt twenty minutes into the first act, due to a stage malfunction. The audience were asked to leave the auditorium while the fault was repaired. the opera resumed within half an hour.

In the 138-year history of the Bayreuth Festival, this is the first time this has happened,’ said Bayreuth archvist Sven Friedrich.

 

103. Bayreuther Festspiele - Tannhäuser

 

 

 

Musicians of the Metropolitan Opera have submitted an 84-page document, outlining what they say are the multiple shortcomings of Peter Gelb’s management.

They maintain that the Met can restore its fortunes and maintain present wage levels by a number of judicious measures. The largest involve a reduction in the number of new productions and efficiencies in scheduling, rehearsals and overtime payments. 

We have not yet studied the full document. Here is the union’s summary:

peter gelb1

 

New York, NY–Friday, July 25, 2014–Local 802, American Federation of Musicians, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra musicians today have commenced negotiations with Met Opera management including General Manager Peter Gelb. The union and the musicians released the attached report detailing the failed management and flawed artistic vision of Gelb during his 8-year tenure at the helm of the Met. The report analyzes the dismal reception of Gelb’s expensive new productions by opera critics and patrons and also recommends specific strategies the Met could employ to save $20 Million annually by curtailing Gelb’s lavish spending and realizing scheduling efficiencies.

Gelb has stated in the press that the Met is facing financial ruin and possible bankruptcy, while refusing to provide the musicians, the media or the public any evidence of such a crisis. He has announced that he must impose draconian cuts of over $30 Million, yet has refused to substantiate/document the reasons. No one yet knows why Gelb is asking for over $30 Million in cuts when his reported deficit is only $2.8 Million in the context of a $327 million annual budget.

What is known, however, is that under Gelb the Met’s labor costs have remained flat, while the Met Opera budget has increased by nearly 50% ($105 Million). This is in large part due to Gelb’s overspending on critically panned, unpopular productions, as well as poor scheduling, inferior marketing and extensive management waste. The musicians are in favor or new and artistically daring productions but want to see them managed expertly, whereby the Met is able to achieve artistic success while living within their budget.

Link to MET Orchestra/Local 802 findings on Peter Gelb’s record of managerial and artistic failure; Musicians’ recommendations on cost-saving efficiencies for the
Met Opera.

 

The inimitable Carlo Bergonzi has died in a hoospital in Milan. He spent the last years of his life in Verdi’s home village, Bussetto. He was 90.

Vale, Carlo!

bergonzi

This is Baron Buika on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1959. Click the word ‘Post’ if video does not pop out.

baron buika

Any composer or writer who has even received a bad review, or a string of them from the same critic, will find wisdom and encouragement  in this lovely reminiscence by Derek Bermel. Read here.

 

derek bermel

Now listen here: I love this piece.