Very sad news.

Melissa Schlachtmeyer, who designed costumes for opera, dance and theatre across the US and Europe, has died in Florence of complications from breast cancer.

Based in Portland, Oregon, she worked with directors Sam Helfrich and Moritz-von-Stuelpnagel, choreographers Jonathan Frederickson and Neta Pulvermacher and actors Bebe Neuwirth, Kate Buron and Alan Cumming.

Melissa, who was 41, is survived by a seven year-old daughter and her husband, the composer Jonathan Newman.

Our condolences to the family.

The incoming Boston Symphony conductor has made a categorical statement about his medium-term plans.

‘I will be too young in 2018 to take over from Simon Rattle,’ he tells Die Welt. ‘That was a strategic decision. I signalled it when I decided to be, from this autumn, chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.’

Nelsons is 35. He knows exactly where he’s going.

Elisabeth Kulman, founder of ‘Art But Fair’ and a doughty warrrior for improved conditions for opera singers, has cancelled the next few weeks, on doctors orders, due to exhaustion.

She will mis the Schubertiade and several more recitals.

We wish her a speedy recovery. Opera needs lots more like Elisabeth.

In memoriam. Twice in films:

And, less famously, in The Big Sleep

Aged 70, looking good, a serenade to Leonard Bernstein:

She could hold a tune. And she was one helluva actress.