Ji-Yeong Mun, 18, took first prize for piano in the Concours Genève. Third was Honggi Kim, 25 (Pallavi Mahidhara of the US came 2nd).

Pascal Rogé (below) chaired the jury.

Earlier, the brilliant flautist Yubeen Kin, 17, was denied a rightful first prize by an indecisive jury.

Geneva was almost a clean sweep for Korea.

There is a reason Dmitri Hvorostovsky gives few interviews. He can usually be trusted to put his foot in it.

Gently grilled by Anna Picard in the Times (paywall), the London-based baritone admits to seeking favours from Vladimir Putin and is coy about politics. The one thing he cannot stand, he confides, is audiences that vent negative feelings.

When I ask him about audiences that boo directors, he mimes picking up a rifle and pulling the trigger: “It’s an abuse. I want to take a gun and shoot them. Because it’s teamwork. Anything that we are talking about in opera is teamwork. You stand together.”

Dmitri, darling, don’t do it. The audience are the ones who pay your wages (along with a few oligarchs we won’t mention). They have a right to express themselves. Don’t shoot before you think. That’s why you need bodyguards back home.

Read the interview. It’s great fun.

The Katie Wagner regime is getting into its stride.

Having got rid of her half-sister Eva and a Parsifal director, she’s now cleaning out the backstage.

First to go was the respected technical director, Karl-Heinz Matitschka. His Swiss deputy, Andreas von Graffenried, was prepared to step up but he was told yesterday that his services were no longer required.

That leaves Bayreuth without a tech dept. Let’s Katie has some cunning plan.