Six hours before show time, the box office must be dead. The hall has just sent this out:

We’re offering a Snow Day Special tonight! See the Mariinsky Orchestra for $20 using promo code SNOW21160. http://bit.ly/1CdbXqW 

Tickets for the concert were originally priced at $25.50-$160

The international conductor and violinist Joji Hattori has a new string to his bow.

Joji, artistic director in Palma de Majorca and a regular conductor with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, has ‘another project that is equally important in my life’.

Next week, he’s opening a Japanese restaurant called Shiki on the Krugerstasse, near the Haus der Musik.

Worth getting there while he’s tuning up.

The US soprano rocket-launched her fat-booze-and-men book today with a blitz of TV and press interviews.

The phrase that caught our eye was the headline grab above. If it’s going to hurt the people you love, why do it?

From the Polish tenor, Piotr Beczala:

‘We were prepared for everything but not for this!!!!!
As one of the greatest singers says : 5 days in the season the voice sounds perfect, incredible ,amazing – and in those 5 days you don’t have performance… today was the day…’

Our gola profonda reports:

The sacked artistic director of the opera house in Valencia, Spain, could be up for a plum job in Italy.

A round of musical chairs is being staged in the next few days at Bologna, Cagliari, Napoli, Genova, Bari, Parma, and possibly Florence.

Parma, Verdi’s home town opera house, looks likely to be run by a pair of populist Beppe Grillo’s pals. Neither has opera experience.

Maurizio Roi is tipped to be confirmed in Genova and Nicola Sani in Bologna, both good calls. 

Florence is contemplating Daniele Gatti as music/artistic director, with Zubin Mehta as lifetime honorary conductor. Mehta is best mates with Helga Schmidt.

Watch this space – if Helga misses out on Florence, she may get another house. At 73, she’s not done yet.

At the Royal Flanders Philharmonic, the Intendant Hans Verbugt has resigned with immediate effect.

Two months ago, music director Edo de Waart did the same, apparently after players complained he was ‘too demanding’.

Antwerp and the EU taxpayer are building a new concert hall for this orchestra. It was due to open later this year, but completion has been delayed to a date yet to be determined. Maybe they should get a Greek to run the show.

Directed by Emily Knight for English National Opera. Just gone online.

For more ENO/St Martin’s animations, click here.

The murder of Mary Whitaker last summer at her home in upstate New York horrified the music community. Mary was a well-loved member of several orchestras, a person with a ready smile for all and no known enemies.

Two men, Jonathan Conklin, 43, and Charles Sanford, 30, were swiftly arrested in Buffalo.

Their trial has just begun. Both pleaded not guilty. Read more here.

Genia Kühmeier* has pulled out of a Mozart aria concert this Saturday.

So the VPO have called in Marina Rebeka, who is just winding up a month at the Met, as Violetta and Musetta. Toi-toi to her.

*(not, as previously reported Diana Damrau)

Ibermusica, the premier Spanish concerts organisation, has disclosed a one million Euro deficit. The family company, which has brought the world’s great orchestras and artists to Spain since 1971, has taken a devastating hit since the Euro debt crash.

‘Until four years ago the season was always sold through subscriptions,’ says the company’s founder, Alfonso Aijón, 83. ‘We reached 4,800 subscribers and had a waiting list. People renewed automatically. But this year we have dropped one-eighth, a hole of nearly one million Euros.’

Read here, and fear. Ibermusica is a vital part of the global  music economy.

h/t: Dianne Winsor

The death has been reported of Jennifer Holbrook, an outstanding Peabody graduate whose professional roles included Violetta, Adalgisa, Manon (Massenet) and Leila (Pearl Fishers).

Jennifer died in Philadelphia a week ago. No cause of death has been disclosed.

She leaves a partner, William Davenport, who is also an opera singer; and their two year-old daughter, Eleanor.

Words fail.

Fb picture posted Christmas Eve, 2014

This is the arresting cover of the new issue of the Bayerische Staatsoper magazine, Max Joseph.

Can’t see it happening at Covent Garden or the Met.

Painting by Finnish artist Jani Leinonen.