Anja Kampe has cancelled this summer’s appearances as Isolde after a reported row with Christian Thielemann.
She is to be replaced by Evelyn Herlitzius. Kampe will, however, sing Sieglinde in the Ring, conducted by Kirill Petrenko.
Bayreuth press statement:
The direction of the Bayreuther Festspiele notes with great regret that Anja Kampe returned the part of Isolde for this year´s new production of “Tristan und Isolde”. The termination of the contract was mutually agreed. The direction of the Bayreuth Festival is very happy to announce that Anja Kampe will none the less sing the part of Sieglinde under the musical direction of Kyrill Petrenko.
German media have identified Kampe as the companion of Kirill Petrenko.
The disaffection between Thielemann and Petrenko may lie behind these late changes.
Krzysztof Kaczka was on stage in Moscow, taking a deep breath before his next piece, when the pianist decided to rearrange the programme without telling him.
Watch the page-turner. She’s struggling to hold it together.
The excellent Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Katowice has been reduced to playing hip-hop classics in a concert hall in the city of Katowice.
The conductor is a composer and producer, Radzimir Dębski, whose online moniker is JIMEK.
The video has earned nearly two million hits, but the concert leaves a bad taste.
The Vienna Phil have upgraded their website with features about ‘social responsibility’ and other diversions.
What’s really interesting is an archive feature that enables you to search every concert the orch has given, all the way back to 1842.
The strangest things turn up. On Saturday December 2, 1948, Furtwängler programmed the William Walton symphony between Weber’s Freischütz overture and Tchaikovsky’s fifth.
The concert was repeated twice.
In May 1951, Furtwängler programmed Walton’s overture, Scapino.
Another 17 years passed before the Vienna Phil played another note by the Lancastrian composer.
