There’s a fascinating new interview on the Met musicians’ website with concertmaster David Chan, a Tchaikovsky prize winner from San Diego. Among other things, David says:

I think the thing is – and I say this in the best possible sense – an orchestra is not a democracy. It’s a hierarchy; it’s set up that way. Ultimately, what the conductor says is what goes. But there are things that are not directly addressed by the conductor. Then, maybe the principal player has to make certain decisions. So when you have an orchestra full of great players and great people, everyone respects the structure and the process and it’s not really an issue. One thing we pride ourselves on at the Met is that there is a lot of commitment in our playing.

Read the full interview here.

In the brae new world of the 1960s, not many opera singers were prepared to risk their precious cords on Webern, Ligeti, Boulez and Busotti.

Liliana Poli, one of the bravest of the brave, died today in Florence, aged 81.

‘What Cathy Berberian was among mezzos, Liliana Poli was among sopranos,’ writes a colleague.

Wonderful reminiscence in the Telegraph today from the actor Pamela Binns, 84, who has been on stage in La Boheme at the Royal Opera House for 41 years. Tonight is the last appearance of the John Copley production.

Pamela has counted all the stars in and counted them all out, more than 600 times. Just read this.

Good tidings at last from Atlanta, which has been through the wringer this past year.

After a bruising 10-week lockout and the loss of key players, the ASO has announced a six-figure surplus for the season and – more important – $13.3 million in a special endowment fund aimed at raising player numbers from the presently depleted 77 back to 84, and eventually 88.

More here.

Message from Francois-Xavier Roth, music director of the SWR Freiburg orchestra that the broadcaster is shutting down.

Yesterday after our last concert of the season our incroyable audience stood on their feet and showed us these “Danke” (signs); I had to go back to my dress room to take my mobile phone to take the pics.

The programme included Boulez: le Marteau sans Maître.

A ruling by Italy’s culture ministry has resulted in the sale of a cache of unbuttoned letters by Giuseppe Verdi to the care home for retired musicians that the composer founded in Milan.

The 200 letters between Verdi and his friend  Opprandino Arrivabene, ripe with rude language, were put up for auction last year. They were blocked from leaving the country by ministerial order, resulting in a knockdown sale to the Casa Verdi for  €120,000, AP reports.

There was a different kind of premiere at the Festival d’Avignon last weekend.

The audience at Olivier Py’s French-language staging of King Lear were able to watch the show through a pair of augmented reality glasses, which displayed a translated text in real time.

There’s a choice of French, English or Mandarin; the projected text is visible only to the wearer.

The Festival d’Avignon, a pioneer of innovative theatre, is the first to trial the high-tech specs, co-developed by Paris-based companies Atos and TheatreinParis.com. Carl de Poncins, Theatre president, said: ‘I’ve had the great privilege to welcome, together with Mme Fleur Pellerin, French minister of Culture and Communication, two spectators from Taiwan at the premiere of King Lear in the Cour d’Honneur of the Popes’ palace in Avignon. They were able to follow this French production of Shakespeare’s classic with Mandarin surtitles.’

According to de Poncins, the final product could be in use in opera houses and theatres in the UK within a year. Dramatic reductions in neck pain from craning to view surtitles is one expected outcome. Viewers who already wear prescription glasses, however, may grumble about having to double up.

Eleven have made it to the finals:

London 2015 Opera Finalists

Edward Parks, baritone, USA
Rossini – Il barbiere di Siviglia – Largo al factotum

The town of Schwerin in the province of Mecklenburg has a Proms season. Who knew?

Now we do because “MeckProms” is going, in its own slogan “Very British”, with music by ‘Edward Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Frederick Loewe (sic), Leroy Anderson (double-sic) and more.

See you there on Sunday, July 19, 2015, 11am in the baroque park in front of Schloss Bothmer in Klütz. Bring a picnic basket. Don’t forget your umlaut.

Photo: Silke Winkl, tickets: kasse@theater-schwerin.de