The Theater an der Wien, where Wagner in 1863 conducted scenes from Der fliegende Holländer, has a new production in the original 1841 version, where the opera is set in Scotland, not Norway.

You can watch it here on livestream, next Tuesday.

The conductor is Marc Minkowski (with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble) and the director Olivier Py.

 

Holländer_OHP_HiRes_017 - Kopie

The great violinist has subjected himself to the Nick Canellakis interrogation.

He survives, kind of.

Might be one of his best interviews. Could be a whole new artform.

Enjoy.
itzhak perlman youtube

The Canadian novelist Steven Galloway has been suspended by the University of British Columbia, where he chairs a creative writing program, over what are called ‘serious allegations.’

He has not been told what the allegations are, or how they will be investigated. He has been suspended on full pay.

It’s all a bit Kafkaesque.

Steven, 40, is author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, The Confabulist, Ascension and Finnie Walsh.

cellist of sarajevo

Like Julius Caesar in another context, Helen Zell thrice refused the crown.

She never wanted to be chair of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. But the pressure was on and when she accepted, writes Shia Kapos in a fascinating profile, ‘a barely audible “Yes!” went up from a half-dozen women at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s annual meeting.’

So what do we know about the new chair?

She plays her piano every day, a Fazioli.

She’s married to real-estate developer Sam Zell.

And together they gave $17 million to the orchestra last year.

Shia writes: Zell takes the helm as the CSO tackles a $5 million drop in total operating revenue, to $71.4 million from $76.6 million last year, in part due to a dip in fundraising.

“Ticket sales only cover about 40 percent of what it costs to operate the organization. That’s why we have to raise so much. It’s real simple,” she says.

Read Shia’s full article right here.

hzell
Photo by Erik Unger

Americans for the Arts Action Fund has won what it claims to be a major concession on the school syllabus.

In the midst of the biggest shakeup of federal education law in over a decade, Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) successfully added an amendment today to the rewrite of the nation’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) legislation that will integrate the arts into STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math).

The precise wording of the amendment is:  integrating other academic subjects, including the arts, into STEM programs to increase participation in STEM, improve attainment of STEM-related skills, and promote well-rounded education.

That seems to mean the arts are still optional, and certainly inferior, to science teaching.

Or does this have an upside?

the-violin-teacher-bia-lefevre_069-050

 

 

Full report here.

The home and mosque of the charismatic preacher Rachid Abou Houdeyfa have been raided during the night in Brest by dozens of security police. The operation is continuing. It is not clear if Rachid Abou Houdeyfa has been formally arrested.

You may have watched his video on Slipped Disc earlier this week, teaching small children that music is the devil’s creation and that Islam forbids them to learn to play an instrument.

brest imam

E. Randol Schoenberg, president of the L.A. Museum of the Holocaust, and the real-life hero of Helen Mirren’s film Woman in Gold, has been speaking to the Los Angeles Times about Congress slamming the doors on Syrian refugees:

‘Obviously, many Americans in 1943 felt the same as many do today — that we cannot risk admitting enemy agents among the throng of refugees… During World War II, this type of fear meant that millions of honest, innocent people were unable to escape their murderers. I hope we don’t make the same mistake again.’

schoenberg chaplin
Charles Chaplin in LA with refugee Arnold Schoenberg

The Met’s manager has come out with some figures for his Live from the Met screenings, in an interview with Vienna’s tabloid Kurier.

The headline number is impressive. Even more so is the disclosure that two out of three Met movie tickets are for screenings outside the United States.

That is the extent to which Gelb’s Met dominates the opera movie audience.

It’s a huge success for Peter Gelb and a massive disgrace for Covent Garden, La Scala, Vienna, Munich and Berlin, which have tried with large amounts of public money – and signally failed – to develop a domestic movie audience for their own productions.

Germany and Austria together, says Gelb, are now his second biggest market.

The Met rules the opera world on screen. Why did we let it win?

Wagners Das Rheingold Metropolitan Opera 2010

Submit your answers below.

This was last night’s curtain call.

 

hansel vienna

And this, below, was the showbill for the Vienna State Opera’s last production of Hansel and Gretel, which ended when the house was shut by Goebbels in 1944.

Note the emblem in the upper lefthand corner and the casual assumption that, in Vienna at least, Hansel and Gretel was only half of a mandatory double-bill.

Sitzfleisch must have softened since then.

 

hansel vienna 1940

It is being reliably reported that the US Embassy in Italy has warned of a threat to ‘potential targets’, specifically St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and La Scala, Milan.

The Embassy has issued this notice in a warning to the Italian Government and to US citizens in Italy.

RAI has quoted Italian officials saying ‘there are no direct signs of concrete threats’ but the warning is being taken seriously. Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni says security services are ‘working to identify five people.’

 

teatro_la_scala

The shape of next summer’s Tanglewood has been announced. At the heart of it is two acts of Verdi Aida with the music director’s marital partner singing the title role.

Kristine Opolais is a terrific singer and the tangled woods are lucky to have her, but when the lead headline of the upcoming festival is Mr & Mrs Music Director is doesn’t, somehow, look quite right.

Does it?

 

opolais nelsons wedding

 

press release:

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2016 TANGLEWOOD SEASON INCLUDE BSO MUSIC DIRECTOR ANDRIS NELSONS LEADING BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA IN ACTS 1 & 2 OFVERDI’S AIDA WITH KRISTINE OPOLAIS IN TITLE ROLE (8/20); MAHLER’S NINTH SYMPHONY (7/29); BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH SYMPHONY (7/30); AND MUSIC FROMPROKOFIEV’S ROMEO AND JULIET (8/21), PLUS MUSIC OF BERLIOZ, CORIGLIANO, MOZART, SAINT-SAËNS, SIBELIUS, AND TSONTAKIS, AS WELL AS THE TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER ORCHESTRA’S ANNUAL LEONARD BERNSTEIN MEMORIAL CONCERT(7/31), AN ALL-BRAHMS PROGRAM PAIRING THE SYMPHONY NO. 1 AND
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 WITH PAUL LEWIS AS SOLOIST

 

And the winner of the classical section of the Latin Grammys last night is…

grammy gabriela montero

Gabriela Montero, pianist and composer, has been the most outspoken and unflinching critic of the sanguinary Venezuelan regime and its El Sistema musical offshoot.

Que viva, Gaby!

gabriela montero colours

UPDATE: The prize was shared with Franz and Debora Halasz for their Bis album, alma brasileira.