This is an unfortunate recurrence.

Met statement: Jonas Kaufmann has canceled his performances in this season’s new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut due to illness. Star tenor Roberto Alagna, currently at the Met giving an acclaimed performance of Canio in Pagliacci, will sing his first-ever performances of des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, replacing Kaufmann. To allow time for him learn the staging before the February 12 new production premiere, Alagna must withdraw from his remaining performances as Canio as he undertakes this new challenge.

Kaufmann cancelled Carmen at the Met last year. Recently he gave acute sinusitis as the cause for pulling out of the Real in Madrid.

jonas kaufmann1

Some more detail here.

The soprano Denise Duval created the roles of Elle in La voix humaine and Thérèse in Les mamelles de Tirésias, as well as playing Blanche in Dialogues des Carmelites, after its Italian premiere.

Poulenc first spotted her at the Folies Bergères and decided she would be his perfect interpreter.

A member of the Paris Opéra and Opéra-Comique from 1947 to 1965, Denise toured widely with the composer. Poulenc called her his ‘feminine ideal’.

denise-duval-with-francis-poulenc

Elegant, youthful and effortlessly entertaining, she retired in 1965 after a vocal injury that was poorly treated. For the rest of her life, she mostly shunned music.

Denise Duval died in Switzerland yesterday, aged 94.

Click here.

Programme:

  • Pierre Boulez
    Dialogue de l’ombre double extraits
    Improvisation I
    Messagesquisse
    Dérive 1 pour six instruments
    Improvisation II
    Notations pour orchestre I-4
    Notations pour orchestre VII
  • Ensemble intercontemporain
  • Orchestre de Paris
  • Elèves du Conservatoire de Paris
  • Matthias Pintscher, direction
  • Paavo Järvi, direction
  • Bruno Mantovani, direction
  • Yeree Suh, soprano
  • Andrew Gerzso, Réalisation informatique musicale Ircam

 

pierre-boulez-540x304

In an interview today with Vesa Siren for the Helsingin Sanomat, the Pittsburgh music director practically takes himself out of the running for the New York Philharmonic vacancy.

He tells Vesa: ‘I think Esa-Pekka would be the right person also for this great orchestra.

‘My contract with Pittsburgh goes to 2020 so I feel an obligation to stay in Pittsburgh… I love the New York Philharmonic, definitely, and I am sure that they will pick out the right person in the future…. I have great things to do in Pittsburgh, which I don’t want to miss also.’

 

So that rules out New York’s next in line…. They are running out of names, and out of time.

manfred honeck

H/t: Vesa Siren.

Original interview here.

Julien Beaudiment was 22 when he became principal flute at the Opéra National de Lyon. At 35, he won the principal flute position in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a dream come true. But two years later he resigned, ‘for personal reasons’. Now he is ready to explain why he left, in an interview with his recital partner, Hugh Sung.

You can listen to the full audio interview here. In this segment, Julien explains why, reluctantly, he had to leave LA.

beaudiment

Julien Beaudiment: (Los Angeles) was the most important experience of my life so far. These two years for me – this city, this orchestra, gave me the possibility to understand myself better.

The people were so nice. The administration were amazing. Gustavo is so gifted. I will remember (forever) some concerts I made with him – Rachmaninov Isle of the Dead, Mahler symphonies, Tchaikovsky symphonies… I miss him. After a concert he would always come up to me on stage and say ‘très bien!’ I think that’s the only two words he knows.

My childhood dream was to live in America. I am so lucky to have achieved that.

Now I am comfortable to speak about (why I left). I am suffering for 30 years from a chronic kidney disease. We discovered my condition was really bad when I decided to live in Los Angeles. I saw a nephrologist in LA who told me the waiting list there for transplant was 8-10 years.

Suddenly you realise what is important. In France, the health system is so good, and free. And the waiting list is one to two years. I couldn’t see myself doing dialysis for ten years… And my mother was dying… So…

By chance, the opera house in Lyon had not filled my position. I called them, and went back.

The position of teacher at the Conservatoire was also open. So … tout est bien qui finit bien.

So many people suffer from a chronic disease, but life doesn’t stop. My kidney function is about 40 percent but I am touring the world. You can do so many things…

I think the best is yet to come.

 

Rodica Iosub has died of a rapid illness, aged 56.

Notice from the Israeli Philharmonic:

rodica

In 1981 a young violinist arrived for an audition at the IPO. A few minutes later the sounds of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 filled the hall, Maestro Mehta nodded – you have been accepted!

Violinist Rodica Iosub joined the orchestra 35 years ago and sadly, suddenly, parted from us yesterday.

Rodica began her musical career in Romania where she was considered a child prodigy. As a member of the Israel Philharmonic, she trained and helped many young musicians and was always happy to devote her abilities and time to others.

Rodica played in the first violin section of the orchestra. Despite numerous opportunities offer to her, she remained faithful to the IPO which she viewed as her home and her family. She loved to travel around the world – with the orchestra and with her family. Last November, she took part in the IPO’s tour of the U.S. just before falling sick. From her hospital bed, she told close friends how much she wanted to resume playing.

Maestro Mehta expressed his condolences: ‘Rodica was one of the most treasured violinists of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and played with the greatest enthusiasm since joining the orchestra in 1981. She was greatly appreciated by all her colleagues and myself throughout the years. We shall miss her.’

Our regular collaborator Shawn Milnes found much that was not to the public’s liking at the return of a company New York had left for dead.

new york audience 1940s

On the night I attended the NYCO-R Tosca, I found an attractive, younger, finance crowd that I do not see at the Met in such numbers.

Some of these young people will eventually be poised to become the next generation of mega arts donors. That is great, both for NYCO-R and opera in general.

However will they return in the future, especially given the frustration and chaos the facilities at the Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Center caused?

Was it NYCO-R or the Rose’s fault that people spent the vast majority of the two intermissions on line for the single working men’s room or on line at the single bar with only two working cashiers?

Many people did not even get the drink they waited 10 minutes on line for as intermission ended before they could.

Several people missed the second act because they were waiting for the bathrooms and there were no late admissions to the theatre after either intermission.

Shawn’s conclusion: must try harder. Read his full and frank assessment here.

The Boston music director has been discussing his upcoming Shakespeare season with our pals at bostonclassicalreview.com:

 

 

Hamlet-and-skull-on-stamp

 

“He’s problematic, you know?” Nelsons said.  “This question—‘to be or not to be’–is a constant question for all of us, and will be always.

“We look at Hamlet through Shostakovich’s eyes,” he said, touching on another festival item, the theater music the Russian composer composed while still a student (not the much later score to a film of Hamlet). 

Recalling Shosatkovich’s wary relations with the deadly Stalin regime in the U.S.S.R., Nelsons said, “Three hundred years [after Shakespeare], what was in Shostakovich’s life?  To be or not to be!”  In this very early theater score, “there is a requiem, a funeral march, Ophelia’s song, a dance.  In all of this already there is some kind of irony and drama” characteristic of this composer.

Aren’t both those things already in Shakespeare’s play? “You can say this music is about the play and the dramatism of Hamlet,” Nelson answered. “Of course it is, but I’m sure, if you see the parallels to how he lived [under Soviet rule], Shostakovich was kind of a Hamlet in his life, you know?  He faced these questions in a very personal way.” 

Read more here.

 

The 2016 Klara Carrièreprijs for being Belgian and internationally recognised has gone to the early music violinist and conductor Sigiswald Kuijken.

The annual prize has been running since 2001. Can’t imagine why they need it.

Sigiswald Kuijken

HET symfonieorkest, the financially troubled orchestra of East Netherlands, has dropped its chief conductor Jan Willem de Vriend and will not replace him.

Guest conductors will fill in until the new admin finds out whether the orch can be kept afloat.

De Vriend was in the podium for ten years while the orch overspent wildly and tried to steal a name from a rival ensemble. His chief exec partner, Hans Mannak, was forced out in November.

mannak+en+de+vriend

In an interview here, the conductor says he’s leaving of his own accord.

UPDATE: It is further reported that several of the musicians are being reduced to part-time contracts.

Cellist Nathan Chan writes to us with a simple message: ‘Cellists: Never. Fly. WestJet’.

Here’s his horrible experience:

nathan chan drew alexander forde
When I read about the latest debacle between violinist Ari Vilhjamsson and Norwegian Air and the success that followed in having the company change their stance on instrument transportation, I thought it was important to share a travel experience I had this past January with my cello and WestJet.

I always purchase a seat for my cello because of the fragility and risk associated with checking in a cello and having it damaged (either from baggage handling or non-temperature controlled climate in the cargo hold, among others). This holiday, I booked a red-eye flight from Vancouver to New York through Toronto using American Airlines… but the first leg was operated by WestJet.

WestJet has a super strict, no cellos in extra seats policy that put me in a difficult and hopeless situation. I discovered this while checking in, and was given an ultimatum. Check the cello or abandon the extra ticket.

Let me explain the “thinking” behind this company-wide policy, as described by WestJet representative Robert Barron. They don’t allow cellos on board because they do not have “specialized tie downs” for the instrument. They claim that this is for the “safety… of the instrument”.

If this be the case, I have no idea why they’d want to put it in cargo, where there is turbulence combined with lack of temperature regulation.

The industry standard for strapping in a cello is to use a seatbelt extender to loop the belt through the handle of the cello, as shown here:

cello airline

In what was a very stressful moment, I had to abandon my instrument and leave it with family in Vancouver and board the plane on my own. This was a “sold out flight”. I hope the person on the standby list wasn’t mad that there was an empty seat on the plane due to WestJet’s frustrating policy.

Because of this, I’ve had to spend nearly $1,000 to have a third party fly the cello to me in New York using airline companies that allow cellos as cabin baggage. I filed for a refund through American Airlines but still have not been issued a refund for the abandoned seat.

I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage a discussion to enact change on a company-wide level with WestJet that would greatly enhance its musical travelers’ experiences as well as show the best of intentions in adapting with the current needs of modern transportation.

With best intentions, I would urge that WestJet reexamine its policy regarding musical instruments. When a company like WestJet that specializes in service encounters customer discomfort over a purely business-driven policy, especially one that stands as a distinct industry outlier, it is necessary for that company to reexamine the policy in question. WestJet’s closest competitor, Air Canada, not only allows instruments in extra seats, but even offers a 50% discount. Click here.

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week on scena.org:

What you really need to start 2016 – what you never imagined you’d ever need – is a piano concerto by Neil Sedaka.

Absolutely no irony here. Anyone who can write a novel or concerto start to finish without falling on his/her plot deserves all the credit going and a fair ride from reviewers. Sedaka, 75, made his name with a stream of teen hits in the late 1950s after attending Saturday classes at Juilliard. He hit the #1 jackpot with Oh, Carol, a tribute to his ex-girlfriend Carole King, and never looked back.

Except, perhaps, for a hankering to do some of the stuff he learned at Juilliard.

Read the full review here.

Neil Sedaka at-Red-Piano