Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has chosen three new singers and one pianist/coach for the 2016–17 HGO Studio.

They are Yelena Dyachek, soprano (pictured); Zoie Reams, mezzo-soprano; Sol Jin, baritone, and Peter Walsh, pianist/coach.

Well done, them.

The trainees were drawn from an international mailbag of 475 applications. Of these, some 275 were heard in auditions in Houston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles.

Just four got through.

A success chance of below one percent.

And it came to pass that Carnegie Hall brought forth the names of the children of America who will play in the next cycle of its National Youth Orchestra, known as NYO-USA.

And these are they:

While the media mogul was getting remarried at the weekend, his last wife Wendy Deng was being walked around the Paris fashion shows by a male model who happens to be a classical violinist.

Very chummy. Lots of pictures in the Mail.

We’ve shown him once before, with Miley Cyrus.

Two years after the death of the most revolutionary power in European opera, Camille de Rijck has published a candid, moving interview with Gerard Mortier’s life-partner, the conductor Sylvain Cambreling.

On his deathbed, it is revealed, Gerard gathered around his closest friends to read from Goethe.

The paramount European.

Read here (en francais). We may never see his like again.

The Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev, a far-right member of the ruling party, has let it be known she will be inflicting a punitive cut on Israel Opera for not reflecting her nationalist vision for the country.

She’s also planning a hit on the national theatre, Habimah, for representing a leftist agenda.

Israel Opera receives NIS 18 million ($4.6m) in state subsidy. It will be damaged but not disabled by the cut.

Carlisle Floyd premiered his first opera in 1949 and achieved lasting success six years later with his third, Susannah, which was restaged by New York City Opera and taken to Europe.

This weekend, Carlisle was present at the world premiere at Houston Grand Opera of his 12th opera, Prince of Players, about the cross-dressing 17th century English actor, Edward Kynaston.

First review here from our pals at the Classical Review.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week on scena.org, MusicalToronto and OpenLettersMonthly:

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s interpretation of Mahler’s first symphony is beautifully played by Munich’s (some say Germany’s) best orchestra and thoughtfully structured by an impressive guest conductor. I think I am safe in saying that it is conceptually different from any of the 120 Mahler Firsts on record, stretching all the way back to Dimitri Mitropolous’s towering Minnesota performance for Columbia in April 1940. And that’s no small distinction in a much-repeated piece.

So where is Yannick going with it? Read on here or here.

This summer’s Montepellier Festival features an infrequent outing for Mascagni’s dubious opera, Iris, in which the heroine has a Freudian dream of getting molested by an octopus and ultimately gets stripped naked on a public balcony by a brothel keeper.

Not a happy ending.

Sonya Yoncheva stars.

The femocratic arts centre is celebrating women. It’s that time of year.

Southbank Centre is pleased to announce that we are once again recruiting female musicians to join the Women of the World Orchestra. 

We reported that event in January 2015, only to learn that the SBC had no intention of paying the women it was purporting to celebrate.

We kicked up a bit of a fuss, hoping it might do some good next time round.

Some hopes. A Slipped Disc reader tells us today:

So somebody dropped out of this Women of the World Festival taking place at Southbank on Sunday and I said I would be available to play second bassoon, but am now feeling slightly uneasy about the fact that they are asking players to perform for free.

… The Festival Hall are not even offering comps to players – they’re offering 40% off the ticket price, so they’ll be profiteering from the players’ family and friends who are probably going to make up the majority of the audience.

It seems exploitative and hypocritical to be participating in a festival that celebrates women but doesn’t pay them, and I wonder if Sue Perkins or Sandi Toksvig are giving their time away for free.

Indeed. Or these two executives below who run the artistic side. They certainly don’t work for free.

It is only uncelebrated women that the South Bank exploits.

The award-winning Pavel Haas Quartet has been forced to make a personnel change.

Statement by their agency, Intermusica:

Due to a serious illness in his immediate family, Pavel Nikl, the viola player and founding member of the Pavel Haas Quartet, has very sadly had to take the difficult decision to leave the quartet. Radim Sedmidubský, up until now a member of the Škampa Quartet and a longstanding friend of the ensemble, has joined the Pavel Haas Quartet to replace him with immediate effect.
Czech viola player Radim Sedmidubský studied at the Prague Academy of Music with Milan Škampa, a former member of the legendary Smetana Quartet. In 1989 he co-founded the Škampa Quartet of which he has been a member for more than twenty years. He has also performed with ensembles such as the Keller, Endellion and Borodin Quartets, held chamber music classes all over the world and in 2001 was appointed visiting professor of chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Pavel Nikl:“ I am sorry that difficult personal circumstances have forced me to leave the Pavel Haas Quartet. Personally, I am glad that in these unanticipated circumstances the brilliant violist Radim Sedmidubský has agreed to join the quartet. Not only is he a great player and lasting friend but also, having studied like myself with Prof. Milan Škampa, he shares our philosophy and musical values.“

The Spanish tenor José Ferrero died on Friday night at his home in Chinchilla, apparently of a heart attack.

After an early debut as Don José in Carmen, he developed a scholarly passion for baroque music and founded La Capilla Antigua de Chinchilla, with whom he made three Naxos recordings.

On the major-house circuit he sang at La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Sao Carlos in Naples, Teatro Real in Madrid, the Liceu in Barcelona. From 2011-2013 he sang Cavaradossi at Scottish Opera and later at Berlin State Opera. He was just easing his way into Wagner roles in Luxembourg and Geneva.

(c) Lebrecht Music&Arts

The death is reported of Jerzy Godziszewski, 81, a highly regarded artist who was awarded second distinction in the 1960 International Chopin Piano Competition as well as a special prize founded by Witold Małcużyński.

Jerzy went on to study for two years with Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli but took more to teaching than performing. From 1978 he was professor of music at the High School of Music in Bydgoszcz.

He can be seen in this 1960 news film at 2:40.