The Milan prosecutor has issued proceedings against the Teatro alla Scala and eight named individuals for the death of eight staff members from asbestos-related illnesses between the years 1986 and 2002.
Among those cited are four ex-mayors of Milan, former La Scala sovrintendente Carlo Fontana and members of his technical staff.
Composer of five symphonies and 11 string quartets, Frédérick Martin negotiated the vacant middle ground between Boulezian modernism, French traditionalism and American minimalism.
A prolific composer for solo piano, he died of undisclosed causes on April 18.
It has been announced that the contralto Marian Anderson, racially barred from US opera stages until she was 57 years old, will appear on US banknotes.
Anderson sang Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera at the Metropolitan Opera on January 5, 1955, the only stage role of her noble public life.
She lived on until 1993, playing a full role in the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s.
If there’s one thing that will take me to Moscow it’s a chance to visit the home shared by the great pianist and his partner, Nina Dorliak.
The apartment, at Bolshaya Bronnaya, 2/6, will be open for guided tours on the last Sunday of each month.
Details here.
The opera world remains stunned by the death this week, aged 49, of one of its brightest countertenors, the delightful Operalia winner Brian Asawa.
Friends have set up a fund in his memory to support rising talent.
Photo by Lisa Kohler; Brian Asawa, Merola Opera Program 1991 participant, preparing for his role in the opera The Bartered Bride at Stern Grove.
(San Francisco) To honor the legacy of Brian Asawa, 1991 Merola Opera Program participant, who passed away on Monday, April 18, 2016, a fund has been established in his memory to support future opera artists. You may donate by visiting the Merola Opera Program webpage here and clicking the “Donate” button or by calling the Merola development office at (415) 936-2311.
The Brian Asawa Memorial Fund will benefit incoming Merola Opera Program participants, with a particular preference given to countertenors. Mr. Asawa was a much beloved international opera performer, known for his big personality and big heart.
In 1991, he was selected to participate in the prestigious Merola Opera Program, becoming one of the few countertenors admitted. He was lauded for his performance in The Bartered Bride, which was performed at Stern Grove. Following Merola, Asawa was offered a position with the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship program.
He was the first countertenor to win both the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and Plácido Domingo’s Operalia International Opera Competition. His career spanned the globe with performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Opera Australia, Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and Hamburg State Opera among others.
Jean Kellogg, Merola Executive Director, says, “Brian Asawa was in the vanguard of the countertenor resurgence which continues to this day. He will be greatly missed in the opera world, and by all of us at Merola in particular.”
The trial opened in Munich yesterday of Siegfried Mauser, a distinguished pianist who is accused of sexual offences against two colleagues in 2009 and 2012 while he was rector of the Munich Academy of Music.
Mauser was in court to hear the charges, which he denies.
After submissions from both sides, the hearing was postponed until the end of May. Mauser has been suspended from his Salzburg positions, pending the outcome of the trial
Court report here, together with Mauser’s letter to his Salzburg staff.
The regional governor has decided to separate the presidency of the festival from its commercial management.
The president Helga Rabl-Stadler has held both roles since 2011. Her term ends in September 2017. Both her position and the commercial director’s are to be advertised immediately.
The festival will also be losing its executive director, Stefan Mehrens, who departs at the end of June.
Regime change is in the Salzburg air.
Rabl-Stader, 67, has been president since 1995, steering the festival through the second half of the turbulent Mortier decade into a period of alternate dreariness and elevation.
