Jed Bernstein’s abrupt departure from Lincoln Center was initially spun as a personality clash between him and the board chair, Katherine G. Farley.

Now the Center’s crisis-management team have informed the New York Times that Jed, 61, was having an affair with a woman in her 30s who was on his staff.

‘Mr. Bernstein had violated Lincoln Center human resources policy by not disclosing a personal relationship with an employee,’ it has been stated.

lincoln center

Could be it’s a bit of both.

Sonya Yoncheva will open the 2016-17 Covent Garden season as Norma, instead of Anna Netrebko.

Sondra Radvanovsky will replace Netrebko at the Met opening of 2017-18.

Sondra says: Well, the cat is out of the bag….I will be singing the new production and opening night of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017-2018 season in NORMA! YEAHHH! So happy to be working with Sir David McVicar again as well as Joseph Calleja and Joyce Di Donato! Hugs, Sondra  

sondra

Sonya is Bulgarian. Sondra is American.

All sorts of other ways to tell them apart.

China National Opera has named Yang Yang, 43, as its next music director.

He succeeds Yu Feng, who is now Rector of the Central Conservatory of Music.

Yang Yang… that shouldn’t be hard to remember.

yang yang

Ankara, today. The frontline of European democracy.

Macleans Magazine has just gone online with as much smut as it can muster on the rampaging divorce case between heiress and singer Eleanor McCain and former Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) president Jeff Melanson.

We know you’re not interested in smut. Those who are may click this link for the full story.

As far as the musical impact is concerned, these two paragraphs sum it up rather well:

melanson divorce

One arts insider is aghast: “It’s damaging to Jeff, it’s damaging to the TSO, it’s damaging to the Canadian arts community and it’s damaging to the McCain family. It’s a train wreck.” Lawyers are chattering: one shudders at “the abuse of the legal system to try to ruin someone’s career.”

But the combatants also represent the extremes of the insular Canadian art world—buyer and seller, donor and visionary—and at least some of what’s wrong with it. If McCain bought her way into the arts scene, “[losing] money on her ‘artistic’ endeavours,” as her estranged husband alleges in his claim that she “buys opportunities for herself and loses money on her ‘artistic’ endeavours’,” Melanson sold his way in: catapulting to celebrity status, particularly among the philanthropic elite, with a compelling, marketable vision of how the arts enrich communities, nations and economies. Such was Melanson’s charisma and celebrity that this is a world in which the hare, not the tortoise, gets the spotlight even if he doesn’t finish the race. It’s seldom acknowledged that his near-$1-billion plan for the Banff Centre was abandoned 2½ years in, and his epic $166.4-million plan for the money-losing TSO to build a recording studio and media lab went unquestioned publicly.

The Metropolitan Opera has released Sonya Yoncheva from La Bohème to sing Norma in London in September, in place of Anna Netrebko who says her voice is unsuited to the role.

ROH Director of Opera Kasper Holten: ‘A huge thank you to the Met for releasing the brilliant soprano Sonya Yoncheva from her scheduled performances there as Mimì in La bohème. They have announced today that Ailyn Pérez will sing Mimì for them in the autumn. We are delighted and appreciative that Sonya will be able to join our excellent cast and creative team for The Royal Opera’s new production of Norma. She has had much success at the Royal Opera House in recent Seasons and we look forward to welcoming her back in the autumn for Norma and as Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann.’

sonya yoncheva3

 

UPDATE: Sondra Radvanovsky will replace Anna at the Met.

The $25k career boosters go to:

Christopher Allen, Associate Conductor, Los Angeles Opera;

Gene Chang, Assistant Conductor, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director, Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra;

Ankush Kumar Bahl, Assistant Conductor, National Symphony Orchestra;

Joshua Gersen, Assistant Conductor, New York Philharmonic, and Music Director, New York Youth Symphony;

Daniel Black, Assistant Conductor,  Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra;

Keitaro Harada, Associate Conductor, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Associate Conductor, Arizona Opera, and Associate Conductor, Richmond (VA) Symphony Orchestra;

Yaniv Dinur, Assistant Conductor, The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra;

Stefano Sarzani, Associate Conductor, Des Moines Metro Opera;

Stilian Kirov, Music Director, Symphony in C (Philadelphia, PA), and Music Director, Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra;

Michelle Merrill, Assistant Conductor, Detroit Symphony Orchestra;

michelle merrill

 

and Sameer Patel, Assistant Conductor, The San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

Past winners include Karina Canellakis, Cristian Macelaru and Anthony Barrese.

 

Garsington Opera will live-screen Eugene Onegin this summer on the following sites:

SKEGNESS   Saturday 2 July 12.30pm                         Tower Esplanade SO Festival

RAMSGATE   25 – 30 July                        Ramsgate Beach, Ramsgate Arts Festival

BRIDGEWATER & BURNHAM  Saturday 20 August     APEX Park, Burnham-on-Sea

GRIMSBY       Friday 30 September 7pm                        Grimsby Central Hall

Cool!

 

cellos beach

Professor Vlad Alexandrescu who resigned last week over the chaos at the national opera is now saying he won’t go unless he can nominate his successor.

Staff at the opera, among them those who led the campaign against the engagement of foreign artists, have demanded his instant dismissal (you can read their statement below).

Meanwhile, at least six performances have been lost and the institution is paralysed.

 

The majority of the artists, technicians and employees of the National Opera of Bucharest and the majority of the creators and technicians from the cinema industry are joining forces to demand the imediate and official removal from office of Mr. Vlad Alexandrescu and his team, because under the cover of an alleged reform they initiated and put in place an ample action of accaparation of the public funds and destruction of culture institution in favour of group interests. 
We ask for a correct management team to be installed in the ministery, who, simultanously with a transparent investigation of the legallity of the minister and his group of interests decisions, to start a true reform in the culture.

 
The artists of the National Opera of Bucharest- O.N.B.
Union of Authors and Film Producers of Romania – U.A.R.F
Film and Audiovisual Producers  Society of Romania – SOPFIA
Screenwriters Association of Romania  – A.S.R.
bucharest gheorghiu

Some of the singer highlights of the 2017 festival:

The Canadian soprano Joyce El-Khoury shares the role of Violetta with Russian soprano Kristina Mkhitaryan, both making festival debuts, in Tom Cairns’s 2014 revived staging of Verdi’s La traviata.

 

joyce el-khoury

Alice Coote sings her first Vitellia in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.

Coote-Alice-04

Allan Clayton sings Hamlet, Sarah Connolly is Gertrude and John Tomlinson is the Ghost of Old Hamlet in a world premiere of Brett Dean’s new Shakespearian opera. Barbara Hannigan makes her Glynde debut as Ophelia.

An almost all-American cast for Ariadne auf Naxos: AJ Glueckert as Bacchus, Angela Brower as Composer and Erin Morley as Zerbinetta, with the Norwegian Operalia winner Lise Davidsen, making her UK debut as Ariadne.

lise davidsen

More here.

Dominique Meyer, head of the Vienna State Opera, lost his cool in a post-curtain interview, calling those who booed the company’s new Turandot ‘a pair of idiots’.

Actually, there were more than a couple of protesters against Marco Arturo Marelli’s production, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting and Lise Lindstrom in the title role. There was quite a hostile reception, sustained for several minutes, and Dudamel collected some pretty tough reviews in the morning papers for being too loud.

But Dominique Meyer is right: booing has become obligatory at Vienna first nights. It’s stupid and boring.

dudamel berlin

kaufmann probe

He’s at Bavarian State Opea, working on his Walther von Stolzing in Meistersinger.