The next head of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is to be Patrick Dickie, an independent UK opera producer.

A second professor at the Munich Academy of Music is reported to be facing trial for sex offences.

The teacher, named as ‘Hans-Jürgen B.’, has been suspended. He is accused of raping a female student.

He will be brought to trial shortly after the conclusion of the process against the former rector Siegfried Mauser, described by the judge as ‘a groper.’

It’s the album’s 50th anniversary and the Phil are taking it on bootleg tour.

Full Phil programme announced tonight:

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra 2016-2017 Season Announced

• Vasily Petrenko launches his tenth year as Chief Conductor with a complete Beethoven Symphony cycle in four concerts over ten days
• Theme of ‘Revolution’ across the season with the ground-breaking music of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Stravinsky and The Beatles
• 50^th Anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band marked with symphonic recreation of entire album and UK tour with the Bootleg Beatles
• Artist in Residence – violinist James Ehnes
• Andrew Manze and Conductor Emeritus Sir Andrew Davis head a strong line-up of visiting conductors
• Guest artists include violinists Nicola Benedetti and Baiba Skride, violist Lawrence Power; pianists Daniil Trifonov, Paul Lewis, Garrick Ohlsson and Alexandre Tharaud, oboist François Leleux, guitarist Craig Ogden and harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani
• Singers include Ian Bostridge, Elin Manahan Thomas, Toby Spence and stars of the West End stage
• Prestigious chamber music series at Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall Concert Room puts the focus on J.S. Bach
• Carl Davis celebrates his 80^th birthday with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
• Ian Bostridge joins James MacMillan and massed Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral
• Film screenings with live orchestra include Psycho and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial as well as the Classic FM series, tributes to Queen, Hollywood, the West End and more

He’s speaking on the subject at the Omera America conference in Montreal tomorrow.

Should be interesting. Feel free to feed highlights to Slipped Disc.

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera and the nation’s leading champion for American opera, is pleased to announce details of Opera Conference 2016: Global Strategies/Local Actions, to be held in Montréal, Québec, from May 18–21. Hosted by Opéra de Montréal in association with Opera Volunteers International, this annual gathering of opera professionals — the largest in North America — will convene at Le Westin Montréal and venues throughout the metro area. This marks the first time in OPERA America’s 46-year history that the conference will be held in Montréal and the fifth time in Canada.

With more than 500 industry leaders in attendance, OPERA America’s annual conference presents a unique opportunity to examine issues affecting the opera community from a variety of perspectives. With the theme “Global Strategies/Local Actions,” conference attendees will examine global trends — from within and outside the opera world — that can inform the bold decisions needed to amplify opera’s civic impact and bring vitality to both time-honored and new repertoire.

OPERA CONFERENCE 2016 HIGHLIGHTS
Topics planned for opera conference attendees cover all facets of the art form and address the concerns of creators, administrators, trustees and supporters. Highlights of the many conference-wide sessions, performances and showcases include the following:

• The Opening Assembly, featuring discussions with François Girard, film and stage director, and Simon Brault, director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts;

• General Session: Global to Local — Strategies for Opera, featuring a presentation from Bernard Foccroulle, general director of Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, about how opera can take on broad issues that have local resonance, followed by a discussion with Pierre Dufour, executive director of Opéra de Montréal, Ned Canty, general director of Opera Memphis, and Perryn Leech, managing director of Houston Grand Opera;

• General Session: The Festival Effect, offering insights from Gilbert Rozon, founder and chairman of Just For Laughs, and André Ménard, co-founder and artistic director of Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, about how they have used the festival model to their advantage;

• General Session: Reflections from Peter Gelb, featuring reflections from the Metropolitan Opera general manager on his 10 years leading the company;

• Thirty open sessions featuring an array of topics and experts from within and beyond the opera field, such as Opera Repertoire: Energizing Old and New with Philip Kennicott, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist of The Washington Post; designer John Conklin; Kasper Holten, director of opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Robert Marx, president, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; Zizi Mueller, creative consultant, Boosey & Hawkes; and Deborah Sandler, general director and CEO, Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

• Seminars: five intensive skill-building workshops on topics such as Business Planning for Artists and Entrepreneurs;Elevating Your Marketing Efforts on a Budget; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts; Making Meaning of Your Arts Ecosystem; and Strengthening Fundraising and Leadership Capacities;

• Session groupings focused on special themes, such as diversity in opera, as seen in Beyond Lip Service: Equity-Based Opera Leadership (open session) and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts (seminar);

• Two World Premieres: The Trials of Patricia Isasa by Kristin Norderval and Naomi Wallace (presented by Chants Libres on May 19) and Les Feluettes (Lilies) by Kevin March and Michel Marc Bouchard (presented by Opéra de Montréal on May 21);

• The New Works Forum, which nurtures more informed opera producers and creators, and establishes stronger relationships among them;

• The Singer Training Forum, for those who are dedicated to the identification and development of aspiring singers; and

• The New Works Sampler, with performances of Canadian and American works in progress and recent premieres, to take place at the Place des Arts.

Thieves broke into the Vienna State Opera and plundered 53 safe boxes in the artists’ area on Sunday, it was admitted today.

They stole cash, phones and small items, leaving instruments untouched.

Musicians discovered the theft just before Sunday’s performance of Mayerling.

The police were called.

Gazeta reports that the billionaire Russian cellist Sergei Roldugin has been granted sole use of two beaches near the Olympic facilities in Sochi by resolution of the Legislative Assembly of Krasnodar Region. He will hold the right for five years.

Nice to have good friends in high places.

The Grammy-winning jazz composer and performer has launched an all-out attack on what she calls ‘Youtube’s illegal busiess model.’

…Since 2014, YouTube has substantially influenced the behavior of hundreds of millions of its users toward infringement, fermenting a veritable pirate orgy.   YouTube goes way beyond turning a blind eye to the marauding masses; it actively seduces its users into illegal behavior, and has even managed to make its users believe pirate behavior is beneficial to creators.

Essential reading for all musicians.

Here.

It’s Patrick Lange, 35, as we assured you it would be four months ago. He succeeds Zsolt Hamar.

What took them so long?

Fritz-Stern, one of the foremost historians of 20th century Germany and the German-Jewish symbiosis, died in New York today, aged 90. He advised statesmen in both of his countries.

Fabulous interview with the doyen of American art song, 92 years old and losing none of his ability to shock.

Listen here. You won’t regret it.

The are bringing back a well-worn production to fit a new star.

Full details of La Scala’s new season, announced this morning, below:

ALEXANDER PEREIRA: THE 2016/2017 SEASON

The opening of the 2016/2017 Season with the first version of Madame Butterfly, in the wake of Turandot and La fanciulla del West, marks a vital step in the Puccini project that is so dear to Riccardo Chailly, who on 1 January 2017 will take up his appointment as Music Director, confirming the plan to bring back to Piermarini’s Theatre the works that had their first ever performances here. It is directed by Alvis Hermanis, who is familiar to La Scala fans for two magnificent and very different shows, Die Soldaten and I due Foscari, and the leading lady Maria José Siri is a new and extraordinarily talented voice alongside Bryan Hymel’s Pinkerton. The televising of the event marks 40 years of collaboration between La Scala and the RAI since their partnership in 1976 with Otello conducted by Carlos Kleiber.

2017 opens with three major Verdi productions. Don Carlo returns in the version in five acts that has not been performed at La Scala since the edition conducted by Claudio Abbado 40 years ago. Myung-Whun Chung, a noted authority on Verdi, will conduct a fine cast, of whom we have to mention at least Ferruccio Furlanetto, Krassimira Stoyanova and Francesco Meli. Directed most efficaciously by the great Peter Stein, it translates all the dryness of the signature dramaturgy. Zubin Mehta will conduct Falstaff in the staging by Damiano Michieletto set in Casa Verdi: a decidedly Milanese production with Ambrogio Maestri in the role he is by now synonymous with. La Traviata will be back in March with the lavish staging designed by Liliana Cavani in 1990, with an exceptional protagonist, Anna Netrebko, in the prime of her artistic and interpretative maturity. And it will be the first time conducting Verdi at La Scala for Nello Santi, repository and custodian of the most authentic traditions of Italian melodrama: in October he will also be conducting the revival of Nabucco in Daniele Abbado’s show. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Wagner sets us off on a journey through the musical culture of German Romanticism, which pops up during the Season with two other titles: Hänsel und Gretel and Der Freischütz. Directed by Harry Kupfer, an artist who is woven into the tapestry of German theatre, with Daniele Gatti on the podium, who has already conducted two productions with this title to great acclaim. Michael Volle is simply the finest living interpreter of Sachs.

While in 2016, with La cena delle beffe, we brought Verismo back to La Scala, our mission to re-appropriate the Italian repertoire continues now with bel canto. April will see the staging of Anna Bolena with a very young leading lady who comes from our Academy, Federica Lombardi, conducted by Bruno Campanella, who knows Italian melodrama of the early 1800s better than most. And in 1817 Rossini presented The thieving Magpie at La Scala: a masterpiece of the semiseria genre that returns with a great Rossini conductor, Riccardo Chailly, the debut at La Scala of the Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores, and a perfect cast of actor-singers. One of the finest baritones of our time, Thomas Hampson, plays a Don Giovanni torn between vitality and disillusionment in the revival of the staging by Robert Carsen, conducted by Paavo Järvi, whose Mozart interpretation won me over in Vienna. The revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s historic Bohème, then, is the occasion of a La Scala debut for one of the soprano revelations of recent years, Sonya Yoncheva. On the podium will be Evelino Pidò, who comes from our orchestra, but despite his brilliant international career has conducted only a performance of Rigoletto at La Scala before now. The twentieth anniversary of the death of Giorgio Strehler will be marked by performing one of his most magical shows, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, conducted by the person who held him at his baptism in Salzburg in 1965: Zubin Mehta. Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel is the Academy project this year: conductor Marc Albrecht and director Sven-Eric Bechtolf will work together for months with the young artists to create a performance that is up to La Scala standards in all respects.

One of the most cherished programmes the Orchestra is engaged in is the formation of an ensemble playing historical instruments: the latest step on this path is Handel’s Tamerlano, which brings one of Italy’s finest directors, Davide Livermore, to La Scala for the first time, with extraordinary singers such as Plácido Domingo and Bejun Mehta. Another important date with directing is Der Freischütz, staged by Matthias Hartmann, the former director of the Burgtheater in Vienna, and conducted by Myung-Whun Chung.

To conclude the Season, we are presenting the world premiere of the new opera by Salvatore Sciarrino, Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo, directed by Jürgen Flimm, who is bound to the Italian composer by a friendship that strengthens their artistic affinity. It is conducted by the young Maxime Pascal, founder of an orchestra dedicated to contemporary music in Paris.

The Ballet Season, which is the first one for Director Mauro Bigonzetti, is the first step along a path of progression for the Corps de Ballet of La Scala. The titles increase from six to seven, in addition to the Ballet School show, and for the second year in a row, Opening Night brings another first, Coppélia by Bigonzetti with Roberto Bolle. The historical choreographies of Balanchine, Fokin, Tetley and MacMillan are bolstered by the innovation of Eugenio Scigliano, and for the first time a piece choreographed by artists from the Corps de Ballet, who are engaged in an unprecedented challenge. Also returning is Swan Lake by Alexei Ratmansky, an artistic reconstruction of the choreography of Petipa and Ivanov. There is a considerable element of pride in the quality of the music: the ballets will be conducted by maestros such as Zubin Mehta, Paavo Järvi, Michail Jurowski, Patrick Fournillier, Felix Korobov and David Coleman.

The concert programme includes the greatest living conductors. Riccardo Chailly will be on the podium for two evenings of the Symphony Season, Verdi’s Requiem in October, and the concert to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Arturo Toscanini on 25 March 1867. The Symphony Season also sees the return of legends such as Christoph von Dohnányi (who also conducts the Christmas Concert), Georges Prêtre and Bernard Haitink; while for the Extraordinary Concerts, we will listen to Mariss Jansons with the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Finally, we are delighted to welcome Riccardo Muti back to La Scala. He returns with two concerts with the Chicago Symphony, to conduct once again in the Theatre that he was Musical Director of for 19 years. Completing the programme are singing recitals, including some of the most celebrated voices on the international scene.

One of the projects dearest to my heart is the “Great Shows for Children” programme, which next year, too, will bring tens of thousands of kids and their parents to La Scala to discover operas of the great repertoire in shortened form and featuring the musicians of the Academy. Added to the revival of Cinderella for Children is Il ratto dal serraglio (The Abduction from the Seraglio) by Mozart, in Italian and coinciding with the complete edition in the Opera Season, and five concerts preceded by an introduction for children.

See you in your Theatre.

Alexander Pereira

Or 75 Euros, whichever is the higher, it was announced this morning.

Orchestral musicians, soloists and chorus are equally uplifted.

They value musicians in Germany. The negotiations were quiet and respectful.

photo: Parsifal, Berlin