The Vienna Opera was forced to scramble a substitute Falstaff for the second night of its current run.
Ambrogio Maestri dropped out of the fat suit. Paolo Rumetz stepped in.
Very effectively, we hear.
Painfully discreet as Benjamin Britten was forced to be, it is now 50 years since same-sex relationships were decriminalised in Britain and the heirs to the Britten estate will mark that breakthrough with a major exhibition.
Press release below.
QUEER TALK: HOMOSEXUALITY IN BRITTEN’S BRITAIN
1 February to 28 October 2017
A new exhibition will next year profile the life and creative output of Benjamin Britten, one of the twentieth century’s great composers, during the period of social change that led to the 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality. Queer Talk: Homosexuality In Britten’s Britain will take place at The Red House, the home in Suffolk that the composer shared with the tenor Peter Pears – his muse, collaborator, recital partner and lover for 39 years. The house was one of a number relisted earlier this year by Historic England in recognition of its role in LGBTQ history and is now home to the Britten-Pears Foundation, which welcomes visitors to experience its special sense of place.
Throughout most of Britten’s life, homosexuality was illegal and socially stigmatised. Queer Talk will focus on two extraordinary works that Britten created against a backdrop of widespread debate on homosexuality: the 1951 all-male opera Billy Budd (1951), and the extended solo vocal work Canticle I ‘My beloved is mine and I am his’ (1947) an open declaration of Britten’s love for Pears and a work they performed together.
The exhibition will explore the social climate of the 1950s, as well as drawing comparisons between the experience of Britten and Pears with other high-profile figures who found their personal lives at odds with the law of the time. Letters by Alan Turing, manuscripts and edits of EM Forster’s homoerotic novel Maurice and photographs of Noël Coward and his long-term companion Graham Payn will be displayed.
Exhibition curator Lucy Walker said:
“Unlike other men in their situation, Britten and Pears didn’t face arrest (although there were rumours that Britten was interviewed by Scotland Yard in 1953) and, to some, their relationship was an ‘open secret’, particularly as Britten composed so much and so openly for his male ‘muse’ and on the subject of male love. But before 1967, having been together nearly 30 years, it would have been impossible for them to admit in public they were a couple, and they remained discreet on that matter even after then.”
“The ‘Queer Talk’ exhibition presents the situation facing Britten and Pears in the 1950s and 1960s, and looks at how Britten in particular kept resolutely quiet on the subject of his private life but at the same time produced a number of works that—to modern eyes—seem to be obviously homoerotic in subject matter. Britten and Pears lived through an extraordinary period of change in social attitudes towards homosexuality, and that change continues today; we hope that visitors to the exhibition will find the circumstances surrounding their personal and creative partnership allow a deeper understanding of their incredible legacy.”
Homosexual acts between men had been illegal since the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, with arrests and prosecutions increasing after World War II. By the mid 1950s, more than 1,000 men were in prison in England and Wales. After a number of high-profile prosecutions, the government set up a departmental committee under Sir John Wolfenden to review the law. The publication of his report in 1957 prompted much debate and a wide range of responses, which the exhibition will depict through contemporary local and national newspaper cuttings, local police reports and television programmes. The
‘Queer Talk’ will run from the 1 February to 28 October 2017 alongside a programme of special events and activities across Aldeburgh. They will include study days and recitals at Britten and Pears’ home, The Red House, Aldeburgh, as well as collaborations with LGBT History Month, the international Aldeburgh Music Festival, Aldeburgh Cinema and Poetry in Aldeburgh.
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra musicians voted to go back to work last night after a $700,000 anonymous gift saved them from a deep wage cut.
We understand that a similar bequest ended the Pittsburgh Symphony strike a few days ago.
It’s the American way.
It’s only a primary school but, as Tomoko Masur says, they will teach his ‘guiding principles of tolerance and cultural sensitivity’.
Kurt Masur was Gewandhauskapellmeister from 1970 to 1996.
Dresden has got in first with a Kurt Masur Academy.
News has come in of the death of Julia Gomelskaya, Ukraine’s most successful composer, together with her husband Sergei, an instrumental player. They had been together since student days, a devoted couple.
The pair were killed in a two-car smash on the Odessa-Nikolayev road three days ago while on their way to a concert marking the 80th birthday of Julia’s teacher, Alexander Krasotova.
Julia and Sergei were 52.
Julia, originally from Saratov in Russia, won a 1990s scholarship to the Guildhall in London, where she studied with Robert Saxton and received her first commissions, from the Spitalfields Festival and the Wigmore Hall.
In 2002 she wrote a chamber opera, The Divine Sarah, for BBC Radio 3.
In all, she leaves about 90 works.
A friend, in shock, describes Julia as ‘excellent personality, enormous talent’.
May she and Sergei rest in peace.
Our condolences to their daughter.
Northern Ireland Opera have picked Walter Sutcliffe as artistic director, replacing Oliver Mears who has gone to Covent Garden.
Sutcliffe has extensive experience as a stage director in Europe.
You wonder why he was not considered at ENO.
Official release:
Following an extensive recruitment process attracting applications from across the world, Northern Ireland Opera is delighted to announce opera and theatre director Walter Sutcliffe as its new Artistic Director. Walter will take up the position with the company in February 2017.
A graduate of the University of Cambridge and the Royal College of Music, London, and former Staff Director at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, Walter has extensive opera and theatre experience, and has directed critically-acclaimed productions which have been seen in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, France and Estonia.
As stage director, Walter has been a regular guest at the Oper Frankfurt, and has directed productions for Teatro Regio di Torino, Semperoper Dresden, Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, Theater Magdeburg, Theater Chemnitz, Di Capo Opera, New York (where he directed the American stage premiere of Leoš Janáček’s first opera, Sarka), Klangbogen Festival, Vienna (where he directed the Austrian premiere of Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden), and the Royal Academy of Music, London, amongst many others. Debuts at Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile and Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires are also planned.
The Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles has renewed his contract as Generalmusikdirektor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin for six more years, taking him to 2022. He’ll be 68 by then.
Runnicles retired this year as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Connecticut train conductor Bob McDonough found the Yale Glee Club on his train at the weekend.
What could he do, folks? He conducted them, of course…
Two ensemble members of the Erfurt Theatre have been cast in the Met’s next season.
Vazgen Ghazaryan is a bass, Won Whi Choi a tenor. Both are fulltime ensemble members, little known outside Erfurt.
A city of 400,000 in the dead centre of Germany, Erfurt has a year-round opera theatre and symphony orchestra.
The two singers have been sworn to silence on their Met roles.
The Erfurt intendant Guy Montavon says: ‘The public here has long known that these are outstanding singers. This is a major career boost for them.’
Walter Meroz, bassoonist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra from 1951 to 1995 and teacher of three player generations, died last week at the age of 83.
A man of gentle ways, Walter served for many years and with immense tact as the orchestra’s disciplinary officer.
His most famous solo was in a deathless pop song, Arik Einstein’s Atur Mitzchech.
Watch at 3:04.
In the Argentine city of Moron, outraged parents attacked a trumpet player in the Cathedral, beating him so badly that he died of his injuries. The attack took place at the end of October. The musician died last week after a prolonged coma.
Marcelo Fabian Pecollo, a trumpet player in the Moron city orchestra, had been jailed in 2010 for 30 years for raping children as young as four years old. He was released in 2014 after his sentence was reduced.
He was taking part in a church charity concert when parents identified and attacked him, beating him – it is reported – with his own instrument.
There is a non-tabloid account of the lynch in La Nacion.
We are sad to share news of the death of Jerrold Rubenstein, a New Yorker who became concertmaster at La Monnaie orchestra in Brussels and later of the Belgian national orchestra.
A formidable chamber musician, widely recorded, Jerrold taught for 30 years at the Antwerp Conservatoire, and at Izmir and Dublin. He founded the Festival Mozart at Waterloo.
Our sympathies to his wife, the pianist Dalia Ouziel, and their family.