The death of announced of Mary Lynn Fixler, who retired last June as s​​​enior vice president at Barrett Artists.

She was 85.

Among the artists she looked after were: Rudolf Serkin, Robert Casadesus, Richard Tucker, Yevgeny Sudbin, Alessio Ba​x and​ ​Vadim Gluzman​.

Whenever I watch any opera by Mascagni and Leoncavallo other than ‘Cav’ and ‘Pag’ I have no trouble understanding why the two composers went down in history as one-hit wonders. True, there are those who make claims for Leoncavallo’s La Boheme (Mahler deemed it vastly inferior to Puccini’s) and others are thrilled by Mascagni’s sex-slave Iris, but neither work has struck me as more than a barrel-scraping of the short-lived 1890s verismo craze, deservedly occupying the fringes of musical memory….

Now read on here or here.

And here.

 

He’s unwell.

Marek Janowski will take over next week’s three performances of the Verdi Requiem.

Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the Chopin Competition, is a fabulous artist with a brilliant future. But he should never be allowed to talk to camera until he acquires a pull-on charisma set from his local makeover shop.

Which DG genius thought this chat was going to help sell records?

The composer and oratorio singer Tristan Clais has died at the age of 87.

A student of Igor Markevitch, he was fascinated by surrealism and explored affinities with graphics and collages.

He was also a prominent broadcaster.

UNITEL GmbH & Co. KG, the leading producer and distributor of televised classical music, has sold its backlist and Classica channel to Canadian giant Stingray.

The deal is worth a reported $15 million.

Stingray wins worldwide rights to a catalogue of 1,500 titles and 2,000 hours of premium content produced and owned by Unitel.

When we first reported the rise of child star Jackie Evancho, we were besieged by hundreds of commenters proclaiming that hers was a divine voice, a gift of God, transcending mortal criticism.

Those voices have gone notably silent since Jackie signed on to sing at the inauguration of President Trump.

We miss them.

Perhaps she does, too.

Who will speak up for the Angel?

The three major labels – Universal, Sony and Warner – think they have found a way to monetise streaming.

Together with services such as Pandora, Rhapsody/Napster and HD Tracks, they have signed on to a premium service of studio-quality hi-res audio for music streaming.

Details are scanty at present. Spotify and Apple are staying out.

 

We hear that Gianluca Macheda, former head of IMG Italy and now based in Warsaw, left the company this week.

Macheda is still listed on the website at this hour, but his resignation has been confirmed to Slipped Disc.

His artists include two-high-earning conductors and some outstanding singers. Apparently, most or all of them are expected to leave with him.

Also gone is Grant Chaput, who looked after up-and-coming conductors from IMG’s New York office.