Two weeks after the master-biographer Henry-Louis de LaGrange, we have lost José Luis Pérez de Arteaga, author of a Spanish biography of Gustav Mahler.
His main renown of 30 years was as a presenter on Radio Clásica, the voice behind ten thousand concerts.
First, have at least $3 million in spare change.
Then, read this article in the FT.
Five lovely properties for sale. Roll out of bed and you are at the opera.
(Prices do not include opera tickets, or drinks).
The London-trained Madrid conductor Pablo Mielgo has signed with Tanja Dorn’s boutique agency. Pablo is presently music director in the Balearic Islands.
And Jonathan Bloxham, presently Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla’s conductor in Birmingham, has signed with boutique Groves Artists. A self-starter, Jonathan runs a festival in north-east England.
The Warner Music Group earned $1 billion in 2016 from Spotify and iTunes, up 47% ON 2015.
That’s $3.4 million a day.
And the musicians?
Riccardo Muti has taken issue with the British director Graham Vick’s plan to put amateurs – audience members – among the chorus on stage in his forthcoming Parma production of Verdi’s Stiffelio.
Parma is sacrosanct to Verdians. It is the capital of the composer’s home region.
Muti, on being told of protests in Parma, said: ‘Incredible: which conductor would accept such a thing?’
The pair have Verdi history. Muti and Vick worked together at La Scala on Macbeth and Otello befoe falling out at Salzburg in 2005 over Mozart’s Magic Flute.
It has emerged that the populist French candidate Emmanuel Macron is receiving voice lessons from an opera singer to overcome an embarrassing shriek that takes over when the voice is gone.
His coach is the distinguished bass-baritone, Jean-Phillipe Lafont.
From Professor Ole Bohn of the Sydney Conservatorium:
On Sunday February 5 eight of my Australian students were supposed to fly with LATAM at 10:48 from Curitiba, Brazil to Rio de Janeiro. They had all attended the famous FEMUSC festival.
Once all the violinists had checked in with their instruments, the trouble started for cellist Vicki Zhang. The airline representative at the check-in counter refused to take the cello as luggage. The cello was in a special travel case and Vicki never had any problems to put it in the hold. At the check-in she was given various reasons why it was not allowed to send the instrument as luggage and that she had to buy a seat inside the plane for the cello!
While arguing that this had never happened to her on any flights, including LATAM flights , the whole group missed their flight. Finally, a representative from the airline understood the situation and managed to put them on a flight several hours later with the cello in the hold underneath. However, they came too late to Rio and missed a scheduled private concert in the afternoon.
This is the best the Swedish sporting authorities could manage for an international final.
The singer, who is a Russian living in Sweden, cannot sing in tune, forgets the words and only gets to the end with the help of Russians in the crowd.
Almost an international incident.
