‘I never said that I was stepping away from the opera stage for good. Never, never, never did I say that to anybody,’ Fleming insisted in a phone conversation from her home in New York City earlier today.
‘I think it misleads people,’ she added. ‘They sort of imagine that I’m an opera singer and I’m now retiring. So I just want to make sure that gets cleared up.’ Fleming said she told the newspaper she was interested in pursuing new operas and had received proposals from composers.
New York–Christie’s announces The Metropolitan Opera Guild Collection, a dedicated auction of rare musical manuscripts and memorabilia, to take place in New York on June 15, 2017, with two exquisite pieces of jewelry to be sold in the Magnificent Jewels auction on June 20, 2017. Funds from the sale will benefit the Opera Guild and the Metropolitan Opera. Highlights will be previewed during a global tour with exhibitions in London and Hong Kong in April and May. The full collection will be on preview in New York June 10-14.
The collection includes approximately 90 lots and represents a selection of autograph material from some of the most important composers of the Western classical tradition spanning from the Baroque era to the 20th-century. The majority of manuscripts come from the carefully assembled gift of Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956), renowned American composer and trumpeter with the Metropolitan Opera. The sale is led by the sole surviving autograph musical manuscript by Schubert for his Piano Sonata in A flat Major (estimate: $350,000-500,000). Additional highlights include annotated manuscripts and letters by the trinity of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Illuminating the sale are objets d’art with provenance grounded in opera and classical music including Enrico Caruso’s Cartier gold eyeglass case with glasses and Arturo Toscanini’s Gubelin open-faced pocket watch.
Sven Becker, Head of Books & Manuscripts, Christie’s New York, remarks: “Christie’s is honored to be entrusted with this special collection offering a concentration of fine musical autograph material. Collections such as this come to the market very infrequently; even more rarely do they bear the name of such a well-regarded American institution.”
“We are pleased to be working with Christie’s to present this auction at the time of two important milestones in 2016/7: the 60th anniversary of the death of Edwin Franko Goldman and the 50th anniversary of the Met Opera at Lincoln Center,”says Richard J. Miller Jr., President of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. “Funds generated from this sale will ensure that the Guild and the Metropolitan Opera are poised to continue fulfilling their respective missions for years to come.”
Cataloguing and complete details of the sale will be available in May 2017.
A day after we reported the denial of a UK visa to a Glyndebourne star, we hear that the Philharmonia lost last night’s violin soloist ‘due to visa issues’.
The intended soloist was the German based Armenian, Sergey Khachatryan.
These may well be part of the birth pangs of Brexit. Things will only get worse.
Among the many tales told of Francis Baines in a centennial memoir is that he was prone to keep his instrument in a left-luggage locker at Victoria Station because he had no room for it at home.
Baines was a member of the London Philharmonic and a great friend of Malcolm Arnold, a neighbour and friend of Herbert Howells in Barnes, a founding player with The Hanover Band, a professor at the Royal College of Music, and a presenter on BBC TV’s “So you thought it all started with Bach”.
On Tuesday, 11 April, there will be a memorial concert at Cadogan Hall. Among those taking part are Dame Emma Kirkby, The Hanover Band, Fretwork, Pavlo and Lisa Beznosiuk, Annette Isserlis, Clare Salaman and many more.
press photo (c) Norman Parkinson/NPG
Houston Symphony’s principal cello Brinton Averil Smith has resurrected Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s lost Cello Concerto, last heard at its 1935 world premiere by Gregor Piatigorsky, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
Apparently, Piatigorsky had exclusive rights to the concerto and refused to let anyone else play it. Then he forgot about it. Brinton Smith has now excavated it from the Ricordi archives.
Might Houston stream the modern premiere online?
That’s the title of an imaginative little August festival at the composer’s birthplace, La Côte-Saint-André, in the Isère.
It highlights Berlioz’s visit to London in 1851 to report on the Great Exhibition.
Cool idea, especially in this year of Brexit and Le Pen.
