Italian media have just reported the death of Philip Gossett, editor of the critical Verdi edition, as well as many Rossini scores.
Philip, who died today in Chicago after a long illness, was 76.
Many maestros have expressed their gratitude for his deft work in clarifying uncertain passages in Verdi, chief among them Riccardo Muti, who worked with him on Attila and Rigoletto.
He wrote two books on Donizetti and a third on performing practice in Italian opera.
From an interview with Elle magazine:
‘It’s hard to find clothes because I’m so petite. In my twenties, I’d put on my tight Hervé Léger dress and heels, and it looked like I was going to the bar. Concertgoers think, Classical music—it’s really serious. There are lots of rules, and the dress code, which I broke, was one of them. It’s irrelevant to what we’re doing. It’s just a piece of cloth, but once it’s on my body, it boosts my confidence, and that translates to the music.’
There are reports of 200-300 dismissals today from a staff of 800.
The Kultura channel was founded in 1997 by order of President Boris Yeltsin.
The conductor has been working today with young Palestinian musicians.
He now seems reluctant to accept that the 1967 war was a matter of survival for Israel and speaks of it instead as a prelude to occupation.
He adds: ‘Jewish blood runs through my veins and my heart bleeds for the Palestinians’.
Barenboim speaks here to the BBC.
The strings world is sorrowing over the loss of Jocelyn Gertel, a player and teacher who was pitched over the handlebars of her bike as she rode downhill in Hawthorne, New Jersey. She never recovered consciousness.
Jocelyn, a graduate of Manhattan School of Music, was a member of Romanza Music and other ensembles.
Our condolences to her family and many friends.
The US baritone Anthony Clark Evans, 32, is first through to the finals of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. (Since the contest is only screened several days late on BBC television, we apologise for the spoiler.)
Evans saw off four other contestants: Roberto Lorenzi (Italy), Nadezhda Karyazina (Russia), Batjargal Bayarsaikhan (Mongolia) and Lilly Jørstad (Norway).
Anthony Clark Evans has already sung roles at Chicago,San Francisco and the Met and is agented by CAMI.
Simon Keenlyside will receive the title Kammersänger at the Vienna Opera next Monday.
He has sung there, man and boy, for more than 20 years.
The title does not come with a new tattoo.
Gidon Kremer has become the first violinist since Joseph Joachim in 1899 to be admitted to Berlin’s exclusive Pour le Merite order in Berlin.
The order consists of 80 scientists and artists.
Other living members include Alfred Brendel, Sir Andras Schiff, Brigitte Fassbänder, Daniel Barenboim, Aribert Reimann, György Kurtag and Sofia Gubaidulina.
We know that Chris Martin has been seen nuzzling up to Gustavo Dudamel and Khatia Buniatishvili in the past couple of years. But we assumed that’s because he can’t resist a celebrity (or whatever).
Now we have evidence that he’s in it just for the music.
On Sunday, Chris Martin came to the Musikverein to hear the German violinist Arabella Steinbacher play Prokofiev’s second concerto.
If you look really closely, you’ll see he autographed his ticket for her.
That’s class.
UPDATE: It just got better.
Last night Chris Martin went to see Swan Lake at the Vienna Opera. Loved it so much he went backstage to pose with dancers Masayu Kimoto and Maria Yakovleva.
Photo: Wiener Staatsballett / Ashley Taylor
A performance of La Bohème at Rouen, in Normandy, had to be evacuated after protesters in the audience shouted slogans and threw leaflets, accusing the director of having allegedly raped one of their friends.
The protesters set off alarms as they left the auditorium, which set the evacuation in motion.
The public prosecutor’s office in Rouen has opened an investigation.
The director, warned in advance of the protest, left the city before the performance.
More content here.
Six maestro cancellations in one day require pause for thought. And, since some creepy Euro hack on a dodgy website has nicked the ‘epidemic’ headline from Slipped Disc, we’ll make do with ‘virus’ to discuss the phenomenon in a lightly broader context.
Every June, at the tail end of the concert season, over-extended music directors tend to go on a lap of honour around some of Europe’s trophy orchestras.
This year, some of them couldn’t make it, due to accumulated stresses and strains, and whatever else is listed in the doctor notes their agents have produced. What’s worrying is that the six maestros in the sick bay are not the usual cancellers – the ones who cry sick at the first tickle of a cough (no names) or a digestive disorder (likewise). Yesterday’s absentees are pretty tough show ponies. They don’t cancel lightly. Has the stress level suddenly shot up?
Even more worrying is the calibre of the last-minute replacements. This could have been a golden chance (see above) for a 20-something to conduct the Berlin Phil, the Concertgebouw, the LSO or the BRSO. But the music business makes its money by supplying safe substitutes. Midlife maestros who will never give a false beat or frighten the horses. They will do the job and the audience will go home undisturbed.
That’s a pity. This week’s maestro virus is a lamentable missed opportunity. It perpetuates business-as-normal and suppresses the possibility, however faint, of some real excitement. Of a new talent springing from the wings and shaking the rafters at the end of an overlong, overstressed season.
Next year, maybe.
As if.
Over four decades, the artist known as ‘ROSALIE’ has been at the heart of the visual evolution of German opera.
She designed the 1994 Bayreuth Ring and worked regularly with Stuttgart, Berlin, Zurich and Leipzig, where her final production – Salome – will open this weekend. She also worked at La Scaa, Seville and t the national theatre in Tokyo.
Rosalie, whose birth name was Gudrun Müller, died on Monday in Stuttgart at the age of 64.
photo: Stutgart Opera/Daniel Mayer
