With original dwarfs, mermaids and thunder machines?

Press release:

Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelung” in historically-informed performance practice – Concerto Köln and Kent Nagano launch an extraordinary project

In their most recent collaboration, Concerto Köln and the internationally-renowned conductor, Kent Nagano, pursue a leading-edge project: in cooperation with scientists at the university and Musichochschule in Cologne, they are taking on Richard Wagner’s tetralogy, “The Ring of the Nibelung”. Their undertaking will provide the international opera scene with new impetus in historically-informed approaches to musical-theatrical works of the 19th century.

Jochen Schäfsmeier (Managing Director, Concerto Köln): “Concerto Köln is as honoured as it is inspirited to approach Wagner’s ‚Ring’ together with Kent Nagano and to be able to make an important contribution to the historical performance practice of 19th century music.”

For the first time, the entire “Ring” is to be viewed from an early music movement perspective: the instrumental and vocal styles as well as the staging at the time of Wagner will be examined over a period of several years and compiled to form a historically-informed performance concept.

Kent Nagano (Artistic Director): “It is due to historical performance practice that nowadays there is a much different understanding of many composers and their works than was standard 30 or 40 years ago. Moreover, thanks to historicized approaches, we have gained knowledge about instruments and playing techniques which opens up to us new, pioneering pathways into the interpretation and performance of our music.

Richard Wagner’s ‚The Ring of the Nibelung’ is probably one of the most researched compositions yet nonetheless, a systematic approach to the tetralogy from a historically-informed perspective has not been attempted thus far. It is therefore all the more important that such an undertaking is tackled and that, in romantic repertoire now as well, normality in terms of sound which seemed irrefutable so far is called into question.

I have collaborated together with Concerto Köln for several projects in the past and am convinced that I have found two most competent partners in the Cologne ensemble and the Kunststiftung NRW who are able to provide the scientific basis for a historically-informed reading of Richard Wagner’s ‚Ring’. Together we will pursue this endeavor and bring the music to the stage!”

 

The simultaneously scientific as well as artistic undertaking on such a mammoth scale requires tremendous effort with the additional aim of becoming a guide to performance practice of 19th century music and opera. The outcome, interpreted by Concerto Köln and Kent Nagano, will be performed from the 2020/21 onward. All research findings will be published in Open Access.

 

Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wagner (Kunststiftung NRW): “For the Kunststiftung NRW, the support of the project, ‚WAGNER-READINGS’, is of significance in a number of ways. For several years, supporting artistic research has played a major role within the Kunststiftung’s funding programs – albeit with a primary focus on theater, dance and literature; examples of this being the Christoph-Schlingensief guest professorship for scenic research at the Ruhr University in Bochum, the Pina Bausch fellowship and the Thomas Kling lectureship at the University of Bonn. With ‚WAGNER-READINGS’, the base of support is expanded to the area of music, bringing art and research together in a so to speak ideal-typical way by conducting research into the complex correlations involved in the musical-theatrical production of Wagner and translating the results into artistic practice.”

 

Initial work already began in May of 2017. The official go-ahead for the project is a symposium in September, 2017. Financial support is provided by the Kunststiftung NRW and the Freunde von Concerto Köln e.V. Additional support is provided by the Strecker-Stiftung and MBL Akustikgeräte GmbH & Co. KG.

 

Further information can be found at  www.wagner-lesarten.de

 

She had been due to make her Australian debut next week at the age of 75, but the great pianist has pleaded exhaustion and is sending Yuja Wang instead.

Here’s what she’s telling disappointed Aussies:

Dear Sydney public,

I am terribly sorry to disappoint you and my dearest friend and lifetime musical partner Charles Dutoit who is the father of our daughter Annie. This is a very important event, his anniversary, 40 years after his first visit to your beautiful country. I am unable to travel and play in this moment, feel very weak, exhausted and having physical pains that worry me, please excuse me!

‘In this condition I am afraid to travel such a long way, I ask your forgiveness, to Charles Dutoit, to the orchestra and to you.

Martha Argerich


photo: Rodrigo Carrizo Couto, 2014

Alison Vulgamore’s departure from Philadelphia last night leaves three hot seats vacant and few talents available to fill them.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic was left last week by Deborah Borda in the capable hands of Gail Samuel, the Acting President and Chief Executive Officer who is thought likely to get the job on a permanent basis.

The San Francisco Symphony has Derek Dean as Interim Executive Director. The difference between Acting and Interim speaks volumes.

Philadelphia does not know where to turn after seven years of tough love by a CEO widely referred to as Voldemort. It is an awful act to follow.

 

 

We hear complaints from all sides of the lack of leadership talent in orchestras. The problem is that vice-presidents rarely get a chance to prove themselves. Gail Samuel had six months in charge when Deborah Borda went off last year on sabbatical. She knows the ropes. Not many others do.

It’s a tough job, requiring passion, unsocial hours and the courage to take unpleasant decisions. It burns up the faint-hearted. The New York Phil’s immediate past chief lasted just four years in the seat. While well paid, it’s not a job that makes you lifelong friends. Or leads to better things. Many ex-orch prezzies now call themselves consultants.

Unless there’s someone on the Philadelphia board who fancies changing career, this could be a long, hard search that yields yet another set of excuses.

 

 

Alison Vulgamore has decided to leave the Philadelphia Orchestra at the end of 2017 after seven storm-tossed years.

Vulgamore, 59, arrived from the Atlanta Symphony and managed to stabilise the artistic side with Yannick Nézet-Séguin as music director.

But the orchestra kept losing money and there’s no easy fix for that.

Read Peter Dobrin here.

 

The family has informed us of the death of Patricia Carroll, a busy pianist on the London scene in the 1950s and an influential teacher at the Royal College of Music for 37 years.

Among her pupils was the soprano Dame Sarah Connolly, who said that Patricia Carroll ‘was key in building up my confidence.’

An obituary appears in the Telegraph.

Patricia Carroll

The ex-chief of the New York Philharmonic is in line, we hear, to succeed Thomas Hengelbrock at the NDR Elbphilharmonie, where he used to be principal guest conductor.

Hengelbrock announced this week that he’s standing down in 2019. A successor will be announced in Hamburg on Friday.

Alan Gilbert’s name is in the frame, but it’s not fixed.

There is local opposition to an American maestro in a German trophy hall. It could go either way.

Watch this space.

The composer Jacques Charpentier, a student of Messiaen, wrote more than 150 scores and was organist of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris.

His day job, from 1958 on, was as a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Culture, deciding on musical proposals and careers. In 1978 he moved south to become director of music for the city of Nice.

He married the mezzo-soprano Danielle Vouaux-Charpentier.

Jacques Charpentier died on June 15 at his home, near Carcassonne, aged 83.

A national committee of Heidi Waleson, George Loomis, Alex Ross, John Rockwell and Arthur Kaptainis has decided on the best new US opera of the past 12 months.

It is Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, premiered on September 22, 2016 by Opera Philadelphia.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra has appointed Elim Chan as principal guest conductor.

Elim, 30 and from Hong Kong, is presently a Dudamel Fellow with the LA Phil. In September she becomes  Chief Conductor of Norrlands Operan in Umeå, Sweden.

She conducted the Scots in February, standing in for Neeme Järvi, and struck an instant rapport.

Richard Toop, former teaching assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen and latterly professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, has died at 71 after a long illness.

Richard was a fine writer about music – I commissioned his biography of Ligeti for the Phaidon composers series – and an inspiring teacher. Students complained of exhaustion at his lessons because his mind ran so much faster than theirs.

Originally from Chichester, he studied at Hull before moving to Cologne as Stockhausen’s aide. He migrated to Australia in 1975.

Richard Toop, Karlheinz Stockhausen & Stephen Truelove at The Stockhausen Courses 2002 photo: ingvar loco nordin/Stockhausen Estate

Conservative members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, alarmed at the recent pace of change, voted out their elected leaders in a secret ballot this morning.

Andreas Grossbauer, who led the orchestra towards greater transparency about its Nazi past and towards greater gender equality in its ranks, was deposed.

The new chiefs are Daniel Froschauer, a violinist (pictured), as chairman and Michael Bladerer, double-bass, as managing director.

The next sound you will hear is the clocks being turned back.

Chicago Opera Theater has announced Lidiya Yankovskaya as its music director, starting now.

Born in St Petersburg, raised in the US, Lidiya is a graduate of Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors. She is presently artistic director of Boston’s Juventus New Music Ensemble and of Boston New Music Festival.