Message from HGO Managing Director Perryn Leech and Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers
We must unfortunately report that our beloved Wortham Theater Center is more damaged than previously thought. Houston Grand Opera will proceed with our first two operas, La traviata and Julius Caesar, in the fall and we are actively working out new locations for these performances. We will announce the details as soon as they are confirmed.
Finalists in the oboe section are Juliana Koch of Germany, principal oboe at the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen; Thomas Hutchinson of New Zealand and Kyeong Ham of Korea.
She missed the first night of Trovatore in Vienna, but hubby Yusif Eyvazov was pleased to see her on the second.
Photo (c) Wiener Staatsoper/Michael Pöhn
The BBC has released audience figure for the Proms, showing an 89 percent attendance at the main evening Proms, one percent above last year but still below the 90+% of the previous decade.
No figures have been released for lunchtime, late-night and external Proms.
Press release below.
The 2017 BBC Proms ran from Friday 14 July to Saturday 9 September and featured eight weeks of concerts, talks, workshops, family events and more.
Highlights of the 2017 festival included an opening weekend of Elgar with the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim; the return of the ‘Proms at …’ series, matching music to venues across London and Hull; the first ever Relaxed Prom; Sir András Schiff performing Book 1 of Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ (he will return in 2018 to perform Book 2); the first complete live performance of Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass’ album ‘Passages’ with Anoushka Shankar conducted by Karen Kamensek; 30 premieres as new music remains at the heart of the festival; and a host of international orchestras, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Average attendance for the main evening Proms in the Royal Albert Hall this year was 89% and well over half of the concerts in the Royal Albert Hall sold out. The Proms welcomed nearly 60,000 Prommers through the doors of the Royal Albert Hall, purchasing standing tickets which are sold on the day for £6.
More than 35,500 tickets were bought by people attending the Proms for the first time and over 10,000 under 18s attended concerts across the season.
David Pickard, Director, BBC Proms, says: ‘It’s been a remarkable season of world-class music-making and our outstanding audience figures prove that classical music is in rude health. Our audiences have embraced the huge breadth of music on offer throughout the eight weeks of the festival – from Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under their Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo to a concert celebrating the music of Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie – and show a huge public appetite for classical music, including new and lesser-known works. Thanks to the BBC – who have been running the Proms for 90 years – I’m delighted that we are able to continue Henry Wood’s founding vision of bringing the best quality classical music to the widest possible audiences.’
Jeffrey Curnow, associate principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2001, is a widely published cartoonist.
More here.
