Thieves in Cologne raided a truck carrying instruments of the WDR orchestra.

A double-bass, a horn and a harp are among the pieces missing (they won’t be able to play much with those three).

The orchestra is calling round for replacement instruments for Friday’s concert.

This is smart.

Opera North’s new production of Cavalleria Rusticana is set in rust-belt Poland of the 1970s.

That’s the kind of time warp and place warp that directors do these days.

Karolina Sofulak says: ‘Poland is a deeply religious country which was occupied for centuries by various foreign powers, and in this respect it’s very similar to post-Risorgimento Sicily, the original setting of Cavalleria rusticana. I’ve been drawing on my own experiences and my family’s experiences of growing up in an intensely Catholic and economically deprived country – where everyday hardships make people turn towards the dreaminess of religion, make them filter and channel their desires and frustrations through obsessive faith.’

Fair enough.

But someone must be aware that there are a million Poles living in the UK, many in the north of England where Opera North is based. This could prove an irresistible magnet to get them into the opera house.

photo (c) Robert Workman/Opera North

Recently retired from the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz, Dennis Russell Davies was announced today as chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic in the Czech Republic.

Brno is renowned for Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat, inspiration of Simon Mawer’s novel, The Glass Room.

They can now expect to hear a lot of Glass.

The Estonian composer, 81, has been awarded the Vatican’s Ratzinger Prize for outstanding achievement in theology.

He shares the 50,000 Euros with an academic theologian from Bonn and a Lutheran from Strasbourg.

Pope Francis will make the presentation on November 18.