Casting Update: Emmanuel Villaume will conduct the Met’s new production of Tosca on December 31,2017, and January 3, 6, 9, 12, 23, and 27, 2018, replacing James Levine.
Maestro Villaume, who recently conducted Massenet’s Thaïs at the Met, is Music Director of the Dallas Opera and Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Prague Philharmonia. He made his Met debut in 2004 conducting Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and his subsequent performances with the company have included Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, Bizet’s Carmen, Massenet’s Manon and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
Sir David McVicar’s new staging of Tosca opens on December 31, with Sonya Yoncheva as Tosca, Vittorio Grigolo as Cavaradossi, and Bryn Terfel as Scarpia. The January 27 matinee will be transmitted live as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, which reaches more than 2,000 movie theaters in 73 countries around the world.
Later performances on April 21, 26 and 30, and May 4, 8 and 12, 2018, will star Anna Netrebko in the title role opposite Marcelo Álvarez as Cavaradossi and Michael Volle and Željko Lučić sharing the role of Scarpia. The April and May performances will be conducted by Bertrand de Billy.
Gareth Morrell will conduct the performance on January 18, 2018. The conductor for the January 15 performance will be announced at a later date.
In the living room of the apartment I share with my husband, we have a handsome dark-wood case for our stereo system. Two box sets of performances from the Metropolitan Opera with James Levine conducting have occupied a prominent spot on the lower shelf since they were released in 2010 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Mr. Levine’s Met debut. Displaying them was a genuine expression of my admiration for a towering American artist.
But on Sunday, Mr. Levine was suspended by the Met after several men accused him of sexually abusing them decades ago, when they were still teenagers. Now, I’m not sure I want to keep those sets so visible in my home….
The Berlin-basd classical streaming service Idagio has raised €8 million in a new funding round from Tengelmann Ventures, Mülheim/Ruhr, btov Partners, and a number of angel investors.
A Dutch court has abolished the 116,000 Euros ($140,000) fine imposed on the bandmaster André Rieu for bringing a group of Romanian children on stage to receive their applause after permitted hour of 11 pm.
Rieu had imported the children, with pan flute virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir, to play in his home town, Maastricht.
It makes no reference to the festival orchestra’s long association with James Levine as music director from 2000 until 2009.
The orchestra is, in the festival’s description, made up of ‘110 musicians aged from 16 to 29 of many nationalities, coached by section leaders from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.’
No incident has ever come to light at the festival.
However, yesterday, a violinist in the Verbier Festival Orchestra posted the following comment on Slipped Disc:
I am a former member (male, violinist) of the Verbier Festival Orchestra. I was playing concertmaster for one of the concerts at Verbier, and James Levine asked me to come to the conductor’s room to discuss bowings, etc. after a rehearsal. At the end of this short conversation, he invited me to his accommodations later that evening for a drink. (This was in the presence of his brother Tom, who usually accompanied the Maestro everywhere.) Upon arriving, however, I was asked to come to his room. Aware of the rumors, I declined and politely said that I had to go to a chamber music rehearsal. I later mentioned this to Martin Engstroem, who brushed it aside and said “That’s just Jimmy being Jimmy.” Anyhow, the entire incident made me very uncomfortable, and Levine pretty much ignored me for the remainder of his time at Verbier. I am aware of no precautions that were taken by Martin Engstroem or anyone at the Verbier Festival to safeguard orchestra members.
We have asked Martin Engstroem for his response.
Sean Farrell, former head of music at Wellington College and director of performance at Trinity College, London, has been found not guilty of fondling a pupil more than 30 years ago.
Farrell, 49, denied abusing a pupil at Ampleforth College in the 1980s. He told the jury he had never kissed or touched the boy inappropriately.
Fellow teachers testified that they had not heard or seen anything untoward in his behaviour with children.
The New York Times has reported anonymous allegations against the Danish dancer and choreographer Peter Martins, artistic director of City Ballet since 1990.
Martins, 71, has been suspended from taking class. But he remains in his position as head of ballet.
According to the Times: ‘Two former City Ballet dancers and three former students at the school described a culture in which Mr. Martins was known for sleeping with dancers, some of whom received better roles because of their personal relationships with him.’
NY City Ballet says its ongoing investigation ‘has not substantiated the allegations.’ It had received ‘an anonymous letter making general, nonspecific allegations of sexual harassment in the past by Peter Martins at both New York City Ballet and the school.’
The conductor and musicologist Jean-Christophe Keck has been given a nine-month suspended sentence and a 10,000 Euros fine for ‘abusing the weakness’ of a Swiss opera singer who left him part of her Euro 5m estate.
The singer, Eva Rehfuss, died in December 2008, aged 85.
A lawyer who looked after the old lady’s affairs was also convicted. Keck has given notice of appeal.
Keck, a producer and presenter for France Musique, is director of the complete edition of the works of Jacques Offenbach.
From the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) learned of the recent allegations against James Levine through reports in the media. The CSOA finds these allegations deeply troubling. The Ravinia Festival engages the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for several weeks of concerts each summer. Mr. Levine served as Ravinia Festival’s music director from 1973 to 1993. We understand that the Ravinia Festival is awaiting the findings of the current investigations and will take action as appropriate. At this time, Mr. Levine is not scheduled to conduct future concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Center.
The Ravinia Festival said it had ‘severed all ties’, with Levine, its recently appointed conductor laureate. ‘We are deeply troubled and saddened by the allegations and sympathise with everyone who has been hurt,’ it said.
The Cincinnati May Festival has cancelled the appearance of James Levine next May.
The Cleveland Institute of Music said: ‘The Institute was deeply disturbed to learn about the incidents which were reported to have occurred in Cleveland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Cleveland Institute of Music is fully aware of its lawful obligations toward students, and faculty and staff are instructed in both the spirit and letter of our long-standing policies and complaint procedures regarding sexual harassment and misconduct.’
During Rufus Wainwright’s guest performance on Saturday night with the Minnesota Orchestra, principal trumpet Manny Laureano was seen to be growing uneasy.
When the Canadian singer-songwriter prefaced his lyric, ‘I am so tired of you, America,’ with a short diatribe against the Trump administration’s tax reforms, Laureano got up from his back-row seat, put down his horn and walked off.
‘The evening was already too snarky,’ he told local media. ‘It got incredibly self-indulgent.’
The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra has joined up with a French platform Meludia to offer free access to 625 interactive music learning exercises to anyone in Canada for a whle year, starting tomorrow.
The initiative comes from Calgary music director Rune Bergmann (pictured), who says, ‘itwas clear to me that Meludia was the ideal tool to bring music literacy not just to our audiences in Calgary, but to every resident in Canada.’
Throughout 2018 a Meludia team from Paris will tour all regions of Canada, introducing Meludia in schools, universities, community centres, retirement homes, Alzheimer and Dementia centres, hospitals, and prisons.
Meludia Vice President Kevin Kleinmann said: ‘At Meludia, we believe that music literacy is a basic and fundamental human right, no different than the right to read, the right to write or the right to speak a language. We believe that a musically literate society is a happier, more harmonious and better society.’
