It has emerged that Rohan Stewart-MacDonald, whose death we reported last week, died in a late-night collision with two lorries on a road near Stratford-upon-Avon.

Rohan, 42, had moved to Shakespeare’s town in 2014, becoming a live wire of its music scene. A pianist, singer and musicologist, he was among the foremost authorities on the music of Muzio Clementi.

Stephen Dodsworth, musical director at Stratford Chamber Choir and organist at Holy Trinity Church, said: ‘He was the gentlest, nicest and most talented person you could meet. He was well known in music circles not just locally but internationally as well, but if you spoke to him you would never know it because he was just so modest.’

Rohan is survived by his mother.

Tributes here.

 

It is reported in Spain that Placido Domingo has agreed to sing Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier in Madrid and Barcelona in 2021, when he will be 8o years old.

 

Comment is superfluous. Ecclesiastes 1:1 says it all.

UPDATE: Today is the Spanish day for hoaxes. We were had.

An online rumour of an unofficial Maria Callas recording of Verdi’s Don Carlo sent hundreds scurrying to Youtube this morning.

Forty years after her death, the Greek diva is still packing them in like no other singer in opera history.

She is the highest-selling soprano on record, the subject of several plays and the face that still launches products.

It can’t be the voice. Millions of words have been wasted analysing Callas’s vocal flaws.

Nor is her appearance so Hellenic that Troy would fall at the sight of her.

So what is it about Callas that keeps us coming back for more?

If there was a recipe, every opera singer would want it in a bottle.

 

We have received an unofficial first shot of the wedding of Daniil Trifonov and Judith Ramirez.

The couple were married last weekend in the Dominican Republic.

 

We wish them lifelong happiness.

What will they come up with next?

The Bolshoi boss Vladimir Urin has been authorised by the Ministry of Culture to take over the Pokrovsky chamber music theatre.

The Pokrovsky’s music director is the venerable Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

Urin says: ‘I have an agreement that the closest friend and associate of Pokrovsky, the wonderful conductor, People’s Artist of the USSR Gennady Rozhdestvensky, will remain the musical director.’

 

The Deutsch Oper Berlin is offering a free flute of sparkling wine to anyone who attends its performances this weekend, following a few days’ closure for repairs after a sprinkler malfunction over Christmas.

Ticket holders who cannot face the damp are being offered a full refund.

Message to patrons:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

aller Einsatz zeigt erste Wirkungen! Das intensive Trocknen und Belüften – nach dem am 24. Dezember aufgetretenen großen Wasserschaden auf der Bühne der Deutschen Oper Berlin – führte heute dazu, dass sich erstmalig der Eiserne Vorhang wieder heben und einige Züge fahren ließen. Das heißt, alle Künstler und Mitarbeiter stehen bereit, damit ab dem 28. Dezember die ersten Vorstellungen halbszenisch für unser Publikum über die Bühne gehen können. Da der Orchestergraben unbeschadet blieb, können damit die geplanten Aufführungen von Mozarts „Die Hochzeit des Figaro“ am 28. Dezember, von Puccinis „La Boheme“ am 29. Dezember sowie Silvester um 15 und 19.30 Uhr und Rossinis „Der Barbier von Sevilla“ am 30. Dezember halbszenisch (mit Künstlern in Kostüm und Maske und in improvisiertem Bühnenlicht) stattfinden. Gleichzeitig lädt die Deutsche Oper Berlin jeden Zuschauer zu einem Glas Sekt oder einem anderen Getränk ein.

Wer diese einmalige Vorstellungsform nicht erleben möchte, erhält den Kartenpreis mittels des Formulars auf der Website www.deutscheoperberlin.de ersetzt, Informationen auch beim telefonischen Kartenservice unter 030-34384 343.

Damit wird der einstweilen ausgesetzte Vorverkauf wieder aufgenommen. Ab wann szenische Vorstellungen in gewohnter Form möglich sein werden, darüber informieren wir zu gegebener Zeit.

Wir bedanken uns für Ihr Verständnis!

The San Antonio Symphony, long in trouble, was about to be taken over by a local consortium of businessmen. But they have taken a deeper look at the numbers and found an $8.9 million hole in the pension fund.

It looks like no deal. The San Antonio orchestra has existed since 1939. Can it survive?

The slogan needs changing – fast.

Read here.

We’ve been asked by the NY-based Terra Symphony Orchestra to post this appeal on behalf of one of their players, Elektra Curtis.

Elektra Kurtis is a violinist, improviser, and composer, a wonderful, spirited woman in the prime of her creative and professional output. She stands at the center of the NYC classical and jazz freelance scene, appearing everywhere from top recording sessions to shows as bandleader of her own music. Everyone who knows Elektra is magnetized by her funny, kind, and generous personality. 

In September and October of 2017, Elektra started having trouble thinking clearly. Massive headaches began soon thereafter. After a seizure in her left hand, her doctor advised an MRI and CAT scan of her head, which revealed a tumorous mass 3×5 centimeters in her pre-frontal cortex, along with several others behind it. She underwent invasive brain surgery to remove the tumor….

Read on here, and help if you can.

In the orchestra’s most egalitarian statement to date, new chairman Daniel Froschauer has told DPA: ‘Wir würden uns zudem freuen, wenn auch einmal eine Dame am Pult steht.’

Which translates as: ‘We’d also be happy if a lady once stood on the podium.’

The coming New Year’s Day concert will be conducted by Riccardo Muti.

 

The RPO has called in Thierry Fischer, music director of the Utah Symphony, to conduct its January US tour.

The short tour is mostly West Coast.

The death has been announced of Vladimir Shainsky, a folksy composer who created the soundtracks for the childrens’ television series Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile.

He was 92.

Shainsky had been living in Caifornia since 2007.

Russian readers, prepare to shed a tear.