Yesterday, on the morning of the opening of Finland’s big Beethoven festival, Johanna Rusanen called in sick with acute bronchitis. Unable to find another soprano in Helsinki, the festival phoned the experienced Erika Sunnegårdh at her home in Vienna.
Her flight took off at 1430.
She arrived at the Helsinki Music Center – with her dog, Maestro, in tow – exactly ten minutes before the performance began. Pausing only for a quick glance at the tempi of ”Abscheulicher” with conductor Hannu Lintu, she got into costume, came onstage and sang a tremendous Leonore.
Big hand for Erika.
Lisette Oropesa is quoted today as saying that overweight women cannot get cast these days in bel canto roles.
Oropesa, 35, says she was ruled out several times for being ‘too fat’.
Oropesa, 2008
She told the Bachtrack site that this ‘voice type . . . is so competitive, you need to look the part or you’ll be disqualified … ‘I thought that I’d worked way too hard and was singing far too well to be stopped before I could even enter the room… Someone would look at my photograph and say, ‘No. Too fat!’’
Oropesa, 2013
Lisette has since gone on a dramatic weight-loss programme after nearing 15 stone (95kg). She says critics and audiences share responsibility with casting directors for the anti-fat prejudice.
Gretchen Nielsen, LA Phil’s Vice President of Education Initiatives, has jumped ship to become chief exec of the young-talent training org From the Top, based in Boston.
The LA Phil has also lost Nate Bachhuber, its Artistic Administrator for the past four years. He has gone off to become Director of Artistic Planning & Administration for the Cincinnati Symphony Orch.
Stand by now for a Donald J. Trump tweet: As I made very clear today, this country needs a wall along the Alitalia border. They cannot go about breaking a great American instrument.
The Lucerne Festival has let it be known that the Venezuelan flagship orchestra will not be performing there with Gustavo Dudamel this summer. They were scheduled for September 15 and 16.
There are two underlying reasons:
1 Dudamel is now persona non grata with the regime.
2 So many of the best players have fled the country that the orchestra can no long field a credible ensemble.
It’s Simon Bolivar, RIP.
Lucerne has called in Mirga and the CBSO and Cecilia Bartoli and her ensemble as replacements.
Other festivals will also be affected by the cancellation.
Press release: Following an emergency Board meeting and further dialogue with Charles Dutoit, the RPO and Charles Dutoit have together decided to bring forward his resignation from his role as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. Charles Dutoit had already announced in June 2017 that he would stand down in October 2019; this will now take place with immediate effect.
This decision has been made following allegations of inappropriate conduct by Mr Dutoit, which were first reported on 21 December 2017. Whilst Mr Dutoit continues to seek legal counsel to defend himself, the protracted uncertainty and media reporting makes Mr Dutoit’s position with the Orchestra untenable.
The RPO is committed to the highest standards of ethical behaviour and takes very seriously its responsibility to maintain a safe working environment for all its artists, musicians and staff.
The RPO enjoys relationships with a roster of distinguished guest conductors who will undertake Charles Dutoit’s future projects with the Orchestra in London, the UK and internationally. Further details will be announced at www.rpo.co.uk in due course.</em
The soprano Ailyn Pérez is out of Munich’s new few Carmens.
Her replacement as Micaela is the stunning Munich-based South African, Golda Schultz.
We visited three leprosy colonies in the last two days. Leprosy, or Hansen’s Disease, is actually mostly a skin and nerve disorder caused by a bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. How many times was I asked if I got a vaccination before visiting? What an ignorant question.
We imagined that in the Villages, we would find persons who are mostly patients with visible aftermaths of disabilities and deformities caused by the bacteria, and therefore expected a kind of an open rural hospital/institution setting. On the contrary, while all of them were in completely destitute conditions: below poverty-line, severely-challenged living standards, we were welcomed by happy, energetic, smiling, and warm people, and the children in particular, receiving us with extraordinary openness.
From what we learned, there are some 800 leprosy colonies in India, of which we were able to visit three. The issue we face with leprosy colonies is a social one and not of a medical illness, and that of severe discrimination that afflicts multiple generations. At this point in time, in 2017, even though there are new cases of Hansen’s Disease reported every year, it is a completely curable disease only with a regimen of medication, and the likelihood of it being contagious to others is nearly non-existent. While its late symptoms may be frightening for some on-lookers, it is definitely not fatal. It is nonetheless somehow a disease that arouses extreme fear in society, that subjugates those who develop the symptoms (even when one has the bacteria, it is unlikely that the symptoms would develop, and in fact, if the symptoms were to develop to an extent visible on the outside of the body, that would mean that the disease would have been contracted as long as 10 years prior) to atrocious and unforgivable discrimination.
Historically and more recently, various governments and societies have handled the victims of Hansen’s Disease differently, but most with inexcusable, inhumane, and often barbaric methods and approaches, and some still continue their illogical ways, perpetuating the problem of social stigma. From what we experienced in the colonies we visited, fairly typical of those in West Bengal and in the rest of the region, we learned that the majority of those living in the villages actually never were patients and are mostly instead the second and third-generation families of a few former patients. Even then, the stigmata haunt them, often preventing rightful access to the most basic of the needs such as education, healthcare, the right to earn a living in dignified ways, and participation in society-at-large. This disables a break from a cycle of poverty because of marginalization. And while the actual number of new cases and of existing patients are very small by world-standards, it becomes a serious issue because of the wide-ranging problems and injustice stemming from it, extending it to persons around the actually those diagnosed with it.
How does the music feel when playing, especially when we are confronted head-on by the injustices of the society assaulting these villagers? There is no question that music can transport all of us. Music brings all of us a beautiful feeling. As we sense the children’s concentrated gaze, hear the birds chirping over our heads and cows and calves mooing along, while puppies are playing a tug-of-war, the music and the hearts also flow out and surround us. It was one of the most idyllic encounters with music for me.
From a lovely obit for East Village writer-musician Rayya Elias, who has died of liver and pancreatic cancer at 57:
In the early ’80s, she moved to New York City, to a $245-a-month apartment on Mott Street, “to express my talent and sexuality without the watchful and judgmental eyes of my family and their community.” She found work as a hair stylist and art director and started doing drugs in earnest– she recalled snorting cocaine at the bar at Area, oblivious to the conversation that John Cage and Andy Warhol were having next to her….
Hard to believe but the long-haired cellist from Latvia is 70 today… and still playing strong.
He is the only cellist ever to have studied with both Piatogorsky and Rostropovich and probably the only concert artist to serve time in both a Soviet jail and a mental institution.
He emigrated to Israel in 1972 and has since made his peace with Moscow.
Happy birthday, Mischa!
Joshua Weilerstein is pressing for gender equality at Switzerland’s Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne.
Simone Young is principal guest conductor and half the people chosen to lead the new-talent Dominicale series are women – Joanna Mallwitz (pic), Marzena Diakun, and Gemma New.
The musicologist Walther Dürr, one of the founders of the Neue Schubert Ausgabe in Tübingen and a luminary of many Schubertiads at Hohenems, died on January 6. He was 86.
