We hear that this afternoon, during the first Semiramide rehearsal on the main stage, the rehearsal was brought to a standstill by a loud argument between several chorus men regarding the dismissal of director John Copley.
The argument was very loud and tense. A large section of the chorus is still very upset that one of their members complained about John’s ‘inappropriate’ comments, resulting in John’s dismissal. This was the cause of the row.
Peter Gelb’s stonewalling has not calmed the situation and the production is suffering the consequences.
John Copley, who is 84 and known to singers as Uncle John, has never before been fired from a production in all his life.
The Finnish Radio Symphony orchestra has lost both conductor and soloist for tomorrow’s concert.
Lionel Bringuier cancelled on Sunday afternoon, Piotr Anderszewski on Monday.
Panic? No panic. Finland’s got talent. The concerts (tomorrow and Thursday) have been taken over by Klaus Mäkelä (pic) and Vikingur Olafsson. Local. And good.
Besieged by accusations of incompetence and insensitivity, Creative Scotland – the goverment arts funder – today reversed the cuts it made to five organisations.
They are: Birds of Paradise, Lung Ha, Catherine Wheels, Visible Fictions and the baroque ensemble, Dunedin Consort. All are assured of funding for the next three years.
Where the extra £2.6 million will come from is unstated.
The decision to defund the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Hebrides Ensembles still stands. For the moment.
UPDATE: Two Creative Scotland board members resign.
Message from the orchestra:
REGARDING THURSDAY’S CONCERT: Out of respect for the safety of our patrons, Thursday’s 7:30 PM performance has been canceled. This decision was made after evaluating numerous factors related to the Eagles Super Bowl Parade that would make it challenging for our patrons and Orchestra musicians to attend the concert.
Ticket holders for Thursday’s performance may: 1. Exchange your tickets for Friday or Saturday 2. Exchange your tickets for another program on the 2017-18 season 3. Donate your tickets back to the Orchestra or 4. Request a refund.
To make arrangements, please contact Ticket Philadelphia (patronservices@philorch.org, 215.893.1999) or log on to make exchanges through My Account. Thank you for your understanding and congratulations to our Eagles! 
🦅
The concert was to have been conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
Passenger care on the flag carrier goes from bad to worse.
Ksenija Sidorova bought an extra seat for her expensive accordion.
On boarding the flight, BA stewards ordered her to put in in an overhead bin, presumably because the seat had been sold twice over.
This is either larceny or piracy.
Vueling’s Alex Cruz is killing the airline.
Steven Grahl is the new Organist at Christ Church Cathedral, succeeding Stephen Darlington, who has served for 32 years. Grahl also joins the Faculty of Music in the University in ‘significant roles’.
Steven Grahl has been Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral since 2014. He is also Conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford, and President of the Incorporated Association of Organists.
Hendrik Vanden Abeele, artistic director of Belgian Chant group Psallentes, has published an open letter, detailing his treatment over 11 years by the University of Leuven.
He accuses the university, among other things of ‘lying, manipulating and isolating, threatening and intimidating, and placing the blame for what is happening on the victim himself.’
He writes:
It is no coincidence that I began this message with the words Me Too. Under this painful name, countless disconcerting stories have come to our knowledge recently about sexual abuse. Prior to that, we also had terrible accounts of child abuse. I think it is now high time for a new hashtag, again with a theme, so that stories about classic abuse of power can come to light as well. This sort of abuse, although not physical, often also has very serious consequences.
Read on here.
First review just in from ZealNY of last night’s revival of Francois Girard’s production:
Nézet-Séguin and the Metropolitan Opera orchestra stole the show tonight with a beautifully paced, languidly expansive and exquisite reading of Wagner’s Parsifal. In this orchestrally driving work, the work from conductor and musicians was sublime. The playing, across the pit, superb – tuning, ensemble, balance, tone. The brass performed magnificently despite tempos that you might hear in recording but rarely in a live performance…
Girard’s solution is clever, particularly so in Acts I and III. The ensemble slowly morphs from interesting vignette to beautiful vignette as a projected backdrop plays in real time – brooding sky, rising moon, forms that could be sand dune or human body. The result (with set design by Michael Levine and projections by Peter Flaherty) is starkly visual, architectural, and captivating.
And to this canvas, Girard pulls from his cast some impressive scene work. Gripping is Amfostas (brilliantly by Peter Mattei) as he reluctantly reveals and raises the Holy Grail, for an agonizingly long period of time, against Girard’s carefully and richly choreographed backdrop in Act I….
More here.
Evelyn Herlitzius, Klaus Florian Vogt and René Pape in ‘Parsifal’ at the Metropolitan Opera; photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.
UPDATE: Second opinion here from New York Classical Review.
Renato Bonacini Ladetto founded the Bonacini Quartet in Genoa in 1945 before emigrating to the US in 1950.
He co-founded the New York String Sextet, was professor at Hartt School of Music for three decades and player in the New York Philharmonic and RCA Victor Symphony orchestras.
After playing as assistant concertmaster at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Leopold Stokowski chose him as soloist and concertmaster for his Capital Records recordings.
Later, Renato was music director of the Connecticut String Orchestra.
He died in Connecticut on January 31.
Abigail Mitchell, a newly hired chorus extra at the Metropolitan Opera, finds herself struggling with lack of signage, unhelpful nicknames and elevators the lead to the bowels of despair:
Not to be fooled again, next time I checked the elevator before getting in to make sure that it went to my destination: C level. It did! So down I went, feeling confident. But when I stepped out I found myself in some sort of creepy, deserted basement. Large pieces of lighting equipment were piled around, and after I wandered a bit I discovered—safely at a distance, thankfully—that I must be by the lift, for the floor gave way in a sheer drop off. It was, I’m convinced, the place where the monster in Stranger Things lives.
I started to panic. It was so clearly the wrong place I was hesitant to wander around, but there was no one nearby to help me. I took out my phone—maybe I can send Daniel Hoy a desperate SOS? No reception. Increasing panic clouded my reasoning and for a moment I couldn’t even find the button to call the elevator back. I’ll be stuck here forever! I’ll die here! Someone will find my body in seven years when they’re looking for those old lights from that ’95 production of The Ghosts of Versailles!…
Read on here.
We regret to report the death last night (Feb 5) of Caroline Brown, founder of the Hanover Band, after a long struggle with cancer. Caroline was 64.
Her husband, Stephen Neiman, shared the sad news.
Founded in March 1980, the Band focused on music of the 18th and 19th centuries played most on period instruments, with occasional use of baroque and modern flutes where appropriate. Pitch was set at A=430.
It recorded symphonic cycles of Beethoven, Schubert, Weber and Schumann and made numerous TV appearances.
Caroline, a cellist, studied with Anna Shuttleworth and Joan Dickson at the Royal College of Music, before winning a scholaship to study at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna with Andre Navarra.
