My hot-headed former MP gets into a horrible tangle with the LA Times.

 

“You’re the people I avoid like the plague!”

Her adversarial manner, confounding at first, left me feeling defeated. Aware of her contentious reputation, I asked if she thrived on conflict.

“I don’t. I have opinions, yes.”

“Would you describe yourself as angry?”

“Depends on what context.”

“This is a conversation.”

“I’m not angry.”

“You’re quite ferocious in your manner.”

“Oh no, really, come on.”

Seeing that I was prepared to end the interview, Jackson grew conciliatory. I must say in her defense that her refusal to traffic in bromides and pleasantries is rare and somewhat admirable. It is her fierce independence of mind, after all, that has set her apart as an actress. 

Read on here.

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

… The Gewandhaus can play this stuff in their sleep and sometimes it sounds as if that’s just what they are doing. There is a lack of momentum in the fourth symphony that is close to soporific and, though the seventh comes to life with those big slow-movement crescendos, it’s hard to feel that real Schwung is sustained to the end. A booklet picture of the conductor having a nap with a Bruckner bust does not help matters….

Read on here.

 

And here.

The Swedish pop group are back, a little older but you’d never guess.

Press statement:

The decision to go ahead with the exciting Abba avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence. We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!

Editor’s note: If you remember Abba, you’re probably too old to enjoy this.

Here’s the new season from Graz – eight or nine new productions, under the guidance of music director Oksana Lyniv.

It includes Szymanowski’s King Roger, Flotow’s Martha and Joseph Beer’s Polnische Hochzeit.

And the Met? Just four new shows.

Answer here.

Why did no-one think of that before?

From our diarist Anthea Kreston:

 

I have been home for four days, back from our Quartet USA tour. I still feel utterly wiped out – not only am I struggling to find my place again with my family (so far, the girls have refused to eat the oatmeal I have cooked every day – it isn’t made the way that Dada makes it), but emotionally I am weary, and my arms are still trying to find their way back from two weeks of overuse. Playing 11 concerts in 13 days, in the way my Quartet plays, is equally taxing on my body and mind. Last night my arms woke me up, with painful tingles running up and down both forearms. But, they are finding their way back. And I am finding my way back.

We are in meetings all week – individual meetings in all of our homes, and group meetings with our manager. So – without further ado, here’s a silly story from an airplane ride last week.

Getting on our flight from Houston to Oakland, I was filled with trepidation. We were flying Southwest, an airline with first-come-first-serve seating, and my boarding number was really high. It would be tough to find space for both my violin and backpack, and the jockeying for seats would be tough – I would probably get a middle seat in front of the bathrooms.

I made it about two-thirds down the aisle, when I spotted a coveted window. Middle seat empty! How is this possible? I quickly knew the answer – in the aisle seat sat an elderly woman, baseball cap on, hunched over her iPhone, punching letters slowly, one at a time, with her index finger, and swaying a-rhythmically in a kind-of figure 8 pattern. I took a breath and asked her if the seat was taken. She didn’t show any signs that she had heard me, and after a couple of more attempts, I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her.

She glanced quickly up, screwed her eyes at me, and mumbled something about seat assignments or something. I squeezed past her, and as I settled in, she looked over at me from under her brim, eyes sparkling and said – “if we play this right, we can have an empty middle seat!”. Ha! She told me to look strange, and I pulled my scarf over my head in a weird way and looked intently out the window. As the plane filled up, people had no choice but to ask about our middle seat. For the first person, I said in an awkwardly loud voice “I just ate an entire bag of apricots!”, and the person moved on. Thumbs up from my row-mate. The next person, after they passed my seat-partner’s test and had the nerve to move on to me, got “I am so sorry – I am going to have to pee like every 2 minutes. I just drank an iced-tea this big!” That seemed to work, but eventually the announcement came that the flight was sold out, every seat would be taken. We looked at each other, and Nan (we were now on first name basis, and it turned out that not only was she a classical music lover, but a fan of the Artemis Quartet) said – ok – now we have to be smart and pick a good middle-seater. She smiled warmly at a slender, cleanly cut middle aged man and said – our seat is open! He sat down, and I fell asleep to the two of them chatting away – waking several hours later to discover they had made fast friends.

So – Nan and I exchanged emails, and to my utter joy, she came to greet me after our concert in San Francisco. My sister grilled her on the details (sometimes people, for some reason, think I just make up these stories straight out of my head), and after the apricot comment was confirmed, we had a nice chat and selfie.

Have a great week!

Opera Plus, a useful source for music in the Czech Republic, is shutting down after the Government slashed its grant.

Imagine, there are classical music sites that apply for and receive state aid.

His latest comments on Venezuela today in an interview with the London Times:

On El Sistema: ‘It is a symbol of our country — beautiful. It’s a symbol of our continent. It’s a symbol of the world… If I have a commitment, if I have something that I will care for in my life, it is this, art for the people. You can see, I’m a result of this.’

On the regime cancelling his Simon Bolivar tours: The cancellations were “a big surprise and very sad”, he says, but he tries “not to think about it”. He “never intended to get into a fight with the regime”, he says now, implying that he can’t afford to. El Sistema is only “alive because it’s supported by the state”. That is why he “didn’t say anything political”. “I only said you people that lead the country, please do something because the situation is not sustainable. I was not ‘this party’ or ‘this party’. And whatever I say now, people will take and interpret to their side or to the other. They will say, ‘Oh, he’s so weak, saying this.’ ” But, says Dudamel: “I always have to speak through the music, I think that is what El Sistema is about.

Read on here.

Zubin Mehta’s prolonged recovery from surgery is creating uncertainty at the Israel Phil.

The orchestra has lost a China tour in June after the organisers rejected the incoming music director Lahav Shani as replacement.

Yoel Levi is taking over Mehta’s next subscription concerts, switching Bruckner 9 to 4 for some reason.

Wild rumours are raging in Asia over Mehta’s condition, but the conductor has told the orchestra he expected to return for Der Rosenkavalier in Tel Aviv before the present season ends.

 

Yasuhisa Toyota will be responsible for the sound concept of the Munich’s termporary 1,800-seat hall, designed by Hamburg architects Gerkan, Marg and Partner.

The interim hall, in use while the Gasteig gets a makeover, will cost 30 million Euros.

Toyota (r.) has been responsible for the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.