Where’s Macron when you need him?
One union is holding the whole house to ransom over a single pay grade.
This is a picture from Don Pasquale, which ought to be playing on July 12.
UPDATE: Apparently it will. Don Pasquale is at the Théatre Garnier, which is not hit by the strike. Yet.
Following market activity in Zurich, Dallas, Washington, Liverpool and London, we’re happy to report that the Metropolitan Opera concertmaster David Chan is to be music director of a New York chamber orchestra, the Camerata Notturna.
We’re especially pleased to make the announcement since David apparently met the Notturna musicians through a message exchange on Slipped Disc.
Next, we’ll be offering dating services…
It has been announced in London that Vasily Petrenko will become music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021, when he leaves the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic after 15 years.
Petrenko, 42, is also stepping down as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.
We had prior information from agency sources that Petrenko was to share his post with Sir Andrew Davis. This was incorrect. We apologise the confusion.
It is being announced in Zurich that Fabio Luisi will leave a year early, in 2021.
Luisi recently became music director of the Dallas Symphony.
His successor, without a moment’s hesitation, will be Gianandrea Noseda, who lost Torino Opera last month in a political putsch. Noseda is music director in Washington DC.
It’s not known if the two Italian maestros discussed the swap privately, but we’re told that it took no more than a short phone call and a brisk meeting for the Zurich intendant, Andreas Homoki, to reel in Noseda with the promise of a stable administration and an early Ring cycle.
Homoki, who has run Zurich snce 2012, has been rewarded with a contract extension to 2025. He has handled this transition with great aplomb.
You read it first on www.slippedisc.com
UPDATE: Press release follows now:
Andreas Homoki, intendant and artistic director of Zurich Opera House, will remain in his position until 2025. The announcement that his contract had been extended for an additional three years by the Opernhaus Zürich Board of Directors was made on Monday, July 2 at a press conference. Ballet director Christian Spuck’s contract extension (also until 2025) was also announced. Both have been responsible for the Opernhaus Zürich’s artistic profile since 2012.
Music Director Fabio Luisi will devote himself to new endeavors starting in 2021. In a mutually agreed upon decision, Luisi will leave his post at the Opernhaus Zürich a year earlier than planned, in order to provide his successor with ample time for artistic design and planning. Andreas Homoki presented renowned conductor Gianandrea Noseda as the new General Music Director starting with the 2021/22 season.
In the last year, Noseda appeared at the helm of the Philharmonia Zürich as music director of the new production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, as well as for the revival of Verdi’s Macbeth. In both productions, he inspired audiences, the media, and musicians alike.
A new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is planned for the final phase of Andreas Homoki’s artistic directorship. The tetralogy has accompanied the Opernhaus Zürich ever since its opening. The first complete Ring cycle in the city on the Limmat appeared from 1891 to 1897. The most recent Ring cycle was created in 2000 and 2002 under the musical direction of Franz Welser-Möst, in a production by Robert Wilson.
Andreas Homoki and Gianandrea Noseda’s interpretation – their first collaboration – will be the eighth Ring cycle presented at the Opernhaus Zürich.
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Press release from the LA Phil:
The National Ballet of Cuba has been forced to withdraw from the previously announced The Nutcracker with Dudamel concerts at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday, August 14, and Thursday, August 16 (both at 8pm), due to challenges with visas. Concerts with Omara Portuondo and Oscar D’León, both with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, have been announced in their place.
Decca Gold, the US wing of Universal Classics, has signed a Hasidic singer in a kosher restaurant in Boro Park.
Shulem Lemmer, 28, will release his first track later this month, followed by an album with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Believe it.
No, not that one. *This* is the Decca single:
Finding a Lohengrin in less than a week is a major first-world crisis.
Klaus Florian Vogt, Bayreuth’s last Lohengrin, is this year’s Stolzing in Meistersinger.
Jonas Kaufmann, his predecessor, is Parsifal at the moment in the Munich Festival.
Piotr Beczala will be the next phone call.
But is he free?
He has a Boheme in Tanglewood midJuly, followed by Luisa Miller in Barcelona.
He would be, of course, the first Pole to sing a title role in Bayreuth.
We’ve been sworn to secrecy, but the results will be public before the day is out.
Watch this space.
‘My worst experience was a guy in Japan who found every hotel I was staying in – he would appear from behind a pillar when I walked through the lobby,’ she tells the Mail on Sunday.
‘I’ve had three or four more serious cases, one really bad. I had to get a restraining order because it was a source of such stress.’
The Vienna State Opera has issued end of season stats.
Revenues hit a record high of € 35,298,761.91, up 93,000 on the previous year.
The house played to 98.61% capacity, fractionally down on 98.83% for 2016-17. There must have been a late downturn as nightly figures were running at 99 percent until a few weeks ago.
In any event, the uptake is higher than for any other major house.
The French tenor Roberto Alagna pulled out of this summer’s Lohengrin a few days before the beginning of rehearsal, saying that, in a crowded diary, he hadn’t had the time to study the role.
Today, Katharina Wagner will be seeing lawyers to discuss legal remedies.
Alagna’s possible defence? He was talked into the role by the Katie-CT team against his better judgement, never having sung a major German role before. He was originally cast opposite Anna Netrebko, who pulled out a year ago. Bayreuth should have known the risk it was taking.
Unlike Levine vs the Met, this will never come to court.
