This is dress rehearsal footage of Gustavo Dudamel preparing for his Met debut this week in Otello.
As he heats up, his shirt loses traction with his trousers.
Good to see some passion in that pit.
Columbia Artists have signed the 2018 Leeds winner Eric Lu for North America representation.
Massachusetts born, Eric studied at New England Conservatory and is now at Curtis.
AskonasHolt manage him worldwide as part of the winner’s prize.
The death is reported of Gianfranco Cecchele, a luminous tenor who won major roles in the 1960s opposite the likes of Callas, Nilsson and Tebaldi. He was Radames in Aida and Pollione in Norma, not to mention Wagner’s Rienzi.
By the end of his 20s he had given 241 performances, and the vocal strain began to tell.
The rest of us career was notably quieter.
He died today of lung disease, aged 80.
Trinity Laban has announced the death of Norman Burgess, professor of trumpet and Head of Brass from 1960-96.
Norman, who died on 2 December, was principal trumpet of the BBC concert orchestra and co-principal of the BBC Symphony.
His funeral will be held, on 19 December, 12.15pm, at:
The Amersham Crematorium
Whieldon Lane
Milton Suite
Amersham HP7 0ND
Franz Welser-Möst made a striking claim recently on Slipped Disc: we have the youngest audience in the US – 20% is under the age of 25.
The Cleveland Orchestra has now published its end-of-year results,substantiating that assertion.
The results show average attendance at Severance Hall rose six percent in 2018 to 83 percent capacity. Among the seats sold, 18 percent went to college students or under-18s.
Tens of thousands more under-18s attended education concerts.
Financially, the orchestra reduced its deficit by two-thirds but still turned in an overspend of $1.3 million on a budget of $53 million.
The tenor Jonas Kaufmann and the composer Jörg Widmann are to receive the Maximiliansorden, the highest cultural honour of the state of Bavaria, in a ceremony next Monday.
For once, an intelligent English title.
press release:
In summer 2019 Bampton Classical Opera will present Stephen Storace’s lively two-act comedy about unhappy newlyweds Gli sposi malcontenti (1785), under the title Bride and Gloom. The company has already staged Storace’s other Viennese opera Gli equivoci (The Comedy of Errors) with great success in 2000-1. The production will be designed and directed by Jeremy Gray, conducted by Anthony Kraus and will be sung in English.
Stephen Storace’s Gli equivoci (The Comedy of Errors), one of the most significant of the many little-known operas staged by Bampton Classical Opera over the past 25 years, proved to be a revelation. The Times commented: “the forgotten Storace, like steak-and-kidney pudding, is a victim of the inverted snobbery of the English” and praised the “brilliantly handled” extended ensemble finales, the “deft and delicate scoring” and the surprising maturity of this 24-year-old English composer, collaborating at that time in Vienna with Lorenzo da Ponte.
A year before Gli equivoci, in 1785, Stephen was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II to produce his first opera Gli sposi malcontenti. The commission undoubtedly stemmed from the Emperor’s infatuation with Stephen’s sister, Nancy Storace, then engaged as prima donna in the imperial Viennese Italian opera. Despite little experience as a composer, Stephen had absorbed many of the latest musical trends through his recent travels in Italy with his sister, and in Vienna through his close friendship, and perhaps study, with Mozart. Although the first performance of Sposi was hardly smooth – Nancy lost her voice during the first act and retired from the stage for several months – it nevertheless entered the repertory of the Burgtheater and was subsequently well-received in Prague, Leipzig, Vienna and Paris.
That’s one version of what happened to the Duke of Alcantra Stradivari violin before it went missing in 1967.
The other is that the player left it inside the car while he went shopping.
When the instrument was eventually recovered 27 years later, lawyers had a field day trying to prove who it really belonged to.
Read here.
Advertising copy for the seasonal social media campaign by the so-called ‘arts centre’:
Visit South Bank this winter for magical Christmas markets, picturesque walks along the river and cosy riverside dining in some of London’s most iconic restaurants and bars. Catch dynamic theatre, classic films and bold exhibitions, and treat the whole family to festive experiences at some of London’s top attractions.
No mention of what is meant to be the main art form. They’re ashamed of it.
Just under two years since the opening of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the last of its 45 apartments has been sold.
It measures 287 sq. m. and fetched 11.07 million euros.
And that’s without concert tickets and service charges.
