Hunan Television and internet producer iQiyi have a ratings hit in Super Vocal, a contest for opera singers that is presently ranked as the fifth most watched reality TV show in China.

The original 36 contestants are about to be whittled down to six.

Read on here.

The jury has been named for wind and woodwind section at the Tchaikovsky Competition this summer:

Denis Bouriakov, Principal Flute, Los Angeles Philharmonic (Chair)

Boris Allakhverdyan, Principal Clarinet, Los Angeles Philharmonic

Whitney Crockett, Principal Bassoon, Los Angeles Philharmonic

Eugene Izotov, Principal Oboe, San Francisco Symphony

Daniel Matsukawa, Principal Bassoon, Philadelphia Orchestra

Alexei Ogrintchouk, Principal Oboist, Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Karl-Heinz Schutz, Principal Flute, Vienna Philharmonic

Stephen Williamson, Principal Clarinet, Chicago Symphony

Jacques Zoon, Former Principal Flute, Royal Concertgebouw Orch., Boston Symphony,.

We hear of the death of Robert Henderson, who was chief music critic of the Telegraph in the 1980s and the early 1990s.

Oper Köln is putting on four operas by local boy Jacques Offenbach this year, the bicentenary of his birth.

They’re doing a shorted version of Tales of Hoffmann for all the family this week.

Plus La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein in June, a revue called Je suis Jacques and the German premiere of ‘Les trois baisers du diable’.

UPDATE: Message from the music director, Gerrit Prießnitz:

Dear Norman, since I am the musical director of “Je suis Jacques” I would like to correct one detail: “Les trois baisers du diable” is not a production but an excerpt of it will be part of “Je suis Jacques”, a new “Offenbachiade” written by the stage director Christian von Götz, that will contain many rarities from Offenbach’s oeuvre