The culture minister Monika Grütters has signed off the federal budget for the Beethoven 250th anniversary year in 2020.

It’s six million Euros.

Twice as many as the Met.

Among them: the company’s first Nabucco and Cenerentola, with Isabel Leonard and Lawrence Brownlee; Rodelinda with Bejun Mehta and Lawrence Zazzo; and a Katie Mitchell staging of Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Nabucco

Details here.

The Bavarian resort of Garmisch-Partenkichen has changed its mind, deciding it will keep the grave of its second most distinguished citizen after Richard Strauss.

The Parsifal premiere conductor Hermann Levi spent his last years in the town and was buried there in 1900.

His grave was desecrated by the Nazis in the 1930s and never rehabilitated since.

Last summer, the town decided it did not want the derelict grave and arranged to remove Levi’s remains to the Jewish cemetery in Munich.

But a row blew up in world media, shaming the petty burghers who have now decided to keep the grave and restore it, after all.

See more here.

From classicalmusicnews.ru, posting a message by the Premier arts agency:

The Tatar Opera and Ballet Theater named after Musa Jalil signed an agreement with the Premier Art Agency, representing the interests of the tenor Khachatur Badalyan, to participate in four projects of the International Opera Festival. F.I. Chaliapin.

The singer was supposed to perform in two productions (“Madame Butterfly” 04.02.19 and “La Traviata” 02.20.19) and two gala concerts (02.22.19 and 02.23.19). January 31, 2019 the state contract was published on the website zakupki.gov.ru .

January 20, 2019 for the preparation of stage costumes, the casting manager A. Bagautdinova sent all the necessary measurements of the artist, including height. Upon arrival of Khachatur Badalyan on February 3, it was revealed at the rehearsal of the theater that the costumes did not correspond to the declared sizes, they were significantly larger.

Under the contract, the artist arrives one day before the performance, so the costumes were promptly customised to the size of the day before the performance. The video of the play shows that the costumes do not match the size of the artist.

Khachatur Badalyan’s performance in the opera “Madame Butterfly” on the stage of the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theater took place on February 4 and was greeted with enthusiastic press responses. The management of the theater also recognized that the performance was held at a high artistic level.

February 8, 2019 from the casting manager of the Theater Anna Bagautdinova received a call to the Agency with the message that the Theater cancels Khachatur Badalyan’s scheduled performances due to the artist’s small stature (1m 70 cm) and intends to terminate the state contract.

Badalyan is an international artist who appears on major stages in Italy, France Canada and elsewhere. At 1’70 he is taller than most high singers.

Both of London’s South Bank orchestras has rolled out their new seasons.

The Philharmonia’s highlight is
Beethoven Day an immersive day of performances, talks and free events marking the 250^th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth (15 Mar 2020). At its centre, a reconstruction, of one of the most extraordinary events in music history, Beethoven’s four-hour ‘Akademie’ concert of 1808, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; part of Southbank Centre’s Beethoven 250 Series.

The London Philharmonic present
Beethoven’s 250th anniversary is celebrated with a complete symphony cycle, a starry Triple Concerto and rarely-heard choral and orchestral works, as part of the Southbank Centre’s Beethoven 250 series.

The creative imagination involved is breath-taking.

Chris Vezey posted this morning that he’s recording jingles with orchestra and chorus in Prague for Scala Radio, the new classical station which launches next month.

Chris is one of the pioneers of classical commercial broadcasting in the UK. Among the founders of Classic FM, he was its head of Programming from 1991 to 1998. He went on to launched Lyric FM in Ireland, followed by PrimeTime Radio and Saga (now Smooth Radio).