Amazing what you can do without a music director
mainEngland’s Opera North has just announced new productions next season of Bohuslav Martinů’s The Greek Passion and Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, two mid-20th century masterpieces that don’t get seen nearly often enough.
Opera North has been without a music director since the disappearance of Aleksandar Markovic in April 2017.
They dropped the baton when they failed to make Jim Holmes the Music Director. Pure snobbery.
Ummm…no. Just, no. Lovely chap. But no.
You must be joking! I got to everything at Opera North. Wonderful company, and a happy company, and keep within their budge, and within our own purses as audience – as little as £90 for the whole year, which is what I pay, and I hear and see everything. They are doing very well, and have done since their inception in 1978.
How do you know it’s a happy company? Do you work there?
I know of other very good houses that do very well without a resident music director.
Like the Vienna State Opera, off and on.
We had a musical director for many years and he is sorely missed, Richard Farnes, but important he went to further his own career. He did wonderful work and was greatly liked. But now we have had some wonderful conductors each bringing their own talent to such an enterprising company. Don’t know why those in London don’t come up and see them more often but they are saddle to the Covent Garden!!
Such as?
And best of all, the honest people seeking to honor the legacy of music and the work musicians don’t have to deal with a sociopath.