The unknown Elgar melody that turned up in an autograph book has sold for a bargain £9,000 – £5,400 for the music sheet and £3,600 for the rest of the autograph book.
Report here.
Daniel Kramer, artistic drector of English National Opera, trumpets a box-office record in the gullible Times today. ‘We have had a great financial season amd great artistic season with four Olivier awards nominations,’ he proclaims. The season’s greatest hit was Porgy and Bess, the company’s ‘highest grossing show ever’.
Porgy and Bess was conceived, cast and to all effects produced by Kramer’s precdecessor, John Berry, who is given no credit.
Kramer’s name is on some of ENO poorest recent shows, such as Jack the Ripper.
He’s got plenty of nuttin.
The Max Rostal Competition, sadly shrunken since its transfer to the Berlin University for the Arts, failed to produce a violin winner this time round. The secnd prize was shared by Daniel Cho, Kyumin Park and Johanna Pichlmai.
The viola award went to Tobias Reifland, 24.
The top prize is now just 7,000 Euros.
A student of Carl Flesch, Max Rostal (1905-91) was a vastly influential London teacher.
A man whose website describes him as ‘one of the UK’s leading operatic tenors’ has gone on trial for allegedly taking £100,000 from a widow.
Andrew Amdur, 48, is charged with defrauding Elizabeth Shaheen, 67. He denies the charges.
We can find no record of Andrew Amdur having sung opera in a professional cast. He has, however, sung the National Anthem at a rugby international and Nessun Dorma at the World Travel Awards.
His dormant Twitter account states: Andrew studied at the Guildhall school of Music.He was trained by Carlo Bergonzi, who has proclaimed that Andrew has the finest tenor voice in the world.
The trial continues.
In extensive coverage, the Evening Standard headline read: ‘Opera singer stole £100k from widow to fund his classic cars’
The sought-after lyric tenor Benjamin Bernheim has signed on with the Yellow team.
Bernheim, 33, will kick off with an album of Gounod, Massenet, Donizetti, Puccini, Verdi and Tchaikovsky. Valérie Gross, DG’s A&R Director Vocal & Opera, said, ‘He’s got it all: voice, charisma, looks and an uncanny ability to communicate with people – watch out for this exceptional singer!’
photo: Richard Boll
It’s Stephan Pauly, who has been running Frankfurt’s Alte Oper for the past seven years.
He’s 46 and more 21st century in his tastes than Thomas Angyan, who is leaving after 32 years.
