The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte, who was rushed to hospital last night near the end of the second act of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, is on the mend, we hear.
Colleagues who have been in touch with Ausrine say she received stitches for a bad gash to her hand or arm. The injury was caused by a malfunction of a piece of stage machinery, apparently a door that didn’t open. Such things are not uncommon in Paris.
It could have been much worse.
Ausrine is expecting to be back on stage for the second performance this Saturday.
It was reported earlier today that the British composer Matthew Scott, former head of music at the National Theatre, is facing a police investigation after apparently posting anti-semitic comments on a BBC News report.
Here is what you get when you email Matthew Scott at his most recent post at the University of Southampton:
With effect from 1st August 2018, I have retired from my teaching at the University of Southampton in the UK. Please resend your email to me at the following address [redacted] and it will be forwarded to me. I am a visiting professor in Munchen from October 2018 and will be dividing my time between my homes in London and Anif.
We hear that Roberto Alagna has pulled out of the first night of the new Calixto Bieito Carmen.
He is being replaced tonight as Don José by Jean-François Borras.
There has been no announcement, just a change to the website. They are trying to keep this as lowkey as possible.
Last week, Alagna bravely stepped in for the huge role of Otello after Pairs went into meltdown over a failing tenor. That may have been a stride too far for loyal Alagna.
Borras-in-waiting
UPDATE:
Message from Roberto Alagna:
Dear Norman, Thanks to remember me sometimes for my greatest events ,like when I wasn’t wearing a tie in Wien and now a cancellation.Dont worry it’s just a simple human Bronchitis.Maybe some readers will also appreciate good news sometimes.All the best … Rob
Heavy rain has brought dire condtions to the Villa-Lobos Institute at the University of Rio (UniRio).
Carole Gubernikoff writes:
‘Today, April 9, 2019, will be remembered as the day the cla was almost put down! Especially The Villa Lobos Institute, which periodically suffers from floods, received an extraordinary amount of dirty water mixed with leaves, branches and land. Many had to spend the night in their facilities, because it was impossible to overcome the barrier of waterfalls. The Director of the theatre school, Luiz Henrique and other teachers and students, were only able to get out in the early hours….
The British composer Matthew Scott, head of music at the National Theatre from 2006 to 2016, is facing a police investigation after apparently posting the following on a BBC News report about the Israeli elections:
Scott: ‘The time for the erasure of Israel and the completion of the cleansing process is rapidly approaching.’
The comment has since been taken down.
Scott is a Professor of Composition in Music at the University of Southampton. His agency has de-accessed his site.
The inaugural “Three Bs” Fest will feature a cook-off with two competing burger recipes, a tasting of whiskeys, and a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony by the String Orchestra of Brooklyn
The competitors for the coveted Golden Spatula will be Harlem Public and Madcap Cafe, with their burger recipes rated by the audience in real-time via the Burger Club website
Whiskeys will be provided by Angel’s Envy, Blackened American Whiskey, Five & 20, NY Distilling Co, Van Brunt Stillhouse, Widow Jane, and more
The Festival kicks off the second season of The Angel’s Share, the acclaimed opera and classical music concert series that takes place in the Green-Wood Catacombs, curated by Andrew Ousley.
You want more?
The first-ever Burgers, Bourbon & Beethoven Festival at Green-Wood Cemetery, May 25, 2019, from 7-10PM. The event will feature competing burger recipes that will be sampled and rated by the audience, a whiskey tasting of boutique bourbons alongside craft cocktails, and a performance of Beethoven’s immortal Fifth Symphony by the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, conducted by Eli Spindel.
This PR invitation could be just made for you:
Kaufman Music Center’s Luna Composition Lab, founded by Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, not only mentors and commissions young female-identifying/gender non-conforming composers, but helps them build networks of their own by introducing them to important figures like Julia Wolfe and Jennifer Koh.
Rising young performers from NYC’s top pre-college programs will play their music at the Luna Composition Lab showcase on May 8, which will be live-streamed from Merkin Hall.
The composer Balduin Sulzer died this morning at Wilhering in Upper Austria at the age of 87.
Ordained as a priest in 1955, he wrote three operas, nine symphonies, a Passion, twelve concertos and much else, works that have been performed as far afield as Japan and the US.
An effective teacher, he founded the Musikgymnasium Linz, where his star pupil was Franz Welser-Möst.
Robin Ticciati, in his third season at the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, is pushing out the boundaries.
Three young women are on the list of guest conductors: Anna Skryleva, Ruth Reinhardt (pictured) and Giedre Slekyte.
The Russians may have released Kirill Serebrennikov from almost two years house arrest on Monday but he is still not allowed to leave the city limits of Moscow.
This is no deterrent to Barrie Kosky, the Australian intendant of Berlin’s Komische Oper.
Kosky told his season launch press conference that he called Serebrenninkov at home on Monday and booked him to direct Stravinsky’s opera The Rake’s Progress next season.
It will be one of nine new productions on the Komische stage.
Others include Jaromir Weinberger’s Frühlingsstürme, sometimes described as the last hit musical of the Weimar Republic; also his greatest hit, Schwanda the Bagpiper; Hans Werner Henze’s The Bassarids; a Richard Jones production of Handel’s Jephtha; a staff-sung Traviata; and a Paul Abraham operetta Dschainah.
Imaginative, as ever.
The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte was rushed to hospital last night after being injured during the second act of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s new production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. There is no official word of her condition.
Fifteen singers of the Hungarian State Opera have declared themselves in writing to be African-Americans in order to appear in Porgy and Bess, according to the opera’s director Szilveszter Okovacs.
The Gershwin estate requires Porgy casts to be of African ethnicity.
In order to get around the condition, 15 out of 28 performers have signed a paper stating that ‘African-American descent and consciousness are an inseparable part’ of their identity.
Only a matter of time before ex-Pres Obama declares himself to be Hungarian-American.
