The head of the Mariinsky theatres in St Petersburg and Vladivostok has signed a cooperation agreement with the Acting Governor of the Sakhalin Region, Valery Limarenko.
This gives Gergiev’s Mariinsky empire exclusive rights to a new theatre complex on Sakhalin Island.
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
A soprano at the start of her journey cuts a debut album as another reaches what must be the end. The contrasts are simply too compelling to ignore. Lise Davidsen, a Norwegian, came to attention in the Kathleen Ferrier competition four years ago, though her voice is more Flagstad than Ferrier. This is a genuine Wagnerian instrument, fully formed at 32 years old and equal to a massive orchestra….
Read on here.
The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has just named Daniel Barenboim its Ehrendirigent, or honorary conductor.
The announcement follows his reinstallation this week at the Staatsoper under den Linden, officially cleared of allegations of bullying.
Barenboim was defeated in 1998 by Simon Rattle in his bid to become chief conductor of the Philharmonic. He first conducted the orchestra 50 years ago, in June 1969.
Two string players retired last night from the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC.
Cellist Janet Frank, Washington born and educated in the city’s public schools, was appointed to the orchestra in 1969 by music director Howard Mitchell.
Violinist Linda Schroeder joined in 1978, signed up by music director Mstislav Rostropovich.
I was at the Linbury at Covent Garden last night to see Ivan van Hove’s staging of Leos Janáček’s song cycle, The Diary of One Who Disappeared.
It was billed to last 90 minutes without an interval.
It lasted, by my watchy, two minutes over an hour.
What happened to the other half-hour?
The show, which has already been seen in Europe and New York, clunks. Hove’s attempt to read Janáček’s late-flowering love for Kamila Stösslová into a farmer’s passing fling with a gypsy fails at almost every count. The composer, so far as we know, never consummated his passion: it functioned as creative fantasy. The farmer, in Van Hove’s version, has nothing but sex between his ears.
The audience, by the way, was overwlemingly septuagenarian.
The Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, who has just cut her first CD on Decca, is being whisked to Berlin to replace Krassimira Stoyanova in a season-closing pair of recitals this weekend with the Staatskapelle.
Zubin Mehta conducts.
Go, Lise.
The Dutch violinist, who has been prone to cancellation, has opted for a teaching life in the Alps.
She will succeed Pavel Vernikov as professor of violin at HEMU Sion.
She says: ‘I am very excited about starting a small class at the HEMU Sion. Inspired by the legacy of legendary violinist Tibor Varga, the school is set in one of the most inspiring parts of the world! I am very much looking forward to it!’