This is what remains of the Great Synagogue in Brody, once a thriving mainly-Jewish town on the Austrian-Russian border, birthplace of the great writer, Joseph Roth.

The Nazis wrecked the building, the Soviets neglected it.

This week, the Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv led a performance of part of Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish to mark the 125th anniversary of Joseph Roth’s birth.

Report here.

It is seven years since the young Romanian pianist was found dead in Vienna, reportedly the victim of a brain aneurysm at the age of 33.

She was the best friend and regular recital partner of Patricia Kopatchinskaya, who feared she might never recover.

The passage of time distorts loss. Contrary to the popular adage, time never fully heals.

Here is a remembrance of what music lost.

 

She’s exhausted, says the press release. Doctor has ordered three weeks off.

So she has dropped the two Lohengrins at Bayreuth on August 14 and 18.

Her jump-in as Elsa is Annette Dasch who, at least, has good German.

 

The renowned pandit Debashish Bhattacharya was returning home by BA from a festival performance at Womad when the airline contrived to lose his iconic self-made guitar during a 14-hour layover at Doha.

‘This instrument is one of a kind in the world and it is very valuable in every sense. I possess it since 1995 and it has become a part of me,’ he tells us. British Airways and its agents were unhelpful. The food, he adds, was ‘unsavoury’ and no accommodation was arranged for the long layover.

After three days of high anxiety the guitar was returned and the Pandit was able to perform again.

But he and his followers are unlikely to fly BA again.

 

She’s to be head of opera at Aspen Music Festival and School, in addition to consultant to Chicago’s Lyric Opera, Artistic Advisor to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and ambassador for a number of other causes.

Ms Fleming, 60 this year, is growing a retirement portfolio.

She will share the Aspen duties with Patrick Summers of Houston Grand Opera.

We have been notified of the death, after 12 years of cancer, of Richard Scott, founder of Manchester-based RAS Audio.

His name is on dozens of outstanding recordings.

Martin Anderson writes: ‘In the recordings that Richard made for Toccata Classics – no matter which orchestra or conductor, and no matter what venue – he always obtained a sound that gave you a full orchestral sound and yet enabled you to hear the detailed lines from which it was built up. And yet he talked about what he did as if it were as simple as delivering the milk. He talked about his illness in the same way – one of those things that comes along, nothing to get excited about – and he kept working as long as his strength endured.’

The conductor Paul Mann adds: ‘Richard created audio magic and did so with minimum fuss and maximum professionalism and good humour.’

The composer Steve Elcock: ‘I met Richard only once, when the Liverpool Phil recorded my Third Symphony for Toccata Classics in 2017. He struck me as very discreet, seemingly doing very little while Michael Ponder, the recording producer, was furiously scribbling notes on the different takes. Of course, I didn’t see the backstage. I left those sessions feeling quite gloomy, wondering how all those bits and pieces could possibly be fitted together into a coherent role. But they did, thanks to Richard. I’m sorry that I won’t be able to work with him again.’

Conducting Parsifal in Vladivostok this week, in a production directed by the British biopic maker Tony Palmer (a Life of Gergiev cannot be far behind).

Gergiev is due back in Bayreuth for Tannhäuser next Tuesday.

The foremost German baritone has told Platea magazine that he intends to retire in 2024, when he will be 57.

That’s pretty early for a singer who devotes much of his career on the recital stage and less to the exertions of opera, but Goerne is one of those artists who has a cerebral and emotional life outside of music, and he intends to make the most of it.

Catch him while you can.