The LA Times quotes company sources saying that Domingo, the general director, is not involved in day-to-day management of the company while the investigation is open’ into allegations of sexual misconduct.
Domingo will be absent for the season-opening Bohème. ‘We are thrilled with and proud of the work that more than 350 of our tireless and talented staffers, artistic corps and guest artists have been doing behind the scenes for months,’ L.A. Opera’s president and chief executive, Christopher Koelsch, said via email to The Times. ‘Their sensational ‘La Bohème’ is a bold, and emotionally affecting take on the classic — and one that I have every hope will resonate strongly with today’s audiences.’
We have been informed of the passing of the Dutch bass singer Jaco Huijpen at his birthplace, Assendelft.
A stalwart of opera companies in Munich and Amsterdam, he performed with Haitink, Gergiev, Nagano, Ivor Bolton and other leading maestros.
No further details are presently available.
The summer-ending gala that is the Last Night of the Proms missed its mark in 2019.
Something was missing.
The little red glow that grows in the first half and sparks in the second failed altogether to ignite.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra looked more than averagely elsewhere. The tedious forest of EU flags seemed faintly disloyal in the circumstances.
The me-me-gay-me soloist Jamie Barton made less of the role than her Wagnerian predecessors (I hope Dame Gwyneth wasn’t watching). The condcutor Sakari Oramo delivered his closing speech with all the flair of an EU commissioner’s fishing rights report. The chorus of Rule, Britannia sounded for once as misplaced as the EU flags.
The programme was partly to blame. The tick-box insertion of a Percy Grainger bon-bon and an Elizabeth Maconchy suite between an Offenbach can-can and a Wizard of Oz aria drained the night of momentum. The BBC presenters’ self-praising banalities numbed the ear.
Watching the occasion on television, nothing stirred. Social media was unenthused.
It was pancake night at the BBC Proms.
Need for a reboot.
Mariinsky Empire bulletin:
The Japanese conductor Shizuo Kuwahara has been appointed principal guest conductor of the Mariinsky Theater Primorsky Stage (in Vladivostok).
He will perform twice in October – Macbeth (October 16) and La Traviata (October 19). On October 25, the maestro will present a symphony program with the Mariinsky Theater Primorsky Stage Orchestra.
On the day of his appointment, Kuwahara failed to make the final round of the Almaty conducting competition in Kazahkstan.
