In the second of the videos I have made to accompany DG’s complete Wilhelm Furtwängler set, I discuss the conductor’s idea about living in the moment and how it endowed his music with a special character.

Watch here:

 

And here’s the next:

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has announces Tanglewood’s first-ever year-round schedule of performances and activities to take place on the grounds of the famed music festival, starting in October 2019 and running through June 2020.

You can read the press release here.

 

Ian Pace has collected responses from a dozen former students at the Manchester music school, adding their horror and confusion to the shocking evidence heard by the UK Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse last week.

Here are a few blood-chilling memories:

1 I entered Chet’s at 11 as a happy child who was considered to be bright at primary school. By the time I was 12, I was so depressed that I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I felt like a complete failure, especially academically. This has stayed with me my whole life…

2 When I arrived and for all but the final year, corporal punishment was meted out not by the staff, but by prefects. Effectively by seventeen year olds. Many of these prefects were inarguably sadists ( I could name them even now ) who prided themselves on how much pain they could inflict on young children. Those children could be guilty of nothing more than wanting to go to the toilet after lights out in the dormitory. 

 

3 My dear friend A1 [anonymised name as used in the IICSA hearings] was giving live evidence…

I was terribly disappointed to find that my friend A1 had several minutes missing , that were removed to protect her anonymity , which is of course understandable , but at the same time distressing to know that these comments were all about [houseparent]’s appalling behaviour.

When A1 returned from America , we were all called into the “common room” as it was known then , by [houseparent], to be told that A1 is returning and no one must ask her any questions or ask her why , and that we had to pretend everything was normal. Everyone knew anyway ! We all knew they had to get naked … 

I went to [houseparent], and asked her if she was aware that [redacted] was shagging most of his students. She accused me of being a Liar.

Read more here.

The yellow label has snapped up the Icelandic composer, cellist and singer Hildur Guðnadóttir, whose score to HBO’s drama on Chernobyl charted earlier this year.

Like many Iceland creatives Hildur, 37, now lives in Berlin.

 

The London Symphony Orchestra has just advertised auditions for the most important seat in its ranks.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is also searching.

As is the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Other orchestras are seeking an associate to share the post with an incumbent.

What happened to all those wonderful European leaders who used to come our way.

Anecdotal evidence is that the best are holding back until they see what the situation looks like after Brexit.

 

Roberto Alagna has pulled out as next summer’s Otello.

If you’ve booked already and don’t like the sub, they’ll give you a refund.

It’s 2019, after all.

In our festival performances of Otello on 12 and 15 July 2020 Gregory Kunde will take on the role of Otello instead of Roberto Alagna. If you have ordered tickets for one of the festival performances of Otello, you can change your order. In that case please send an E-Mail to our ticket service before the beginning of January 2020). Please let us know your customer number.

 

Zuzana Caputova, president of Slovakia, got presented to royalty on her visit to the Metropolitan Opera.

Not sure if you can see it in this shot below, but Anna received the president in bare feet.

It’s the new Metiquette, apparently.

 

The LA Phil has named Kathryn Eberle leader of its Hollywood Bowl orchestra.

Eberle, from Nashville, is currently associate concertmaster of the Utah Symphony.

She’ll need to upgrade the wardrobe.

 

In the Washington production of Le Cid where Angela Turner Wilson alleged that Domingo groped her breast, the female lead role, Chimène, was sung by the Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos.

Matos, newly appointed artistic director of Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon, was asked by two Portuguese newspapers this week for her view. She contests the accuracy of Wilson’s recollection.

Here’s what she said:

‘Firstly I don’t like meddling with aspects of other people’s private lives. I can only speak for myself and [Domingo] was always a gentleman with me, a very generous person who treated me and helped me with utmost respect. Another thing I can say is that we live in a supposedly democratic world where there is the presumption of innocence, and public judgements that are not made in a proper place always bring more negative than positive situations. I think he is, was and will continue to be a great artist in our memories, and I hope with all my heart and affection I have for him as a colleague and person who at some point admired my work and invited me to various occasions, that all this will be resolved and clarified. I can’t say more than this because each case is an individual case while there are things I find hard to believe. I will not judge the other party who complains about a situation that might have been less correct. But I doubt it. The person I know is not like that. But I stress, trials should not be made in the public square, but only in the places of law and with evidence and with a presumption of innocence.’

Last night Slipped Disc received this message from Anna Tomowa-Sintow, one of the leading sopranos of the late 20th century:

Over the many years of our artistic collaboration I have always experienced Placido Domingo to be a wonderful human being and an absolutely impeccable partner on stage, as well as a great and tremendously devoted artist. His purpose in life is and always has been to serve music and the arts.
Anna Tomowa-Sintow