Vasily Petrenko sang his first Queen of Spades in a St Petersburg boys’ chorus. In a month, he’ll conduct it in his Met debut.

‘I want to find the balance and delicacy of the score,’ he says. ‘In The Queen of Spades there are many delicate, quiet moments; probably the main climaxes happen in the quiet moments rather than the loud moments — the psychological climaxes. If there is coherence between what’s going on visually onstage and what it says in the music, that can make an incredible effect.’

Message to Slipped Disc from Zachary Mowitz, co-founder of ensemble132:

I’d like to share a terrible airline experience I had recently, which didn’t even involve going to an airport. I essentially lost the full price of a trans-atlantic air ticket in the process of trying to book two airplane tickets for myself and my cello through TAP airlines (Air Portugal).

The first agent I spoke to told me that to avoid paying the service fee for booking a ticket on the phone, I should book my own ticket online and then call back to have them add the cello ticket to that. I did this and called back, only to have my call dropped two times and then be told by the last agent that the cost was higher and that I might need two extra seats. They also told me that they wouldn’t be able to confirm whether or not I would actually need to buy a 2nd additional seat for my cello until Monday (I called on a Friday). I asked whether I’d be able to get a full refund for the ticket I already bought if it turned out that they did require me to buy yet another seat. They said no, because that would be outside the 24-hour grace period for bookings.

Even if I rebooked on Monday, they couldn’t guarantee confirmation of the 2nd extra seat within 24 hours… Given all of this, I decided to just abandon the whole enterprise and get my money back for the one ticket I already booked online. When I asked for that refund, however, they told me that I could only get my money back in form of a TAP voucher, and that when I used that voucher I would be charged a fee.

The key point is that for me to travel by air, as a professional musician and cellist, I always need to buy an extra seat for my cello because it is too valuable and fragile to put in checked luggage. So when they had me book my own seat by myself and call back to take care of the cello ticket–without mentioning that I might have to buy not one but two extra seats–they set me up to lose that money.

Every day, my social media feed carries messages of support for Placido Domingo, the singer whose US career was derailed by mostly unnamed female accusers. Many of the messages are from young female musicians.

Here’s one in today’s mail, by a Munich violinist, Alexandra Hauser:

What a night…I still have trouble finding the right words after an emotional evening such as this one. Thank you to the Wiener Staatsoper and to the Wiener Philharmoniker for an incredible experience that I shall forever treasure, and most of all, thank you to you Plácido Domingo for being YOU. Your musicianship, dedication, love, honesty, work, years of experience can only be an extremely big inspiration to us young musicians. Being a young violinist, opera was my biggest love, and somehow singers were always my biggest inspirations. Meeting Domingo was a lifetime experience that cannot be compared. His humbleness and will to speak to us young musicians is inspiring. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I shall treasure Macbeth for the rest of my life ❤️

What could be more heartwarming for an artist than the innocent appreciation of a young professional fan? These messages have persisted and increased in recent weeks, while newspapers have gradually lost interest in the Domingo story. The people who support Domingo are aware of the reports about Domingo. They simply don’t believe them, nor do they trust the journalism that produced this furore.

Many colleagues of Domingo’s post daily messages of support. Today’s pack includes fond waves from tenors Piotr Beczala and Javier Camarena. They don’t trust AP’s reporting, either.

Nor does the Vienna State Opera, which will feature Domingo in a livestream this weekend, greatly increasing its online footprint.

What we are witnessing in the post-Domingo environment is a widening gulf between the media industry and the world of opera.

Where this will lead no-one can tell, but what was once an easy dialogue has been coated in frost and we hear that some media organisations will not be welcome in certain opera backstages from here on.

The decision to go ahead with an orchestral tour of China after three South Korean students were refused visas has put Eastman School of Music on the spot. On the one hand, it needs to be polite to China in order to ensure a flow of fee-paying students, on the other it looks as if it is prepared to throw students overboard if their nationality interferes with the demands of a difficult partner. So it dumps the Koreans.

Who’s next?

Think President Trump and the Kurds and you have just about got the picture.

Many former alumni have written to us, publicly and privately, protesting Dean Jamal Rossi’s decision.

Others have gone online.

The composer Armando Bayolo has written to Rossi:

In the 22 years since graduating from Eastman, I have also had the honor of teaching students of all ages. Part of the responsibility of a teacher, particularly of music teachers working, as we do, within the master/apprentice model, almost alone among all disciplines, we have a responsibility beyond merely providing unforgettable experiences to students and help guide and teach them INTEGRITY. As teachers, we have an immense responsibility to our students, part of which is teaching them to stand up for their convictions and to do what is right and honorable. What students in the Eastman Philharmonia are learning from this debacle is that the interests and integrity of three students are worth sacrificing for the sake of 80 other students who now seem far more privileged than their South Korean peers. An ensemble is a team, if not a family. If one student in the Philharmonia cannot attend the tour because of who they are and how a government sees them, then NO STUDENT IN THE PHILHARMONIA SHOULD ATTEND. That this was ever up for discussion is stupefying and, frankly, repugnant, and speaks ill for the values Eastman espouses.

It is time to be a LEADER, not just to the community within Gibbs street but to the community of alumni and fellow musicians around the world for whom Eastman is a name that implies excellence. I urge you to do the right thing here. The eyes of the world are upon you.

He’s nailed it.

Lyndon Terracini, who has run Opera Australia for the past decade, has received a three-year extension.

That will take him up to 2023.

The highly regarded Kim Gaynor has quit as director general of Vancouver Opera after just three years in the job.

‘A divergence of opinion,’ with the board, apparently.

Kim had been MD of the Verbier Festival in Switzerland for 11 years before heading to Canada. She knows all there is to know about artistic planning and temper/ament.

She leaves immediately.

A former soldier tells the Daily Telegraph that going to the opera helped him recover from PTSD.

Guess he hasn’t seen much Birtwistle yet. Or any modern German productions.

Not to mention Lucia.

Or Wozzeck.

The Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz has signed on Anthony Bramall as music director for a further four years, keeping him til 2023.

Among his local triumphs is a German production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.