From the press release:

Dr Artur Szklener, Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, Warsaw (which runs the Competition) said:

“For the first time in history we are introducing virtual reality, the highest quality broadcasting and fully interactive digital and physical spaces so that music-lovers all over the world can fully immerse themselves in the exceptional music-making and drama of the International Chopin Competition. The international streaming of the last edition in 2015 attained 60 million views on YouTube alone. At the next edition in 2020 we hope to reach many more people in a variety of ways and ensure they enjoy the richest and deepest experience possible. We also hope to shape the history of pianism in the 21st century and once again celebrate Warsaw as the Chopin capital of the world.”

In a first for any major classical music event, the Competition is introducing virtual reality streaming. With a VR camera close to the pianist on stage, remote viewers will be able to experience performances from the pianist’s perspective on the stage of National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw. Anyone who has VR goggles at home will be able to watch the VR streaming at www.chopin2020.pl. For those who do not have VR goggles, the Competition is introducing special Listener Zones all over the world where music lovers can come together to share the virtual reality experience, and much else.

 

Nude Opera Star Turns Grindr Workout Advice Into a Business

Don’t ever again complain about Slipped Disc.

Here’s the lede:

Six weeks before the premiere of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten at the English National Opera in London, its star, Anthony Roth Costanzo, discovered he’d be appearing onstage naked. And not just for a moment—he’d be walking around fully nude, under a spotlight, for a solid five minutes….

Read on here.

So you’ll remember that Ildar Abdrazakov cancelled Chicago’s Don Giovanni and all other US dates ‘for family reasons’.

Well, Evgeny Nikitin has just pulled out of Paris’s Prince Igor ‘due to illness’.
Guess who’s jumping in?
Looks like Ildar’s family reasons don’t include Paris.
We’ll always have Paris.

The New York-based mezzo-soprano Mika Shigematsu has died in Osaka, Japan, of pancreatic cancer.

Her husband Shintaro Kobayashi has posted this message:

I am deeply saddened to inform you that my wife Mika Shigematsu passed away in the morning of October 23, 2019 in Osaka. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late September. The funeral service took place in Osaka with family members on October 25.

I apologize that I could not reach you out sooner. We are still processing what has happened as everything happened so suddenly. It took her away from us less than a month after the initial diagnosis.

We are hoping to have some sort of memorial service in the near future to celebrate her life. We will be in touch with you as soon as we know about the details.

Thank you so much,
Shintaro

Mika had sung major roles at US companies, including San Francisco, Chicago, Santa Fe and Boston. In Europe she sang Suzuki in Madame Butterfly at the Royal Albert Hall, London; the Musician in Manon Lescaut at the Opera national de Paris; Agnese in Bellini’s “Dante and Beatrice” at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; and Charlotte in Massenet’s “Werther” (conductor Daniel Oren) at Teatro Carlo Felice.

Our thoughts are with her loved ones.

A Tel Aviv charity concert involving the Israel Philharmonic and popular artists has been called off after the charity’s head, Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Firer, said he could not endorse an event in which women singers were heard.

Rabbi Firer heads the Ezra Lemarpeh organisation which provides health care for the underprivileged.

He said: ‘I am asking that the charity concert not be held. I have never intervened and never dealt with organizing the charity events. The association has had the honor of serving more than a million people thus far, no matter their religion, ethnicity or gender. I draw my energy from Jewish law, am proud of my way of life and am sticking to my life’s mission — saving lives and loving the other.’

More here.

Ultra-orthodox Judaism prohibits the sound of women’s voices for its perceived eroticism.

The Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho has pulled out of Deutsche Oper Berlin’s Madama Butterfly this week.

Nothing on her social media to say why.

 

The Pinkerton, Migran Agadzhanyan, has also withdrawn.

 

 

This is Birmingham’s Symphony Hall today, its front ripped out by bulldozers.


photo: Graham Young / BirminghamLive

The hall, opened by the Queen in June 1991 and acclaimed as the best acoustic in Britain, is building a new foyer.

But at what cost to its architectural integrity?

 

 

The British soprano Eva Turner, who was in the Scala audience at the April 1926 world premiere of Turandot, sang the role at the Covent Garden premiere in 1928 and again at La Scala the following year.

Three 19th century Chinese robes and circular peacock feather fan that belonged to Dame Eva have been put up for auction in Salisbury at what looks like a risibly low estimate of £200-300. The items are not yet posted on the auctioneer’s website.

 

(I’d buy it myself, but I’m not her size.)

The bass-baritone Egils Siliņš has taken over as director of the Latvian National Opera and Ballet from today.

Siliņš, 57, has sung Wagner internationally for 30 years, notably at Amsterdam and Covent Garden. He made his Bayreuth debut in Lohengrin in 2018.

At Riga, where Wagner was once music director, he has a five-year contract.

 

The violinist, who gave an account in July of historic sexual abuse by her Curtis professor, has written to the head of the institute demanding to know why nothing has been done.

It’s a tough letter (you read it here first).

Mr. Roberto Díaz President Curtis Institute of Music

1726 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19103

October 30, 2019
Dear Roberto:
While I appreciate your note, I have some fundamental issues with the way you and your Board of Directors have approached my letter to you, dated August 12, 2013, and your collective response to the subsequent revelations in the press of my past abuse.

When I first shared the information of my abuse and rape at the hands of a pedophile in the employ of Curtis with you and your Board of Directors, you pledged to diligently investigate. Both Elizabeth Warshawer and the Institute’s attorney indicated that a report would be rendered following the investigation and that a copy would be shared with me.

While we now know that a report was written, when Stephen Judson asked you to share it with me, you at first denied knowledge of a report and after a number of subsequent written requests, acknowledged the existence of a report which you declined to share with me. I now know why you declined to share the report, having read it in the Philadelphia Inquirer in July. Your, and the Board’s commissioned investigation was designed not to arrive at the truth nor to safeguard the children and other students currently attending Curtis, but rather, to understand what liability existed for the school as a result of the criminal activity there which was both condoned and facilitated by members of your staff.

This was disappointing to me.

Since the day the public revelations of these crimes were revealed in the media, no one from your office or Board has:
1. articulated any regret for how I was victimized;

2. investigated the events of 1985 and 1986; 3. contacted witnesses to Robert Fitzpatrick’s meeting with me in which he refused to protect me from Curtis’ employee, a pedophile; or 4. explored the numerous other cases of rape, sexual abuse and sexual coercion, which occurred with the knowledge of employees of Curtis.

You and the Board have failed both this venerable institution and the Curtis community.
Serious crimes were committed and we now know that dozens of other children and women were affected by this pattern of abuse, neglect and negligence by senior Curtis staff.

So, to address your initial question, several things would need to occur before I meet or speak with you on the telephone:
1. You and your Board of Directors would need to publicly acknowledge Curtis‘ failure to protect me as a minor from a pedophile;

2. You would need to engage a law firm such as Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP in New York; the law firm which acted for The Cleveland Orchestra in its recent investigation of sexual misconduct within the orchestra’s ranks; to conduct a full investigation free from interference from either you or the Curtis Board of Directors;

3. You would release the report publicly making it available to all Curtis Alumni, Board of Directors, staff, students and the public;

4. You would speak to RAINN (Rape And Incest National Network) about establishing a hotline run by them, instead of the current service you have engaged which call center staff are inadequately trained in trauma and sexual abuse, victims are encouraged to be very brief about their abuse, and are advised that their anonymity will likely be compromised and cannot be guaranteed.

Once you have met these conditions, I will be pleased to speak with you and members of your Board to discuss ways in which Curtis can better meet its responsibility to its students and stakeholders.
Sincerely,

Lara St. John


photo (c) NPR

Music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct his hometown Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal in Philadelphia for the first time on
November 24. He has marked the occasion with a shoutout for amateurs of all ages to join a play-in with both orchestras the previous day.

Here’s the press release:

 

(Philadelphia, November 4, 2019)—String players of all ages have the special opportunity to perform alongside members of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal in a community PlayIN led by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, November 23, 2019, at 3:00 PM. This shared music-making event will be led by Nézet-Séguin and Philadelphia Orchestra Conducting Fellow Lina Gonzalez-Granados. The program for advanced- and intermediate-level string players (violin, viola, cello, and bass) will include the Prelude from Grieg’s “Holberg” Suite; the first movement from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3; the first movement from Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik; the Élégie (third movement) from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings; and the Finale from Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite. For more information and to register, visit www.philorch.org/playin.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic and USC professor – not to mention literary biographer, Aspergers memoirist, Glenn Gould expert and all-round good guy – has a hidden life that is coming to the fore.

As a kid, he was the subject of a film documentary titled ‘A Day with Timmy Page’.

As an adolescent he made films of his own.

The filmography of Tim Page is about to be screened in Los Angeles.

Read here.

Be there.