The Mariinsky chief gave so little time to rehearsing the St Petersburg production of Rodion Shchedrin’s opera Lolita that Sergei Neller, who conducted the world premiere in Prague, stood in the wings and gave cues to the singers at the correct tempo.

From a Slovak report:

The soloists were lost several times in rehearsal. Many told me that they were under stress when they saw that they would have no support from the conductor. Gergiev ignored them all, and if they couldn’t find (his beat), he just continued conducting.

Finally, a solution was adopted by which the conductor of the Prague performance Sergei Neller stood behind the scenes during the premiere and showed soloists instead of Gergiev.

As I sat with Shchedrin in one box, I could watch him all the time. Nervousness only dropped after the first act when it turned out that both the players and the conductor could finally make it at a level higher than looked possible half an hour before the curtain rose.

Read on here.

 

 

Jaring Walta, who has died at 78, was concertmaster from 1970 to 2003 at the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. Before that, he played in the Concertgebouw.

He taught for almost 40 years at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

The London Phlharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras have simultaneously rolled out their next season. Both are changing chiefs.

For the LPO:
Vladimir Jurowski, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, enters his final season in the role and conducts 14 Royal Festival Hall performances including two complete Wagner Ring Cycles with stellar cast

Edward Gardner, Principal Conductor Designate, opens the season with Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and conducts three premieres.

For the Philharmonia:

In his final season as Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts a series of concerts made up of music inspired by the elemental tales found in Ancient Greek mythology including Strauss’s Elektra and the UK premiere of Salonen’s Gemini;

Philharmonia at 75, a year-long celebration (2020) marking three-quarters of a century of brilliant live music-making, definitive recordings, technological innovation and community-led outreach culminates with Riccardo Muti conducting Verdi’s Requiem and Isata Kanneh-Mason performing Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto.

Santtu-Matias Rouvali (pic) conducts three distinctive programmes that include Shostakovich’s 12th Symphony, Carl Orff’s choral epic Carmina Burana and Mozart’s Clarinet Concert0 with new Philharmonia principal Carlos Ferreira;

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

 

Christoph Eschenbach is 80 today.

The Vienna Philharmonic is giving him a concert tonight.

The Konzerthaus in Berlin will put on a small festival next week with best mates Lang Lang, Midori and Tzimon Barto.

Celebrations are muted at his serial US orchestras in Houston, Philadelphia and Washington DC.

 

From Hugh Kerr, editor of Edinburgh Music Review (and former MEP):

On Sunday the Iceland Symphony Orchestra concluded an 8 concert UK tour in the Usher Hall Edinburgh under conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier.It was a great concert and got a warm response from the audience, Tortelier turned to the audience and said: ‘This is the final date in our United Kingdom tour, are you still part of it?! But just to remind you I’m going to give you some English music Walton’s music for Henry V and Elgar’s Wand of Youth.’

The veteran Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans, 83, is writing yet another opera for La Monnaie.

Titled On purge bébé, and adapted from a Feydeau farce, the plot revolves around a seven year-old child with constipation and its refusal to accept a purgative.

Premiere in 2022. Don’t all run at once.

We are indebted for this item of light relief to the indisensable forumopera site…

… and for the illustration to the incontinent city of Vienna

Yorgos Loukos was sacked by the Opéra de Lyon last week as head of its ballet company for punitive discrimination against a pregnant ballerina. The decision was widely applauded.

Now the conductor William Christie and others have signed a newspaper advertisement calling for his reinstatement.

Thise who have signed so far include Robert Wilson, Mats Ek, Ariane Mnouchkine, Jiří Kylián, Sylvie Guillem, Isabelle Huppert and Benjamin Millepied.

Solidarity with a sacked pal is all very well, but can’t they see he was wrong to fire a woman once she was pregnant?

UPDATE: Millipied and Forsyth now deny signing the petition.

The UK Home Office has let it be known that artists from EU countries will need visas to perform in Britain from January 2021.

The department has clarified that they will be subject to the same restrictions as non-EU entertainers once Brexit is in place.

That means a Tier 5 visa, which is not always easy to obtain. It’s the end of freedom of movement.

Artists and arts organisations are rightly alarmed.

Read here.

UPDATE: Ignoring bromides from some classical spokesmen, the mainstream music industry is profoundly concerned.

The acting chief of UK Music, Tom Kiehl, writes: ‘New plans confirm that from 2021 EU musicians coming to the UK for concerts and festivals will be treated in the same way as those from the rest of the world. This will drag some agents and promoters into the immigration system for the first time and increases the possibility that [EU] member states [will] introduce new bureaucratic hoops for UK musicians to jump through when seeking to perform across the European Union.

On the potential impact beyond tours and festivals, Kiehl notes: ‘It’s welcome the government has reduced its salary cap [for immigrants], yet these proposals will still not work for many in the EU who want to work in the UK music industry over a longer period of time, given musicians’ average earnings are £23k and a reliance in the points-based [immigration] system on the need for elite academic qualifications’.

 

This Sunday in New York, the Budapest Festival Orchestra is putting on a concert for children on the autism spectrum.

Ivan Fischer has designed a safe space for autistic children to enjoy music. His Cocoa Concerts address serious sensory issues, with special attention to the children’s sound and lighting needs.

It will take place in the Stanley Kaplan penthouse at Lincoln Center.