First the Royal Opera House.

Then Wigmore Hall: In accordance with Public Health England’s guidance, Wigmore Hall will be closed from Tuesday 17 March until at least Tuesday 14 April.  We are very sorry to announce therefore that all concerts and events in this period are cancelled. Very many international artists are unable to travel here in any case due to ongoing restrictions.

The English National Opera: Following the Government’s advice that all non-essential travel and socialising should stop to help contain the spread of the Coronavirus, we have made the very difficult decision to close the London Coliseum to the public with immediate effect and until further notice.

Followed by Hamilton and the whole of the West End.

No word yet from the Southbank Centre and Barbican, but it’s a foregone conclusion.

Closure by Coronavirus has placed the company under threat of extinction.

Loss of revenue from this month’s Opera on the Harbour blockbuster means the company must sell one of its properties to survive.

Chief executive Rory Jeffes said: ‘We spent the weekend with legal advisers, financial advisers, etcetera, arriving at the point where I was able to tell the board yesterday we believed we are still solvent and that we can continue to trade. It was as serious as that.’

Read on here.

 

The message went out to customers at 1730, minutes after Boris Johnson’s comments, urging theatres to close.

The website says: Given the developing situation with the COVID-19 virus, the Royal Opera House is currently closed

So, no Traviata tonight, no last Fidelio tomorrow.

It’s curtains.

Here’s the full public statement:

Monday 16 March 2020

Immediate closure of the Royal Opera House

The safety and security of the Royal Opera House staff, audiences and artists is of paramount importance and we take this responsibility very seriously. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have taken the decision with a heavy heart to close the building to the public and cancel all performances in Covent Garden with immediate effect.  

The staff and artists of the ROH are vital to the lifeblood of our art forms, without them we would simply not exist. This suspension of performances will impact not only our loyal audience but also our committed and talented workforce. We will work within the government guidelines to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff and artists during this difficult time. 

Our employees, permanent and casual, are reliant on the income which we derive through ticket purchases. Without performances it is inevitable that we will become more reliant on philanthropic support and charitable donations. 

Where possible, we ask that audiences consider donating the value of their tickets to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation rather than requesting a credit note or refund. 

You can keep up to date via the ROH social media channels for announcements on the programme of free broadcasts we will bring you during this period of closure.  

We thank you for your continued support of the ROH, it is invaluable during these uncertain times.   

Our number one priority is to support each other during this unprecedented situation. 

 

Alex Beard, Chief Executive 

Royal Opera House  

 

It’s shutdown time across the UK.

Now.

The prime minister has just made the case in his daily briefing.

 

Sad message from Top Wind London:

NOTICE

It is with sadness that we have closed the doors at Top Wind for the last time after nearly thirty years in business. It has been a difficult decision but a number of factors have brought us to this point.

In 2003 we hired an accountant who carried out all our accounting needs until 2015 and we assumed he was operating within the rules laid out by HMRC. Sadly, we were informed in 2015 that he was imprisoned for malpractice and since that time HMRC has investigated all of his 7500 clients to reclaim all unpaid taxes. This has caused a devastating effect on many of us who are victims of his crime.

Those of you who wishing to continue having repairs carried out by Matt Ziemann will be pleased to know he will still be available for 5 days a week carrying out services, repairs and overhauls. To book your appointment ring him directly on 07973 142488.

Our administrative team will be in touch with you about any outstanding matters.

Thank you to our wonderful staff both past and present and to all our customers and suppliers throughout the World.

 

As opera houses and concert hall shut down all over Europe, we’ll aim to bring you reviews from unexpected places.

Inverness, for instance. Hugh Kerr of Edinburgh Music Review was in the north of Scotland last night.

The Edinburgh Music Review is based in Edinburgh but ranges widely across Scotland and occasionally abroad, tonight I’m in Inverness for what is a regular visit from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to Eden Court ,the excellent art centre. Martyn Brabbins our conductor was interviewed beforehand and said “with the corona virus this might be his last live concert for some time” However there was a decent audience in the Empire Theatre at the centre of Eden Court. Martyn also spoke about tonight’s all-Russian programme, which he was very close to since he spent time studying and conducting in Russia in the 1980s alongside the great Russian maestro Valery Gergiev. He said Russian orchestras tended to sound the same as they were all trained in the same conservatories whereas British orchestras tended to be much more international in their recruiting.

The Russian programme began with Glazunov’s adaption of some famous piano works by Chopin, continuing with an old operatic friend from earlier days at Covent Garden Sergei Leiferkus who is 73. The question we were all asking was did he still have the voice? Martin Brabbins promised us a treat and certainly there was no problem about the power of the voice, but at times it lacked subtlety in conveying the nuance of Mussorgsky’s settings of the text by Arseny Arkadyvich Golenschiv-Kutzov and its orchestration by Shostakovich. Leiferkus got a warm reception from the Eden Court audience but surprisingly gave no encore.

After the interval ( when I had an interesting discussion with a Gordonstoun teacher!) we got a very Russian work Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphon. Again Martyn Brabbins was very colourful and the BBC Scottish played splendidly with lots of brass, although maybe not as much vibrato as the Russians would. Weall trooped off into the night wondering, like Martyn Brabbins ,when we would next see live music!

 

The vaunted Kossuth Prize, the supreme award in the Hungarian cultural sector, has been given this year to the pianist Dénes Várjon, a regular recital partner of Steven Isserlis, Tabea Zimmermann, Kim Kashkashian, Jörg Widmann, Leonidas Kavakos, András Schiff , Heinz Holliger, Miklós Perényi and Joshua Bell.

Várjon, 52, teaches at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest.

The Czech violin virtuoso Pavel Sporcl has started a livestreamed recital series from his living room.

Nothing unsual about that. But unlike the major institutions, who can afford to stream content online for free, Pavel needs to charge viewers in order to meet his expenses. Unexpectedly, he’s in profit.

In this exclusive article for Slipped Disc, Pavel explains how he does it, and how much people should pay:

It is unfortunately an obvious thing to say that this situation is very critical for so many of us in the music industry. Here in the Czech Republic they have closed all the theatres and concert-halls, and gatherings of more than 10 people are banned. We have all lost many concerts – at this moment I was supposed to be playing six concerts in California, then return for a competition jury and then more concerts. God knows how long it will take for these opportunities to come back and we are all losing money in the meantime. As with other industries, we musicians have to find ways to earn back a little of the money we are losing. And while streaming of concerts is now very established, a single musician charging viewers to watch his streamed concerts is not – but I’ve decided to do it, to see if it works. The early signs, I’m happy to say, have been very promising.

I started with a preview concert-cum-public-rehearsal last Friday, streamed directly from my own living-room. I’ve always resisted having any public film or photographs in my home, but in this situation where so many of us are effectively isolated, I wanted to feel close to the viewers, and I wanted them to feel close to me, and to the music. My wife agreed and helped me put it together. We didn’t want to endanger anyone by bringing outsiders physically into our home (not least because we have an older relative staying with us) so I couldn’t bring other musicians or a proper AV set-up. I bought a new microphone for my phone, used a backing track and we just did our best.

It was a great success. Two thousand people watched the concert live, and two days later we’re up to 51,000 views and hundreds of enthusiastic comments! I asked people to send photos of themselves watching the concert so that I could get a sense of them as well as them seeing me – we had lots of pics of people watching it in their pyjamas, some dressed up to make it an occasion, and there was a very touching picture of a grandaughter playing it to her aged grandmother in the hospital. Some of the Czech newspapers covered it, and what was very nice is that many of the viewers asked how they could pay for the concert!

Musicians are often expected to perform for free, but we are not in a war and we all have to make some kind of living. It’s no use sitting at home saying that the world is so bad to us – because we have opportunities, if we use our imagination and the technology around us. And incidentally, free streaming is not even free to the performer; it takes so much time to produce any kind of concert, to select and rehearse repertoire, to organise the logistics and, as in this case, to buy equipment one might need (I’ll buy some more equipment for the next one – I’ll use a video-camera instead of a phone – and will also use the services of my technician, working remotely).

While there are times when free concert streams can be in musicians’ interests (and archive videos on YouTube are a different matter), I still generally believe that the music and musicians are devalued if people are trained to get it for free. Audiences understand that there is so much work involved, but – as I saw from those messages of people wanting to pay for the livestream the other evening – they also understand that paying means they are actively involved. They help make the concerts happen, and just now they feel that they are part of something special in this horrible situation and that we are all in the same boat.

So I will hold two concerts every week, the next being this Wednesday and then after that they’ll be held every Friday and every Tuesday, with a low ticket-price of around seven Euros. Tickets are being sold from my website’s shop here and I’m happy to say that when I checked yesterday (Saturday) we had already sold several hundred tickets for this Tuesday’s concert. For the next one I will include the Bach Chaconne, some of the Paganini caprices, My own composition Kde domov muj (Where Is My Homeland?, variations on the Czech national anthem).

I even have plans for full concertos and all sortsof repertoire – even if it has to be karaoke-style with backing-track. And who knows, maybe this experimental series will bring in new audiences. Even if it doesn’t, I hope it’s a precedent to help my
fellow musicians and I, bringing comfort to our audiences – and some to us.

https://www.facebook.com/pavelsporcl/videos/196756054935030/?t=606

The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester issued this message last night:

Following the developing situation around COVID-19 and to prioritise the health and wellbeing of our community, the RNCM is moving to online teaching only with immediate effect. All scheduled assessments and examinations are postponed until further notice.

All events at the RNCM are postponed from Monday 16 March and box office sales (online, by phone and in person) are suspended with immediate effect. Where reinstatement of the performance at a later date is not possible, or if patrons are unable to make a rescheduled date, a full refund will be issued when services are resumed.

Staff and students should check Moodle, the Intranet and their College email accounts regularly and audiences should visit the RNCM website and social media channels for further updates.

The Royal Academy of Music posts:

As of today, the Academy has taken the decision to suspend all performance activity for the remainder of the term. The COVID-19 situation is developing rapidly, and our priority is to ensure the wellbeing of students, staff and our community, which is why we are taking these steps.

The Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak has dropped out of  La Traviata at the ROH with this message:

Monday, March 16th at 7 pm the 2nd performance of Verdi’s LA TRAVIATA. Considering the worrying health situation, I have decided to withdraw from the production after this second performance. The situation is very difficult and I want to be able to join my family now, as it may be not possible very soon. I have also the feeling that it is my duty to be in solidarity with everbody who is facing, fighting or getting ready to fight this virus. I’m very sorry maybe to disappoint some of you, but sometimes we have to make difficult decisions.

Kurzak is married to the French-Sicilian tenor Roberto Alagna.

 

An enduring image of our self-distancing times, directed by the baritone Armando Ariostini.

Casa Verdi is a retirement home for musicians established in Milan by the composer Giuseppe Verdi.

The Hungarian conductor has issued a sombre message about the musical shutdown, urging music lovers to stay at home.

From this evening, his Budapest Festival Orchestra will be giving nightly chamber concerts online, under the title Quarantine Soirees.

You can attend the concert here: