A Finnish businessman Jon Hellevig was found guilty in 2017 by a Helsinki court of threatening behaviour towards the opera singer Karita Mattila after she publicly refused to perform with the Putin conductor Valery Gergiev.

Hellevig, a prominent Putin progragandist, had called on his followers to threaten Mattila with mass rape. He received a suspended sentence.

Hellevig’s death has now been reported in Moscow. No cause has been given. Two weeks before he died, he posted this message on Vkontakte: ‘I believe that there is a plot, within the framework of which the Russian government would try to kill me and blame the death of COVID-19 disease.’

 

Oliver Herbert, who’s 22, has his first recording out this week.

There is nothing flash about him. He’s a quiet, discreet, respectful young musician embarking on what may be a major career and he talks humbly to Zsolt Bognar on Living the Classical Life. Oliver is the son of Chicago Symphony principal timpanist David Herbert.

 

Possibly the most evocative piece of music ever written on the east coast of England (except Messiah).

A letter from the principal:

Dear staff and students, 
Over the last week, we have been holding intensive discussions in response to Black Lives Matter, and we have taken a long hard look at ourselves. There has been welcome progress in some areas of our work, but not in others. We recognise that there is a long way to go, and that we have a responsibility to act now.
In addition, we have heard from Black students and alumni of their traumatic experiences whilst studying at Guildhall. We acknowledge the damage racism continues to cause our Black students, and apologise to Black students and alumni who have suffered during their training. It isn’t good enough, and we have to do better. We take allegations of racism extremely seriously, and are hugely concerned by what we have heard. With this in mind, we would encourage those who feel able to do so to come forward, so we can act on this now. You can directly email me at principal@gsmd.ac.uk or contact any other senior member of staff at the School who you feel comfortable speaking to.
We have already begun to take active steps in a number of areas of our training, but we know that has not gone far enough. We will therefore form a working group with representation from across the School – across our three faculties, across students and staff, prioritising representation of Black people and others who have been historically under- represented – to challenge us, and present a specific set of commitments to the Senior Management Team whose responsibility it will be to deliver them. We expect that these commitments will include a range of activity to continue the much-needed increase in representation in our student and staff bodies; a complete review of our faculty curricula and artistic programming; and further training and anti-racism learning resources for all staff and students. Our Board will expect, and request, urgent progress.
We will work closely with the Student Union, and also seek out advice from those outside our organisation, whilst recognising that it is our responsibility to bring about change, and no-one else’s.
As we said last week, Guildhall stands with all Black communities and everyone fighting against racism. Those voices must be heard and acknowledged within our own walls, and we must change and renew as a result. We pledge to take this work forward today.
Lynne Williams

Principal

The colourful Ian Taylor, a vigorous oil trader and ebullient chairman of the Royal Opera House, has died after a long bout of cancer.

He stepped down at Christmas from his ROH post due to ill health.

Vittorio Parisi informs us that Orvieto’s Spaziomusica will work in July and August, cancelling only its conducting competition. The two operas with student conductors and singers, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Madama Butterfly (Panizza instrumentation) will be staged open air and not in the wonderful opera house. He adds, movingly:

‘I live in Brescia,in the region where the Covid 19 has killed more than half of the 35,000 Italian deaths. I have been in my house with a little garden for three months without a single walk outside and this is a sort of rebirth. It’s difficult to tell what happened, the death of so many doctors not protected in the hospitals, the lack of oxygen, the decisions taken by doctors, based mostly on age, on who could have the oxygen and who could not. Really terrible. We are still doing all things very carefully.
‘I work in Orvieto since 2013 and this year I will teach the Barbiere. Orvieto’s region is one of the safest. I was conducting in Bulgaria when Covid-19 exploded in Italy, I came back with the last available flight. We have lost an average of one person each 1.800, in Bulgaria they have lost one each 45.000. This means something went really wrong in Western Europe.’

What???

Read this statement:

The Minnesota Orchestra acknowledges that there is more for us to hear and more for us to do in advancing the change that must happen to make our community more equitable and just. The killing of George Floyd marks a turning point for our organization, and we join with other community members in calling for transformational changes in the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). Specifically:

— We join with the Twin Cities Musicians Union in calling for the resignation of the president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, Bob Kroll.

— We are restructuring our security staff and will no longer engage Minneapolis Police Department officers to provide security at Orchestra concerts until the MPD implements fundamental changes. Where government regulations mandate a police presence, we will continue to comply.

The Minnesota Orchestra has recently begun a process to reduce our reliance on and reproduction of white privilege and to disrupt our own role in systemic racism. The security restructuring will be one part of that process. We are committed to advancing the change that has to happen.

The last paragraph may be the most shocking part of this statement.

Edith Thallaug, a Norwegian mezzo who was a Golden Age Carmen at Stockholm Opera, died on June 7 at the age of 90.

She also wrote a Scandi-noir crime novel.

Watch her here and listen below.

 

Help Musicians UK released a £2.5m fund last Friday to support hard-pressed performers who have not worked in three months.

There were 3,500 applications.

There is no money left.

Read here.

 

 

The festival has announced it will put on Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte in the Grosses Festspielhaus, using 1,000 of 2,300 seats, and Richard Strauss’ Elektra in the Felsenreitschule, with 700.

Elektra with be conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, Così by the fast-rising Joana Mallwitz.

Casts: Cosi
Elsa Dreisig Fiordiligi
Marianne Crebassa Dorabella
Andrè Schuen Guglielmo
Bogdan Volkov Ferrando
Lea Desandre Despina
Johannes Martin Kränzle Don Alfonso

Elektra
Tanja Ariane Baumgartner Klytämnestra
Aušrine Stundyte Elektra
Asmik Grigorian Chrysothemis
Michael Laurenz Aegisth
Derek Welton Orest
Tilmann Rönnebeck Orest’s Tutor
Verity Wingate The Trainbearer
Valeriia Savinskaia The Confidante
Matthäus Schmidlechner A Young Servant
Sonja Šarić The Overseer
Bonita Hyman, Katie Coventry, Deniz Uzun, Sinéad Campbell-Wallace, Natalia Tanasii Maidservants

Charlotte Higgins has published a long piece in the Guardian today, demanding to know why big names are not rallying to save the UK’s orchestras.

She reckons some orchestras have less than 12 weeks to live, unless there is an unforseen blessing of massive state investment.

Which orchestras are most at risk? One eminent conductor has told me he believes two will collapse in London, two in the regions and one in Scotland. I have yet to find a single optimist who thinks business will continue post-Covid as before.

The woes vary.  London orchestras fill their diaries on foreign touring, which Simon Rattle has stated is now gone forever. There is not enough work for all of them at home. Regional orchestras rely on a major local sponsor, most of whom are now in dire economic straits.

What emerges from Charlotte’s observations and my own is the absence of any strategy to dig orchestras out of a crisis that has been coming for a generation – a crisis precipitated by the collapse of the record industry, aging audiences, a narrowing demographic, pointless touring, loss of media profile and a lack of fresh thought.

It’s not too late to save the orchestras, but it’s the 11th hour has ticked past the halfway mark.

 

 

 

The roaming German pianist Davide Martello is in Minneapolis, playing at the George Floyd memorial.

 

He has previously turned up at the scene of unrest in Paris, Dallas, Istanbul and Kiev.