More cast frolics from the forthcoming Naples production with Jonas Kaufmann:
Videos posted by Anita Rachvelishvili.
The singer, who suffered mild Covid symptoms, wants to build ‘a heterogeneous front of reasonable people’ to resist further restrictions.
Bocelli, 61, told a conference: ‘I felt humiliated and offended because I couldn’t go outside. I violated the curfew because I am a certain age and need sun.’
The luxury watchmaker has ticked off a quarter-million dollar donation to a find for members of the Met chorus who are striggling without work in Covid times.
The Met Chorus Artists fund is aiming to reach half a million by the end of July. So far, they have received 300 gifts.
‘We’re overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from our amazing fans!’ said Meredith Woodend, President of the Met Chorus Artists, Inc. ‘With the uncertainty surrounding unemployment benefits, the need of our Met AGMA family has reached a critical point. Now is the time to support the artists who make the opera come alive on the stage every night!’
From Sebastian Milbank’s thoughtful analysis in The Critic of the choir demolition at Sheffield Cathedral:
… At the root of what is happening in Sheffield is not misguided idealism or commitment to diversity on behalf of the Dean and Chapter, rather it is fear and elitism. The Dean, a high church Anglican raised on elaborate traditional liturgy, seems at once terrified of the modern world and lacking in confidence in his own Church and its traditions. In describing traditional choral music as ‘elitist’ we import dangerous and unfair prejudices about who that music is for, suggesting that high cultural choral music belongs only to the white middle class.
The greatest threat to both positive diversity and our musical tradition is the setting of this legacy two at war with one other, also valid ones. If we want our traditions to be passed on, then we should also want as many different kinds of people to appreciate and be a part of them as possible. And at the same time if we want a harmonious and successful multicultural society, we need to develop and share traditions in common. Behind the faux radicalism of so many clerical statements lies the worst kind of conservatism, a view of all change as a threat. It is ironically for this reason that many church leaders react to change with cowardly compliance, hoping to outrace the pace of alteration. Not surprisingly, bumbling Anglican bishops do not successfully retreat before the incoming tide of progress and end up flopping around in rapidly dampening trousers as dry land recedes before them. What they fail to see is that the changes in our society potentially make the Church of England all the more relevant as something strikingly and attractively different if only Anglicans can respond intelligently, are not afraid to criticise the more dubious innovations, and present their own solutions rather than relying on those of secular society….
Read on here.
Mander Organs, which rebuilt the great instruments at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Albert Hall (pictured) has gone into bankruptcy.
Here’s the official notice:
Mander Organs Ltd profoundly regrets to announce that, owing to cashflow difficulties and the inability to secure sufficient work, the company has ceased trading as of Monday 27.vii.2020. The management and staff would like to express their gratitude to our clients and friends for the loyalty and support they have given over the years, and particularly in the last few difficult months. Our affairs have been placed in the hands of an independent insolvency practitioner, Insolve Plus Ltd, to whom all enquiries should be addressed.”
John Pike Mander explains:
It is with great sadness that I have to confirm the closing of Mander Organs and its bankruptcy. You will not have difficulty in anticipating my own sadness, annoyance and great disappointment.
When I gave the firm to the workforce in the form of an Employee Ownership Trust on the 1st of November 2018, it had a year’s worth of work (one contract was signed shortly after the handover) and £93k of cash in the bank. One would have thought that would be an adequate basis for the firm to launch to new heights. It was well equipped with some machinery not found elsewhere in the UK and I think I can say it had a halfway decent reputation. It also had an intelligent workforce, both regarding their work in the company and their individual outside interests.
But, 15 months later, the money in the bank was spent and they asked for (and got) a £15k loan from me to tide them over. Unfortunately, it was not enough. I don’t really know what went wrong, but it looks as it it may have something to do with eyes and balls, but I really don’t know.
I thought I had set up the ideal form for the future of the family firm, by establishing a different form of family. I offer my apologies to all our past clients. I offer my heartfelt condolences to my erstwhile colleagues. I hope you all find useful and enjoyable employment elsewhere. I also hope that once the understandable anger has subsided, you will remember the sometimes tough, but also enjoyable and rewarding times we have had together. On my side there were many, which I miss in retirement and now will miss so much more. There is little more I can say, but I feel a great deal more.
A 15th century country estate near London is planning open-air opera in September.
The Vache Baroque Festival will give two performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. The festival aims to give young creatives a chance in Covid times. Dido will be directed by 2019 Jette Parker Young Artist Thomas Guthrie and sung by Katie Bray who won the audience prize last year at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World.
The driving forces behind the festival are two musicians, Betty Makharinsky and Jonathan Darbourne. The venue is near near Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire, in the London cimmuter belt.
