Not sure about the hand movements, but the rest is perfect.


Herbert Giesen is the pianist.

La Monnaie in Brussels has just announced the death of Patrick Davin, who was in the house rehearsing a new opera by Jean-Luc Fafchamps. The opera’s title is Is this the end.

The Belgian conductor, who was 58, is thought to have suffered a heart attack.

La Monnaie statement:

“Nous avons l’immense tristesse de vous annoncer que le chef d’orchestre Patrick Davin est décédé cette après-midi, juste avant d’entamer une répétition de l’opéra Is this the end ?. Les musiciens, les chanteurs et les collaborateurs de la Monnaie en sont profondément affligés. Les répétitions qui étaient prévues ont été immédiatement annulées. Les membres du comité de direction et le personnel de la Monnaie adressent leurs sincères condoléances et leur profond soutien à la famille de Patrick Davin ainsi qu’à ses proches.”

(We are extremely sad to announce that conductor Patrick Davin passed away this afternoon, just before starting a rehearsal of the opera Is this the end?. The musicians, singers and collaborators of the Monnaie are deeply distressed. The rehearsals that were planned were immediately canceled. The members of the Board of Directors and the staff of the Monnaie extend their sincere condolences and their deep support to the family of Patrick Davin and those close to him.)

A student of Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös, Davin premiered works by Philippe Boesmans, Bruno Mantovani, Vinko Globokar, Murray Schafer, Conlon Nancarrow, Michael Levinas, James Dillon, Jean-Luc Hervé, Jean-Yves Bosseur and Marco Stroppa.

Is this really such a good idea from the Atlanta Symphony?

 The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is inviting musicians in the community to play alongside members of the Orchestra for a very special mash-up of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” for the ASO’s Virtual Stage. Musicians of all skill levels and genres are encouraged to submit a video, including violins, bassoons, kazoos, mandolins, electric violas, melodicas and more.

Submissions must be made on aso.org/playalong by Sept. 30 for a chance to be featured in the final Virtual Stage performance video.

 

At his press conference the prime minister sugegsted that concert halls, theatres and sports stadia could test all audience members for Covid and allow in those who are negative. ‘We are going to pilot this approach in Salford from next month, with audiences in indoor and outdoor venues,’ he said. ‘And then we hope to go nationwide.’

He went on to say: ‘Workplaces could be opened up to all those who test negative that morning and allow them to behave in a way that was normal before Covid.’

Meanwhile, people are forbidden to gather, indoors or outdoors, in groups of more than six.

 

 

Detroit-based Michigan Opera Theatre has just named Yuval Sharon, 40, as its Artistic Director, with a reconceived climas of Wagner’s Ring to be staged in the company’s parking lot next month.

Chicago-born to Israeli parents, Sharon rose rapidly though collaborations with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, making an acclaimed debut at Bayreuth with Lohengrin in 2018. He succeeds MOT founder David DiChiera, who died two years ago.

 

The international violinist Lisa Batiashvili has withdrawn from the Last Night of the Proms ‘due to illness’.

She will be replaced by Nicola Bendetti, who has already starred in the series.

No-one at the BBC had the wit to come up with another name.

This year’s brief Proms series has turned, by luck and bad judgement, into a shambles.

A Post Mortem is required at BBC board level.

 

HarrisonParrott, which has been hyperactive in Covid while others went to sleep or out of business, has added two young singers to its list.

Soprano Alexandra Lowe is a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House. Tenor Valentin Thill has been Artist in Residence at Brussels’ Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, studying with José van Dam and Sophie Koch.

 

Richard Lyttleton, the former EMI Classics boss who was once president of the Royal Albert Hall, is unimpressed by its last-ditch appeal for public money to avert bankruptcy.

He tweets today:

 

I had several enjoyable conversations with the late Ronald Harwood while he was writing his hugely sucessful play on Wilhelm Furtwängler and his unfortunate flop on Gustav Mahler. Ronnie, who died yesterday aged 85, was a lovely man who lived for theatre and loved the psychology of music and musicians.

His Furtwängler play Taking Sides, directed at its 1995 premiere by Harold Pinter, positively crackled with dramatic tension. I told Ronnie on opening night that the world would never look upon Furtwängler the same way again. This was truer than I imagined. At the time, the conductor was taken at his own estimation as a helpless victim of Nazism who made music for the German people, not its rulers.

We know this today to be untrue. Furtwängler enriched himself under Hitler, enjoyed his status in the Reich and shamelessly abandoned his musicians once it became clear that Germany was collapsing. Ronnie’s play started the process of revealing the truth.

Mahler’s Conversion opened just after 9/11 and played to a half-empty, uncomprehending house, causing him great distress. Ronnie went on to win an Oscar for his script of Roman Polanski’s film, The Pianist. He also wrote a play, Quartet, about a retirement home for musicians.

As a young man, he wrote a novel about César Franck and Augusta Holmès, which I have been meaning to reread.

 

The first thing everyone has spotted about the new Bogdan Roščić regime at the Vienna State Opera is the programme books.

They are a clean break from the company’s previous glossy presentation.

But run your eye down to the credits and you’ll find they were conceived and designed by an agency in Berlin.

That should go down well with the picky Viennese.

 

Acting chief Georg Freiherr von Waldenfels says he is convinced there will be a festival in 2021. ‘What is possible in Vienna, Salzburg and Zurich should also be feasible in Bayreuth.’he said.

The operas on show will be Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, Meistersinger and Tannhäuser, alongside a schedule of rehearsals for a 2022 Ring.

No mention of Katharina Wagner, or whether she’ll return.