Annie was never far from a cigarette. And Mozart sounds so much better for a bit of puff.

Friends are mourning the early death, after long illness of Tamás Mérei, a Yale-educated Hungarian cellist who studied in America with Janos Starker and won the grand prix at the Piatigorsky festival.

A former professor at the Liszt Academy, he was director since 2009 of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra.

Happy cake day for the Chinese-American cellist, who’s everyone’s friend.

Except Trump’s, maybe.

The Easter Festival has announced Anna Netrebko as Turandot, but has abandoned the planned staging and will perform the opera only as a concert.

The hall is presently safe for 1,400 seats.

The Finnish Music Hall of Fame, covering all genres from folksong to hiphop, filed for bankruptcy today.

Back in February, it reported record attendance and in June it had a recovery, but the second wave Covid killed it off.

On the op-ed page of today’s Daily Mail I call out the proposed £18 million sale of an heirloom Hockney as ‘an act of stunning ingratitude.’

When Covid is over, the ROH will need to reconstruct itself, just as in Webster’s time. It will have to develop new talent and a more diverse audience, one that differs from the business classes who hog the best seats. 

So long as Webster’s portrait still hangs, that revival looks realistic. Sell the Webster, and the ROH is hardly worth saving.

Read on here.