AskonasHolt have signed mezzo-soprano Adriana Bignagni Lesca from Gabon, on the west coast of central Africa.

She talks here about her beginnings:


When I was 14 I joined the largest choir in Gabon; a year later, I started piano lessons with the late Pépé Abate. It wasn’t until after leaving my native land to study in France that I discovered opera for the first time in my life. At first, I auditioned to study piano, and then started to study singing in the vocal department at the Bordeaux conservatoire. I did two years of bel canto training in order to immerse myself in a culture that was entirely alien to me.

The fact that I had come to study piano but was offered a place as a singer makes me laugh – at the time I was actually afraid of this way of singing as it was such a foreign concept to me! When I think about it today, it was my innate curiosity to try new things which spurred me on to discover more about my voice, and through this, about myself.

During my studies I sang in the chorus at the Opera national de Bordeaux. Donizetti’s Anna Bolena was my first opera with them, and then Otello – something that shocked me at the time was that the face of the singer performing Otello was painted black. This was my first brush with this kind of racism and I found it disturbing.

Greatest Danish film ever made.

 

I had reservations about the Netflix film Unorthodox when it was released, but this rendition by Shira Haas of the Chasidic wedding song is not only the loneliest and most exposed piece of singing I’ve heard all year. It’s also the best a capella piece I’ve ever heard from an actor who is not a trained singer.

 

Daniel Barenboim is 78 today.

He is conducting a live streamed concert this afternoon at the Berlin Staatsoper for the benefit of the emergency relief fund of the German Orchestra Foundation.

On the menu Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 with András Schiff as soloist and the Eroica Symphony.

 

The Labour Party leader was on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs this morning.

His passions are football and politics. There is not much music in his life. Of his eight selections, two were by Beethoven – the Pastoral Symphony and the Emperor Concerto. ‘These are entirely my own choices,’ he says.

Full list here.

From Ludwig Van Toronto:

Dancemakers, one of Canada’s oldest dance companies, has announced they will end all artistic and operations activity, effective July 31, 2021.

“As with many arts organizations across the country, the global pandemic directly impacted Dancemakers’ capacity to deliver its 2020 artistic programming and its financial revenue sources,” said Board Chair Louis-Michel Taillefer. “Combining these losses with the burden of our ever-increasing studio rental costs, we have regretfully come to the decision to shut our doors at the end of this current fiscal year.”

Read on here.

 

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

The second piano concerto by Sergei Prokofiev was the least performed of the five until Evgeny Kissin came along a decade ago and showed it was not only playable but pleasant. At this early stage in his emergence – the opus number is in the low teens – Prokofiev was more inclined to be rebarbative than agreeable. But once Kissin stripped off the barbed wire, an underlying soft centre was exposed and other pianists piled in to make the once-deterrent concerto practically an audience draw. The Vienna Philharmonic were touring it only this week in Japan.

Of the half-dozen interpretations I have heard…

Read on here.

And here.

In The Critic here.

In Spanish here.

A press statement from one of the in-houses unions alleges that Coronavirus was getting out of control when the decision was taken to postpone the season opening to the new year.

Those infected are in the chorus, orchestra and general staff.

 

The carefree Swedes who have been running around maskless all year are suddently tightening their defences. This just in from the Royal Opera in Stockholm:

It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce that we are cancelling all public activities until December 31th.
′′ This is of course a sad and heavy message. During the fall we have been able to play and we have conducted operations in a fantastic way. But even though the practice of stage art is important, it must not perish human health ′′ says CEO Birgitta Svend énn in a statement.
The background to our decision is the worrying situation in Stockholm with increased spread of infection. Under these circumstances, at the Royal Opera, we make the assessment that it will be very difficult to carry out a business….

Since you are many who contact us and wonder about your tickets, we hope you have a little extra patience as the waiting time can be a little longer than usual.

In the meantime, we refer all opera and ballet lovers to www.operanplay.se where you can stream performances and other things from the Royal Opera for free.