The Russian conductor was sacked tonight as Honorary President of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Guess what? Edinburgh is a twin city of Kyiv.

Wordless.

The sacking of Valery Gergiev has left the touring orchestra low on options and late on decisions.

It has just been anounced that Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct the orchestra at Naples tomorrow and David Robertson o Wednesday.

This will be the veteran Robertson’s first appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Chicago Symphony conductor used his podium to reinforce his condemnation of the Ukraine invasion in a direct message to Vladimir Putin.

‘Send back your bloody tanks, and give back freedom, dignity and integrity to the glorious people of Ukraine,’ is his message.

The London Symphony Orchestra has switched conductors for its upcoming performance of Haydn’s Creation.

Here’s what they are telling concertgoers:

Sir Simon Rattle had a minor surgical procedure earlier this month which regrettably has not healed as quickly as expected. To allow proper time for recovery he has agreed with his doctors to cancel his conducting engagements with the LSO of Haydn’s Creation on 3 and 6 March.

The London Symphony Orchestra is delighted to announce that Harry Christophers has agreed to step in to conduct the concerts. We all wish Sir Simon a speedy recuperation.

The Verbier Festival has belatedly responded to the Ukraine crisis by removing Valery Gergiev as music director and creating a cordon sanitaire around its pro-Putin supporters.

Here’s the statement:

The Verbier Festival today announced the first in a series of responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Martin T:son Engstroem, Verbier Festival’s Founder & Director, summarised the strength of feeling felt by everyone at the Festival when he commented:
“The Verbier Festival, its staff, management and Board, strongly condemns Russia’s gruesome aggression against Ukraine. We follow with sadness and horror the violation the Russian regime is imposing on the people of Ukraine. We pray for them and the courage they show in
refuting the aggressor. The Verbier Festival has always been an advocate of building bridges through music between young and old of all nationalities, backgrounds and beliefs.”

The Verbier Festival has asked for and accepted the resignation of Valery Gergiev as Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra.
Among the measures implemented by the Festival with immediate effect are the return of donations from any individual sanctioned by a western government and the exclusion from the Festival of all artists who have publicly aligned themselves with the Russian government’s
actions.
Further details will be announced in due course.

In my essay in the new issue of The Critic, I outline the prospects for the transformed David Geffen Hall, which the New York Philharmonic will reoccupy in the fall.

Here’s what I have seen recently in a virtual tour of the site:

‘… The old Avery Fisher Hall used to look as inviting from the outside as Sing-Sing or Fort Knox. If you found a way in through a chink in the fortifications, you faced a row of box-office windows that nullified human interaction. There was little in the lobby to refresh body or soul.

‘The new lobby is something else — twice as big and walled from floor to ceiling by glass so that everything inside can be seen invitingly from the street. The space will be dotted with coffee stations and relaxed seating is provided all around. A giant video screen will show all concerts live and free to anyone who cares to drop in, or watch from Seventh Avenue or 66th Street. This looks like being the world’s first concert hall without walls, and the opportunities are limitless….’

Read on here.

The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra has chosen Jonathan Darlington as its next Chief Conductor, starting in September.

Darlington, 65, is former head of Vancouver Opera in Canada and of the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

He will succeed the less experienced Mahler Conducting Competition winner Kahchun Wong, who is 35.

photo Tim Mattheson

The head of the Bolshoi Theatre, Vladimir Urin, is leading a group of artists who have signed an appeal in Moscow to stop ‘the special operation in Ukraine.’ Urin has been, until now, a Putin loyalist. He is pictured with him below.

Also signing the petition is the violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov.

The appeal has been posted on social media by the theatre director Maria Revyakina.

It reads:
We now speak not only as cultural figures, but as ordinary people, citizens of our country, our Homeland. Among us are the children and grandchildren of those who fought in the Great Patriotic War, witnesses and participants of that War.
Each of us lives a genetic memory of war. We don’t want a new war, we don’t want people to die.
The past XX century has brought too much grief and suffering to humanity. We want to believe that the 21st century will become a century of hope, openness, dialogue, a century of human conversation, a century of love, compassion and mercy.
We call on everyone on whom it depends, all sides of the conflict, to stop the armed action, and to sit at the table for negotiations. We call for preservation of the highest value – human life.

The signatories are:
Oleg BASILASHVILI
Mikhail BYCHKOV
Igor Zolotovitskyi
Igor Kostolevsky
Dmitry Krymov
Evgeny Mironov
Andrei Moguchy
Eugene PISAREV
Konstantin RAIKIN
Maria REVYAKINA
Victor RYZHAKOV
Yuri ROST
Vladimir SPIVAKOV
Vladimir URIN
Nina USATOVA
Valery FOKIN
Alyssa FREINDLICH

At the Teatro Real in Madrid, the artistic team of Twilight of the Gods, in the closing performance of the opera, wrapped the corpse of Siegfried in the Ukrainian flag, as a symbolic act of homage to the victims of the war.

This, says the Real, concludes The Ring of the Nibelung, conceived by Robert Carsen and Patrick Kinmonth, which places man in front of his own path of self-destruction.

The conductor Thedore Kuchar has reached the relative safety of Krakow in Poland. He tells us:

These past 18 hours, until the past several days, could only have come out of a 1940 film. I don’t want to spend too much time now as the ordeal is only partially finished. I have seen literally tens of thousands of people walking on highways with screaming children, dogs and cats in cages, boxes and suitcases.

I have crossed the border and can elaborate later but what I have seen must be reminiscent of WWII. What I have heard and seen gives me a clearer picture of where this is headed. I am among tens of thousands and must find my own way to Krakow. NO, there are no buses or Uber. Even friends who are offering to come from Prague or Warsaw suddenly say there is little chance of buying gas for the car. I am the lucky one to have such a problem (a chorister from Vienna who works in IT has found someone who is on their way; I am thinking of those who don’t have the resources to even seek transport once in the EU.

Message from the Ukrainian chief conductor of the Teatro Communale Bologna:

Ukrainians, friends! Very sad news came to our house today. My beloved Volodymyr Kowalski died heroically, defending our hometown of Bucha in the morning battle, not allowing the orcs to reach Kyiv. He was and will always be an example of courage and honor 💪✊ not only for me and our 6-year-old son, but for all of us. Volodya was a reserve officer. In 2014 he went to defend the Maidan, and in 2015, enlisting in the ranks of volunteers, he went to defend Luhansk and Donetsk regions. In 2016, he exploded on an enemy mine and lost both legs, but it did not break him. He got up for prostheses, rehabilitation, the birth of a long-awaited firstborn, took part in competitions with the crossfit of the GAMES OF HEROES, set up his business, got behind the wheel – lived a full life. But no one expected that the enemy would go further – through the blood of the peaceful Ukrainian people. Volodya could not calmly watch the horror of the rush in our native Ukraine, and could not do nothing while sitting at home. Having received a weapon, he went to defend the peaceful streets of our city of Bucha, but will not return home. Kingdom of heaven… I love you! we love you We are proud of you! Forgive me for not saving you 😭 Rest in peace, and we will take revenge for you and for every dead person.

 
Oksana is also putting out a call for composers to write a new Adagio, in the manner of Samuel Barber, for the fallen of this war.