This Saturday’s Prom has lost three key singers, says the BBC:
Prom 19 (Saturday 30 July)
Daniela Barcellona, Ivan Gyngazov & Jung Soon Yun have withdrawn from Prom 19: Puccini’s Il Tabarro. They are replaced by Annunziata Vestri, Adam Smith & Shengzhi Ren respectively.
There is no room for Sir Simon Rattle…
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Will anybody notice? What are the Proms doing indulging Mark Elder with a measly one third of Il Trittico (plus extras) when they could have invited Garsington or Grange Park or one of the many othersuch companies to present a costumed and semi-staged version of one of their productions. I’m sure audiences would have packed out the hall unlike bookings for this Saturday. What a wasted opportunity.
There’s a lot of “indulging Mark Elder” goes on. For some time now I have been unable to see why.
Maybe because Sir mark is regarded as one of the worlds best opera conductors and the halle is a leading orchestra, Il tabarro is a pretty static work, whose staging adds comparatively little.
It won’t be long and all they’ll be left with is CBeebies. Talk about dummy down.
Shambles
Er, No. Beeb did a great job helping cultivate the Prommers of tomorrow.
Not by the look of the lot there last week! The ‘arena to audience’, still rausing money for good musical causes, are a group even older than me, there for the past 40 years in their assumed places – don’t dare stand in the front row – and I’m not young!
Perfect comments
Did the “Protectors of Western culture against Putin supporters” not notice, that tenor IVAN GYNGAZOV is regularely singing at the Mariinsky Theatre? What about EKATERINA SANNIKOVA (Abigaille at St. Margarethen Festival), ILDAR ABDRAZAKOV (Attila at the Royal Opera House), EKATERINA SEMENCHUK (next year’s Kundry in Bayreuth, MIKHAIL PETRENKO in Verbier? All Mariinsky singers!!! Is their attention vanishing?
You weren’t paying attention, Peter. No one – at any time – called for banning Russian singers as such, whether they sang at the Marijnsky or Bolshoi or wherever.
It was only about those who actively supported putin. Personally – if I could – I would have banned Ildar, because he belongs to the Kremlin clique of artists. Since the beginning of the war, he canceled everything in the West and performed in Russia instead. But the war isn’t over, he’s losing money so hop, he put his russian patriotism in his pocket and returned to the rotten West. Or – and I favor this version, personally – he got permission from whomever he needed to get one. He will share his fee, maybe, or he will bring back some interesting news. Russia hasn’t changed much, you know.
Sorry, From the East, for not agreeing with you. Only two examples : Peter Gelb was warned in internet blogs of inviting two Mariinsky singers to the MET, Yuliya Matochkina and Evgeny Nikitin, not because they were known for supporting Putin, but just for being members of Mariinsky Theatre.
One more Mariinsky singer, tenor Alexander Mikhailov, was invited to sing Rigoletto-Duca in Prague. He was asked to sign a declaration against Putin and the war, otherwise his contract would be canceled. Mikhailov denied, because it’s in Russia a crime to call a war war and to say anything against Putin. Therefore his contract was canceled.
Sorry, might be a generation gap but I don’t really know any of them!
I totally agree with Peter Schünemann re. Ildar Abdrazakov. He is enjoying a lucrative career in Russia and close collaboration with Gergiev; indeed his next two engagements after “Attila” are to perform under Gergiev in St. Petersburg and Vladivostok. But what is quite staggering is the fact that the Ildar Abdrazakov Foundation openly boasts of partnerships with Gazprombank, VTB and Russia 24 (all sanctioned by the UK Government), as well as Russia’s Ministry of Culture. Clearly Mr. Abdrazakov likes his bread buttered on both sides; well he would, wouldn’t he? But one would hope that the Royal Opera House would be doing their homework…