Uncertainty at English National Opera is affecting long-term casting plans. The company says:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Innocent Masuku and Nmon Ford have withdrawn from playing the roles of Nemorino and Belcore respectively in Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love at the London Coliseum in November 2024.

The replacements are New Zealand tenor Thomas Atkins and Irish-UK baritone Dan D’Souza.

 

 

Message from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra:

The Vienna Philharmonic and the Musikverein Wien regret to announce that the concerts on 7 and 8 December 2024 with John Williams have to be cancelled.

Due to a recent health issue from which he is expected to make a full recovery, John Williams regrets that he is unable to perform his concerts this December with Thomas Adès and the Vienna Philharmonic.  Maestro Williams greatly looks forward to rescheduling his concerts in Vienna at the soonest opportunity. 

Message received:

Sent on behalf of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus

We, the members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, are reaching out to our friends and supporters to express our deep, ongoing concern about Management’s proposal to make an 80% budget cut to our Chorus. These cuts threaten 32 jobs and will reverberate throughout the Bay Area performing arts community. All members of the Chorus, including the 120+ unpaid members, urge the Symphony’s leaders to work with the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) to reach a fair contract. The union contract has expired and we don’t restart negotiations again until August 27. It’s important to resolve this dispute quickly to avoid season disruptions like work stoppages or picketing, which would affect both us and the Symphony’s audience. The clock is most definitely ticking.

Here’s where we need your help:

We need your help to protect these choral jobs and the Arts in the Bay Area. Please send letters to the Symphony’s leadership and Board, asking them to negotiate fairly and keep the chorus intact.

The picture was taken in Lucerne after the last concert of the West-East Diwan Orchestra.

 

STATEMENT FROM THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MUSICIANS’ ASSOCIATION (SOMA)
Australia’s professional orchestral musicians stand in solidarity with and in admiration of our colleagues in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
For too long we have witnessed the musicians of the mighty MSO hamstrung and diminished by decisions beyond their control and in which they did not have a say. Yet in defiance, concert after concert, the orchestra continued to make great art, enriching the lives of its community.
As unionists we always stand strong together, but in times of crisis we hold each other even tighter.
We urge the people of Melbourne and beyond to gather around their orchestra. It is precious and wonderful, and the musicians need your support and solidarity now more than ever.

In plain English: the musicians have performed heroically, despite appalling management. Get rid of the boss class.

The orchestra management has issued a brutal demand to Michael Lam, 63, oboist and cor anglais player, to attend a reaudition or be dismissed without pension.

The orchestra’s MD, Ofer Amsalem, wrote to him that he had failed a probationary three months after music director, Julian Rachlin, criticised his playing. The only option now was to play an audition for his own job, as other players are having to do.

Lam says: ‘After Mr. Julian Rachlin expressed his dissatisfaction with my playing, I informed Mr. Amsalem that I did not intend to cause any problems, I only asked for a respectable retirement agreement. I am 63 years old, in a country where there is a war, the economic situation is not easy, I will not be able to find anywhere that would want to employ me until retirement, I have a family and children that I support and to go out now to the free market, for me it is a death blow.

‘The idea of ​​giving me a trial period and a repeat audition was intended to make me leave voluntarily without a retirement agreement at all, it is not only humiliating, it is mainly inappropriate and disrespectful. (To everyone by the way).’

Disrespectful and humiliating sounds about right.

My Lebrecht Interview with Wasfi Kani presents a woman of colour at war with the old school ties who control British opera.

Wasfi is the first to admit she’s not an easy person to get on with – the last place she worked she took away all the furniture and fittings. But she has created more opera companies than anyone in memory and she has brought opera to some of the most desperate and despised members of a fractured swociety.

This is not a promo. But if you listen to the programme you will discover an engine of opera activity that is hardly ever credited by mainstream print media.

Listen here for the next 29 days.

 

 

The conductor Susanna Mälkki (pictured, 3rd right) has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Arts Helsinki.

Who knew the Finns went in for funny hats?

Goodness, this one’s worse.

The festival, founded by the composer Gian Carlo Menotti, has the board at war once more with a bumbling chief executive.

Since (Mark) Hanna took over, nearly all of the nonprofit’s established artistic and business leaders have been replaced. And in recent months the board has seen an exodus, especially since chairwoman Alicia Mullen Gregory was ousted from her leadership position in July. She then chose to leave the organization. In total, 10 board members have resigned…

The crisis has come to a slow boil as revelations of a $600,000 deficit came to light. Demands for an explanation were never met, former board members said…

Full story here.

pictured: Philip Glass playing at Spoleto

Here is a local review by Peter Marsh in the Totnes Pulse of the substitute ‘festival’ put on by the Dartington Estate after the traditional event was driven into exile.

After the demise of the long-established Dartington music summer school in its usual form, a new version of the festival took place last week. ChoralFest was organised by the Dartington Hall Trust (the charity running Dartington) as a “differently-formatted” version of an event it chose last year to discontinue, on the grounds of high costs and the charity’s own dire financial state.

The summer school has been a fixture at Dartington for more than 70 years, attracting world-class musicians performing in concerts and running courses. Summer schools in recent years have lasted four weeks, spanning a range of musical forms from medieval to contemporary, and including folk, jazz, composition and conducting skills. It led to many collaborations involving people from different musical genres. The final concert in 2023 was a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass.

In contrast, the programme for the eight-day ChoralFest looked thin. The public concerts centred on five short evening recitals by professional singers best known for their operatic prowess. Most of them doubled up as tutors, giving singing lessons to the 70 or so people who had signed up for the week. They also rehearsed for a public performance of a Russian choral work given last Saturday.

In contrast to the usual summer school format, no instrumentalists took part, apart from two pianists. The near-absence of instrumentalists saved money but for most people detracted from the festival’s appeal. Each week of the summer schools in recent years has featured at least one big choral work with a choir of more than 100 and an orchestra….

 

Read on here. It gets worse.