“Tony Hall has quite a challenge on his hands. The chief executive of the Royal Opera House (ROH) is on a mission to bring the most notoriously elitist art form to the masses. And he is doing it in the face of public spending cuts that would have made Mrs Thatcher blush.”
Category: music
A Plan To Improve Opera Singing (53 Years Later)
“After 53 years, 963 young singers (as well as 110 apprentice coaches and 15 apprentice stage directors–some are invited back for a second term) have made their way through this now 11-week summer boot camp in opera performance.”
Are the Dallas Symphony’s Money Troubles Bad for the City?
“The DSO’s plight is especially vexing to many Dallas businesspeople, however, because of the symphony’s importance to the business community as a symbol of the city’s cultural standing … [and its] important role in attracting new corporations to the area.”
Salzburg Festival’s First Young Conductor’s Award Goes To –
David Afkham, 27, “currently assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and a Dudamel conducting fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was selected from 81 candidates … in a multi-tiered process which culminated with three finalists leading the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon.”
Seoul’s Stadium Turandot Cancelled for Second Time
An extravagant staging of the Puccini potboiler planned for the city’s World Cup Stadium next month, with Lorin Maazel conducting, has been called off “due to low ticket sales and severe weather conditions, the organizers said. … The canceled show was initially planned for May, but was called off then because of the sinking of the warship Cheonan.”
Sign Of A Dying City: A World Class Symphony Orchestra?
Time and again, I’d ask Clevelanders–a proud breed beaten down by decades of lake-effect snow, economic degradation, population decline, and gridiron disasters worthy of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland to tell me what was still top-notch about their hometown. It didn’t matter if I was talking to a CEO or a homeless man, a bar owner or a barfly. The inevitable reply: “We’ve got a world-class symphony orchestra…”
Boot Camp for Cabaret Singers
“The word ‘cabaret’ evokes many images – singers dressed to the nines, elegant nightclubs, intimate rooms, exorbitant cover charges and two-drink minimums. What it doesn’t evoke is college dormitories, dining halls and 9 a.m. classes.” But that’s what happens in New Haven every summer during the International Cabaret Conference at Yale.
How American Orchestras Are Surviving The Recession
Cuts are common, but some are doing better than others.
Seattle Opera Fights The Battle
“This past year my insider look has none of the romance, wistfulness or wit that I may have brought to you in the past. At Seattle Opera we have been at battle. We have been at war with multiple enemies. There have been very real casualties.”
Rolando Villazon Gives Up Concert After Seven Minutes (Sorry, No Refunds)
“Those with front row seats for Ricardo Villazón’s concert paid 178 [Danish] kroner per minute. Fans … paid between 500 and 1,250 kroner [$88 to $221 US] to hear the renowned Mexican tenor sing at Tivoli Gardens last night. Villazón did sing – three short songs and none of them well.”