Category: music

Compared to “its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the company offered 75 performances of 10 productions, next season will see 42 performances of six productions.” But the season will open with a world premiere, of Daniel Catán’s Il Postino, and end with The Turn of the Screw, which will launch a four-year Britten celebration.

Says composer Anthony Braxton, “[The piece] breaks down the linearity of a one- or two-hour sonic experience. … I would ask the [listeners] to walk inside the music, just like walking inside the House of Mirrors.” (We’ve spared you the theory-speak.)

“[W]e tend to distance ourselves from the work by buttressing it in a carapace of facts that don’t actually affect our direct reaction to it. And as a result, that reaction gets more primitive.”

“Although eight operas will continue to be presented in 2010-11, the company will cut back the number of performances to 68 from 77 in the current season. As a result, 32,000 fewer tickets will be put on the market.”

Henry Fogel is out as director of the New Hampshire Music Festival, the chairman and president are both stepping down, and three board members have resigned — all fallout from the audience’s vehement opposition to the festival’s “new artistic vision and restructured orchestra.”

“The Radio 2 Kiri Prize will be announced this week as part of the BBC’s attempt to open opera up to a wider audience. The winner will perform with Dame Kiri at the BBC’s Proms in the Park in September, launching their opera career in front of an audience of thousands.”

“Built by Naples’s Bourbon rulers in 1737 and described in 1817 by the French writer Stendhal as ‘dazzling the eyes and enrapturing the soul’, the San Carlo has staged premiers by Rossini and Verdi. But in 2007 government administrators had to be called in as debts of €20m threatened its survival.”

“The merger,” approved by the Justice Department, “will create a goliath with hands in every pocket of the music business. … But for the $889-million deal to proceed, the two companies agreed to the unusual step of creating a pair of rivals to ensure a competitive market for ticket sales, which has been one of the few bright spots for the ailing music industry.”

“My wife and I met a group of people at a local winery,” producer Russ Johnson explains. “And they were very boisterous and fun. Eventually, the question came up, so what do you do? And they were like, ‘We’re opera singers.'” That’s when he started thinking what a great docu-soap subject an opera company could be.

“Two Chinese pop singers have fallen foul of a lip-synching ban, facing fines of up to $12,000 (£7,400) for allegedly miming at a concert. Miming was banned in China after a girl was revealed to have lip-synched at the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.”