Category: music

“The Skylight Opera Theater has eliminated the position of artistic director, held since August 2004 by William Theisen, a Milwaukee native and a popular figure here. The artistic director’s duties will be consolidated under the general director, Eric Dillner, according to an e-mail Dillner sent Tuesday evening.”

Having already lost tenor Rolando Villazón to throat surgery, the new staging of The Tales of Hoffmann by director Bartlett Sher (South Pacific) has now lost superstar bass René Pape, who was to sing the four villains. Alan Held will step in, while rising tenor Joseph Calleja will take over the title role from Villazón. Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca remain on board. (So far.)

“It’s 20 years since baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky won the Cardiff Singer of the World title. No Russian has repeated that success until now.” Six-foot-8-inch bass Jan Martiník took the Song Prize, and 21-year-old bass Giordano Lucà received the Audience Prize.

“The results from Chicago are in: From Apr. 15-June 15, presumed opera-lovers have paid $1 per vote to choose which of three operas they’d like to see performed during the Chicago Opera Theater’s 2011 season. The winner is …” an operetta (but not the sort you might think).

The conductor has already held “the posts of music director of the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and guest conductor of the Royal Opera House … He is also music director of L’Orchestre National de France and, until this year, principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.” He begins his three-year term next January.

“Daniel Hege, who has close ties to Kansas and led the Wichita Symphony in its season-ending performances in April, will become the orchestra’s music director and conductor beginning in the 2010-2011 season. Andrew Sewell, the orchestra’s current music director, will continue to conduct the orchestra next season.”

“Once upon a time, revolutionary opera was forced down the Chinese people’s throats.” One such work, “Jiang Jie,” is on the program of the opera festival at Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts. It would be easy to assume that its presence “is an obligation imposed by the government. Except that this festival sells tickets on the free market. Those tickets aren’t cheap. And the audience for ‘Jiang Jie’ on Friday night is large, and notably involved.”

“I understand that they need to cover the manpower, the credit card costs and the technology required to process my purchase, as well as make a reasonable profit. But how come the service fees can be anything from £2 to £15 per ticket? How can they justify a fee for printing out your own ticket, using your own ink and paper? Does it really cost four times as much to process a purchase of four tickets than a purchase of one?”

“It was the final day of business for the Virgin Megastore chain in North America, which at its peak had 23 locations but by Sunday was down to two: the 57,000-square-foot, two-level New York outlet, and a smaller Hollywood shop that was also set to close. In Union Square posters trumpeted 90 percent discounts and offered the sale of “all furniture and equipment.”

“A conductor friend of mine recently busted out the following conversation starter over lunch: In a hundred years, American Idol may be the most significant locus of study in the field of performance practice.”