Category: music

Musicians and other employees of La Scala have voted overwhelmingly for the resignation of musical director Riccardo Muti, and the entire governing board. “In a day of operatic drama, rumours swept Milan that 64-year-old Muti had agreed to go. But they were denied by theatre officials.”

Riccardo Muti, who walked out on the La Scala orchestra this week, saying that he could not work with the current management team any longer, may be right that the world’s most famous opera house is being run into the ground by arrogant men. But being right may not be enough to win this battle. “If there’s one thing that doesn’t bode well for Muti, it’s that perception is defying facts. Whether or not Muti knows what’s good for La Scala, a vocal sector of the public doesn’t want to believe him… [T]he issue behind this gulf between perception and fact is that Muti’s brand of operatic integrity is good for the art, but probably not what a large public wants. “

A former board Utah Symphony & Opera board chair has pulled his annual donation and canceled a major bequest to the struggling organization, offering to reinstate the pledges only if embattled CEO Anne Ewers and music director Keith Lockhart are ousted. The already-tense situation at US&O is growing more volatile by the day, with “supporters [wanting] to know why news of US&O’s falling attendance, negative cash flow and declining annual donations since the merger was not made public. They want accountability from the volunteer board that governs US&O.”

The Welsh Chamber Orchestra is accusing the Arts Council for Wales of reneging on a pledge to extend the ensemble’s support funding through 2006. Instead of the WCO receiving its £52,500 with no questions asked, the group will now have to compete with six other ensembles for the money, potentially putting its 2005-06 season in jeopardy. For its part, the government says that no guarantees were ever given about the ’05 funding, even though the Culture Minister called a press conference last year to announce that the WCO funding would continue through 2006.

“The management of L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal saw red over the weekend, saying that unless the players stop wearing red union T-shirts on stage, cancellation of four concerts with music director-designate Kent Nagano later this month “may be inevitable.”

A group of people goes to the opera for the first time. And what do they think? A few don’t make it past the intermission at Covent Garden. But one: “You can put this in your piece: I was moved to tears and I’ve just signed up to become a member. That should tell you how much I enjoyed it. It was the best thing I ever did.”

A new opera at the Bolshoi has roiled passions. “The demonstrations prompted a political debate over freedom of expression and censorship – historically hypersensitive subjects in Russia. The Kremlin distanced itself from the events, criticising the criminal investigation. Sales of Sorokin’s books soared, and the Bolshoi’s project received promotion nobody could have dreamed about.”

French police are arresting conductors and breaking up tours of orchestras employing Eastern European musicians. “Of all the unsavory aspects of French police going around the country busting orchestras and locking up their conductors or managers, it is the notion that it’s being done to protect these innocent violin-playing lambs from Sofia that drips heaviest with irony. In common with price-fixing cartels the world ’round, France and Germany’s high-priced musicians have only one interest in this affair, and that is keeping low-priced competition off the market. That this means smallish French towns get no opera, or get it only when heavy public subsidies are made available for it, concerns them not at all.”

Fans have taken to the “extras” found on DVD’s. Now recording companies are trying something similar with music. “DualDiscs are two-faced contraptions that feature a full CD on one side and a DVD packed with extra stuff on the other. They have begun to take off dramatically.”

The Australian government indicates it won’t go along with key recommendations in a report that recommended downsizing several of the country’s leading orchestras. “The Government is now negotiating with the states over funding so the current size of all three orchestras can be maintained.”