Category: music

The Teatro Regio appointed a new superintendent, William Graziosi, this week, which means Mr. Noseda would have had to reapply to keep his post as music director, the position he has held since 2007. Instead, he took his name out of contention, calling the theater’s recent actions “disappointing and disheartening.”

The South African soprano was astounded when her coaches in the young artist program at La Scala told her to study the role of Lucia de Lammermoor. “I could barely sing a high C,” she says now – but also, as she asked her teachers, “Who looks like me and sings this repertoire?” (Kathleen Battle was not a star in 1980s and ’90s South Africa.) Here, she tells – and shows – Anthony Tommasini how she came to master the quintessential coloratura star vehicle.

With a lead gift of $46.4 million from biotech investor William Bowes, the school will construct a building – just across the street from Davies Symphony Hall – with two recital halls, rehearsal and recording studios, a restaurant, and apartments for 420 students.

“On Tuesday, the orchestra announced a new residency at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music, one similar to those it conducts at Indiana University and in Miami. The project marks the orchestra’s first formal collaboration with the school.”

The Sai Yong Hong Chinese Opera troupe and its fans “are preserving a cornerstone of culture and heritage dating to the seventh-century Tang Dynasty (618 to 907), making it one of the oldest dramatic art forms in the world. Like so much of Chinese opera throughout the world, the performances are a product of a large Chinese diaspora.”

“One thread to keep in mind again is songwriters used to be able to rely on a steady stream of sheet music sales, and then it was album sales, and then it was download sales. As those have dried up, there is more interest by songwriters to make sure that the value of what’s contributed to the services is captured in the remaining rights that are invoked.”

“Especially on Caruso’s breakthrough records, the sound is scratchy, wiry and wobbly. The same holds true for early recordings of Nellie Melba, Luisa Tetrazzini and other luminaries of that era. While there are entrancing hints of astonishing voices, it’s hard to tell what they were really like. If only we could record a singer today on the equipment used back then and compare the playbacks to modern recordings.” So that’s what Piotr Beczala and Susanna Phillips did. (includes sound clips)

Julie Fuchs says that the management of the Hamburg State Opera has informed her that she cannot perform the role of Pamina in this spring’s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte because “the artistic integrity of the production cannot be maintained if the soprano singing Pamina is four months pregnant.” Management has replied that German law expressly forbids employment of a pregnant woman in any situation that could harm her or her fetus.

A new policy document – the European Agenda for Music (EAM) – stresses that music plays an important societal role around identity and inclusion, and recognises music’s “important” contribution to the economy.

Junior winner Christian Li “shared his win with Chloe Chua from Singapore, who at age 11 was the second-youngest to compete this year. Each of them won 10,000 Swiss francs and Li also was awarded the audience prize.”