Category: people

Bing’s Backstory

Rudolf Bing served as general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera for more than two decades, and built a formidable reputation along the way. But few realize that Bing almost ditched his career in opera before even getting to the Met: “In Berlin I was asked to find sopranos who would be willing to sing Isolde and God knows what else at a fee of three hundred marks a month — and I would then have to choose among some eighty screaming wretches… I hated the job with a vengeance.”

Giving The Next Generation A Hand Up

Pianist Louis Lortie is the very definition of a VIP at this year’s Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. But Lortie seems to be devoting most of his time in Ottawa to tirelessly promoting the careers of other musicians. “It’s so difficult for young pianists to attract attention… I think more than ever there is a future for classical music, but we have to find audiences, managers. It’s not easy. I wanted to give them some exposure.”

Body Found Off Jersey May Be Prominent Artist

“The body of a man found Sunday about 4 miles off the Jersey Shore might be that of Jeremy Blake, a rising star in the modern art world who was last seen wandering into the ocean off New York’s Rockaway Beach a week after his girlfriend had killed herself… The apparent double suicide of the glamorous, intellectual couple has confounded and disturbed the worldwide art community, which has held them both in high regard.”

Solzhenitsyn’s Long Journey

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is 88 and still writing. “I am not afraid of death any more. When I was young the early death of my father cast a shadow over me — he died at the age of 27 — and I was afraid to die before all my literary plans came true. But between 30 and 40 years of age my attitude to death became quite calm and balanced. I feel it is a natural, but no means the final, milestone of one’s existence.”

Levine To Miss Verbier

Conductor James Levine has canceled his scheduled appearance at the opening of the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, citing health concerns. Levine missed significant time with his home orchestras in Boston and New York last season after tearing his rotator cuff, and is under doctors’ orders to keep his travel schedule light.

Caro (Finally) Comes To Chelsea

“Although he is widely viewed as Britain’s greatest living sculptor, received a knighthood 20 years ago and has been the subject of countless museum retrospectives, Anthony Caro has yet to have an exhibition in New York’s Chelsea, the epicenter of today’s contemporary art scene.” That will change this fall, when a series of gigantic Caro sculptures will go on display at a Chelsea gallery.

Teresa Stich-Randall, 79

“Teresa Stich-Randall, 79, a U.S.-born operatic soprano once praised by Arturo Toscanini as ‘the find of the century,’ died July 17 in Vienna, Austria, where she had spent most of her professional career… Acclaimed for her interpretations of Mozart’s greatest works, Ms. Stich-Randall traveled between the United States and Europe, singing in the world’s greatest opera houses.”

The Woman Who Will Save Southbank?

Jude Kelly is artistic director of a surging Southbank in London. “I can think of no one in British theatre who is cast so often as hero and villain as Kelly. She is admired for her insistence that the arts are for all, but vilified for being a symbol of the tick-box funding culture of the past 10 years, which encourages mediocrity rather than creativity. It doesn’t help that she sometimes uses the doublethink artspeak of someone who has spent too many years filling in application forms for grants. But she welcomes the speech made recently by the new culture secretary, James Purnell, that suggested the arts must be valued for themselves.”