Pianist Maurizio Pollini has achieved elder statesman status. “Now in his mid-sixties, he is no less conspicuous for his championship of such tricky manifestations of the avant-garde as Pierre Boulez’s Sonata No 2 and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück X. His stance has consistently been that contemporary music should form part of the normal repertoire, rather than being hived off into a specialist ghetto.”
Tag: 03.10.06
“Franco” Paintings Withdrawn From Auction
Three paintings that were said to be painted by the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco have been “withdrawn from an auction after a lawyer for his family said they could not have been his work.”
ENO Staff Protested Leader’s Appointment
In December 458 staff of the English National Opera sent a letter to Arts Council England protesting the appointment of John Berry as the company’s artistic director. “The lack of intention to recruit a leading artistic director is, in our view, very shortsighted … and is not what is required to move the company forward. We invited you to explain … what you intend to do.” The reply from ACE’s chairman, Sir Christopher Frayling, accepted the staff’s criticism, but said: “It is not the Arts Council’s job to intervene in the running of ENO or any other arts organisation … To do so would be to act as a shadow director.
Controversial ENO Director Speaks
John Berry gives his first interview since being named to the top artistic job at the troubled English National Opera. “I think you can only do this job in a major house,” he says, “if the artists trust you and are willing to go on a journey with you, and they feel you are willing to go on a journey with them. I’ve worked with 70 or 80 of the world’s leading directors. My life has really been as a producer; that’s what I do. It’s all been about trying to get the best out of people and working in a collaborative way.”