Placido Domingo

After having been criticized by the press and by the orchestra of the Arena in Verona for disastrous performances on August 25 and 26, the tenor and conductor Placido Domingo has sent a letter to the mayor of Verona and the superintendent of the festival, Cecilia Gasdia, in which he concedes « that the level of my artistic performance did not live up to my and your expectations. » Read More →

Killian Farrell
(c) Andrew Bogard

Der 28-jährige irische Dirigent Killian Farrell wird neuer Generalmusikdirektor des Staatstheaters Meiningen. Er übernimmt den Posten zur Spielzeit 2023/24 als Nachfolger von Philippe Bach, der seit 2011 auf diesem Posten war. Read More →

Lars Vogt
© Giorgia Bertazzi

The German pianist and conductor Lars Vogt died yesterday, after being diagnosed with cancer in 2021. He was 51 years old. Vogt was born in Düren, Germany, in 1970, and his career took a considerable rise in 1990, when he won second prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition. Read More →

Vom 23. Juni bis 4. September 2022 besuchten rund 41.000 Zuhörer das Grafenegg Festival in Österreich. Das teilte der Veranstalter mit. Im Vergleich zum Vorjahr ist ein leichter Besucheranstieg zu verzeichnen. Read More →

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Der finnische Komponist und Dirigent Esa-Pekka Salonen, 64, ist in der Saison 2022/23 Composer in Residence der Berliner Philharmoniker. Im Dezember wird Santtu-Matias Rouvali das Orchester in zwei Konzerten durch ein Programm mit Werken des finnischen Komponisten führen, während der Dirigent im Januar an vier Terminen seine eigene Musik dirigieren wird, bevor Mikko Franck im Mai 2023 in drei weiteren Konzerten zu hören sein wird. Read More →

Jaap van Zweden
(c) Hans Vanderwoerd/IMG

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra has appointed Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, 61, as Music Director. The orchestra announced today that the Dutch conductor will begin his five-year tenure in January 2024. He will succeed Osmo Vänskä who decided not to renew his contract, which ends at the end of the year. Vänskä was appointed in January 2020. Read More →

65-year-old Amercement mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer has announced that she is retiring from the opera stage. She posted the message in her social media when returning from Nozze di Figaro performances at the Seiji Ozawa Festival in Matsumoto, Japan. Read More →

33,7 – a project by the Luxembourg based contemporary music ensemble United Instruments of Lucilin – is based on the idea of a gigantic musical cartography portraying the population mix characteristic of the south of Luxembourg and its French neighboring region. A mix or diversity that will be transcribed in 2022 minutes (33,7 hours!) of music commissioned or borrowed from composers whose nationalities, gender, generations will represent in a proportional way the population of the region concerned by Esch2022 European Capital of Culture. Read More →

Über 50.000 Zuschauer besuchten die Wagner-Festspiele in Bayreuth, teilte der Veranstalter nach 29 Aufführungen mit. Damit wurden die Ergebnisse von vor Beginn der Corona-Pandemie nicht erreicht: 2019 und 2018 waren die jeweils 32 Vorstellungen zu 100 Prozent ausgelastet.

Russian Director Alexander Molochnikov will not take part in the production of the one-act operas Francesca da Rimini by Sergei Rachmaninov and The FTragedy by Alexander Zemlinsky, which is scheduled at the Bolshoi Theater in July 2023. Read More →