Riccardo Chailly
Photo: ICMA

After being upset over the Giovanna d’Arco staging, Riccardo Chailly had made it very clear: at the Milan Scala he will not accept any staging that has not been discussed with him (i.e. approved by him) as the opera house’s music director. This led to the worst rumors about an upcoming staging of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West. In fact, Chailly won his first battle. The Scala communicated that, having different views than Chailly, Graham Vick pulled out and was replaced by Robert Carsen.

Johan Halvorsen

James Mason, an employee of the Music Library at the University of Toronto, Canada, discovered a long lost Violin Concerto by Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen. The Concerto was first performed in 1909 in the Netherlands by Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow. She played it two more times that year, and probably there have been no performances of the concerto since. It was said, that the composer was unhappy with the reviews and destroyed the scores. The sore now found in Toronto must be a copy made for Parlow.

Lahav Shani
(c) Marco Borggreve

Der 26-jährige israelische Dirigent Lahav Shani wird ab der Spielzeit 2017/18 Erster Gastdirigent der Wiener Symphoniker. Lahav Shani ist 1. Preisträger des internationalen Gustav-Mahler-Dirigentenwettbewerbs 2013. Er studierte zunächst Klavier an der ‘Buchmann-Mehta School of Music’ in Tel Aviv, bevor er 2009 ein Dirigierstudium an der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin aufnahm. Von der Kritik wird er unterschiedlich bewertet. Er wurde gefeiert und auch als ‘Heißsporn’ bezeichnet.

Nach zum Teil erfolgreichen Gerichtsverfahren in Frankreich, mit denen der Verkauf der Videoproduktion von ‘Dialogues des Carmélites’ aus der Bayerischen Staatsoper unterbunden wurde, wollen die Erben des Komponisten Francis Poulenc und des Autors Georges Bernanos die weiteren Aufführungen der Oper in München verhindern resp. nur nach Änderungen der Tcherniakov-Inszenierung erlauben. Die Bayerische Staatsoper hat das abgelehnt. Die Aufführungen zwischen 23. Januar und 1. Februar sollen unverändert stattfinden.

Corinne Auguin, a former employee of the Opéra de Bordeaux, has been sentenced to five years in prison, with two suspended, for diverting 2.3 million Euros from the company over a period of ten years. Her husband got three years, one suspended. The couple must repay the stolen funds.

Tbilisi State Opera and Ballet Theatre will reopen January 30, after several years of restoration. The renovation of the building began in 2010 with the financial support of the Georgian billionaire and former Prime Minister of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Read More →

The new Polish Government has announced a 9.5 percent increase in spending on culture this year relative to 2015, yet this surplus is essentially to be spent on projects boasting the national identity. On the other hand, cultural activities which could harm Polish culture, Polish tradition and Polish identity will likely lose their funding. This opens the way to a very restrictive subvention policy and thus, to a new form of censorship.

Philippe Jordan
(c) JF Leclercq

For health reasons Swiss Conductor Philippe Jordan (41), had to cancel all appearances in January and February with the Wiener Symphoniker at Wiener Konzerthaus, Musikverein Wien as well as a tour to France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Lahav Shani and Adrien Perruchon are stepping in so all planned concerts can go ahead. Jordan is scheduled to conduct Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg on March 1 at the Bastille Opera in Paris.

The resurrection of the New York City Opera is still uncertain. According to the Wallstreet Journal, New York State Attorney General’s office gave a rather doubtful response to the plan of NYCO Renaissance Ltd., a group led by former City Opera trustee Roy Niederhoffer, saying that the rescue group has not yet provided sufficient evidence for its financial projections. Read More →

Der gestern verstorbene Pierre Boulez war Schirmherr einer außergewöhnlichen Komposition: Das Stück 125 Party Pieces’ ist eine Gemeinschaftskomposition, das 125 zeitgenössische Komponisten auf Initiative des Forums Zeitgenössischer Musik Leipzig (FZML) gemeinsam komponiert haben. Das Werk gilt als die größte Gemeinschaftskomposition der Welt. Read More →