Die Musiker der Scala hatten ihren Chefdirigenten zuletzt mehrfach aufgefordert, das Haus zu verlassen. Muti sprach in seiner Rücktrittserklärung von einer “mir gegenüber offen zur Schau getragenen Feindseligkeit seitens Menschen, mit denen ich mehr als zwanzig Jahre zusammengearbeitet habe. Das macht eine Fortsetzung meiner Tätigkeit unmöglich.”
Battle of the Rings
The escalating artistic arms race between London’s two rival opera houses, Covent Garden and the Coliseum, reached a new level of threat this weekend.
L’Opéra de Bordeaux Embroiled in Sexual Harassment Suit
Depuis plusieurs mois, le climat est tendu au ballet de l’Opéra de Bordeaux. Il pourrait l’être davantage après la comparution, jeudi 31 mars, de son directeur et chorégraphe, Charles Jude, devant le tribunal correctionnel de Bordeaux, pour harcèlement moral. Cet ancien danseur étoile de l’Opéra de Paris, âgé de 51 ans, élève de Noureev, est poursuivi par Hélène Ballon, danseuse de 33 ans, soliste du ballet de Bordeaux. “Ce ne sont pas les qualités chorégraphiques de M. Jude qui sont mises en cause, mais son comportement”, précise Me Gérard Boulanger, l’avocat de la plaignante.
The Cambridge Companion to John Cage
Cage’s music is like Einstein’s theorem: most people know it exists, know it’s important, but beyond these facts know nothing about it (count me in this category when it comes to Einstein).
Verdi Gala
As a live occasion, the gala format allows for a festive atmosphere — a variety of singers trot back and forth across the stage, usually performing a series of “opera’s greatest hits” with no distractions, if one may, in the way of costume, set, or dramatic context. Recorded for posterity, such gala events can lose, for many viewers, the attractions of the live atmosphere and become rather labored exercises.
Runnicles at Carnegie Hall
Donald Runnicles, the longtime music director of the San Francisco Opera, has been earning excellent reviews for his conducting of Strauss’s “Rosenkavalier” at the Metropolitan Opera, a run that ends with a matinee performance today. But New Yorkers also know of him as the principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Wearing that hat he appeared at Carnegie Hall for a program on Thursday night titled, rather too cutely, “Postcard From Prague.”
Domingo Makes a Surprise Visit
BILOXI – World-renowned tenor Placido Domingo, who sings tonight for a near sell-out audience at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum, had high praise Friday for the Hattiesburg-based youth orchestra that will accompany him.
Muti Resigns
MILAN (Reuters) – Riccardo Muti has resigned as the musical director of Milan’s La Scala after his 19-year reign at the opera house dissolved into a bitter battle for power, mutiny in the musical ranks and canceled performances.
Angela Brown Replaces Jessye Norman in Premiere of Margaret Garner
When soprano Jessye Norman cancelled her appearance in the Michigan Opera Theatre’s world premiere of “Margaret Garner” next month, David DiChiera MOT general director admits it felt a lot like raindrops were falling on this head — and on his parade.
Eugene Onegin in Boston
Most operas are about love, but Tchaikovsky’s ‘’Eugene Onegin” is a special case because the composer took the subject so personally. Tchaikovsky’s own life was tracing the plot of Pushkin’s verse novel, with catastrophic consequences, and the music is full of yearning, passion, pain, and regret.