Earlier this week, the Royal Opera House announced their exciting programme for the 2013/2014 season, which can be seen here, generating a discussion in the office about how we choose which operas we would like to see.
Watch our video blog below to find out what we are looking forward to and why:
Are you looking forward to the 2013/2014 season at the Royal Opera House as much as we are? Tell us what you would like to see and why?
(Written on March 15, 2013 )
Classic FM
John Williams to score new Star Wars movies?
John Williams has commented on the likelihood of him returning to write the film scores for the new Star Wars sequels.
Benjamin Grosvenor nominated for arts breakthrough award
Representing the Classical category in The Times South Bank Breakthrough Award, the young pianist is up against a variety of artists from different genres including TV Drama, Books, Rock/Pop, and Opera, where soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn is nominated.
Classical Music Magazine
Malcolm Layfield leaves ‘untenable’ RNCM position
Malcolm Layfield, one of a reported nine former or current teachers at Chetham’s and the Royal Northern College of Music who are under investigation by Greater Manchester Police in the aftermath of the conviction of Michael Brewer, has left his position as head of strings at the RNCM.
Classical Source
Vladimir Ashkenazy Receives A Copy Of His First 1963 Decca Contract From Paul Moseley
Vladimir Ashkenazy receives a copy of his first 1963 Decca contract from Paul Moseley, Decca Classics’ Managing Director, at a special lunch held in London to celebrate 50 years on the British label.
Planet Hugill
The 20 finalists for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World have been announced. They will take part in the biennial contest this year, which also celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Metro
Harlem’s Carmen opera star Noah Stewart: I love shocking people
The tenor in the Royal Albert Hall production hopes he will inspire people to follow their dreams.
Music Industry News Network
Industry Experts Deliver BA (Hons) In Music Business At The Institute, London
The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance is preparing for a new intake of students for its esteemed Music Business degree*.
Metro
(Written on February 21, 2013 )
The Times
Soprano Barbara Hannigan: pitch perfect
Why this Canadian soprano is setting the opera world on fire with her extraordinary vocal range and joyous precision
Classical Music Magazine
Welsh rights dispute: BBC and PRS accused of price fixing
Dafydd Roberts asks ‘whether the BBC-PRS agreement is price fixing’ as Welsh musicians’ dispute with PRS rumbles on.
BBC News
BBC plans Bollywood-style live opera for Bradford
A live Bollywood-style production of the opera Carmen is to be produced by the BBC in Bradford.
Wired
Coding project aims to deepen the experience of streaming classical music
A Sheffield based media company has created a prototype web project that tells the story behind classical music using a combination of HTML 5 and Javascript.
Slipped Disc
Richard Wagner museum is reopened by Jewish band
Germany’s oldest Richard Wagner museum, dating back to 1907, is in a hunting lodge in Graupa, 20km east of Dresden.
Breaking: Sacked oboist wins appeal. Welsh Opera faces huge bill
Sandy Johnston, the oboist sacked by Welsh National Opera, has succeeded in the Employment Appeal Tribunal against an earlier ruling on his dismissal.
The Guardian
Arts Council considers opera shakeup as ENO posts £2.2m loss
English National Opera falls into red after losing £1.3m funding and filling only 71% of seats
HMV’s woes do not signal the end for record shops
Despite HMV’s inability to make high street music retailing pay, some independent record shops are seeing increased sales
Music Industry News Network
Pop Still On Top As British Music Buying Tastes Revealed
Classical, Hip Hop and Reggae all made gains in 2012. Big sellers including Andre Rieu’s Magic Of The Movies and Andrea Bocelli’s Opera helped Classical claim a four-year share high in 2012 of 3.7%.
BBC News
(Written on January 17, 2013 )
Gramophone
Aldeburgh Music announces details of year-long Britten centenary celebrations
Special events pay tribute to the British composer and Aldeburgh Music founder
The Guardian
Jocelyn Pook: inspired by mental illness
‘Working on this piece I realised that the notion of hearing voices naturally lends itself to musical ideas and exploration’
Daily Mail
Her stunning voice saw her hand-picked by The Queen to record a song.
The Telegraph
Pippa Middleton, the BBC and Lance Armstrong head up list of this year’s opera sinners
BBC executives, Pippa Middleton, and Sally Bercow are to be named as the sinners of the year the public would be glad to see the back of in the English National Opera’s production of the Mikado.
Carmen: It ain’t over till the nude lady sings
A lusty new production of ‘Carmen’ by Calixto Bieito embraces the growing trend for red-hot opera
Limelight Magazine
Peter Maxwell Davies talks “spooky” opera, Australian wine
Sydney Chamber Opera stages haunting work The Lighthouse by Master of the Queen’s Music.
Classic FM
Tallis Scholars announce 40th anniversary world tour
John Brunning talked Whitacre, Tallis, and 50 Shades of Grey with Tallis Scholars director Peter Phillips as the renowned choir prepare for their 40th anniversary world tour.
Alaska Public (found on Musical Chairs)
Inmate Orchestra Gets Ready for Concert
The all-female Hiland Mountain Orchestra is rehearsing for its annual concert in December. The string ensemble has gained national recognition for being the first women’s prison inmate orchestra in the nation.
Classic FM
(Written on November 26, 2012 )
Gramophone
São Paulo Symphony Orchestra to record complete Villa-Lobos Symphonies
Naxos project will use entirely re-edited versions of the scores
Classic FM
Lindsey Stirling embraces video game music in Assassin’s Creed video
The latest high-concept video from violinist Lindsey Stirling celebrates music from the Assassin’s Creed video games.
Jeff Wayne re-imagines War Of The Worlds with Gary Barlow and Liam Neeson
Classic FM speaks to Jeff Wayne about the latest incarnation of his musical version of H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds, featuring Gary Barlow and Liam Neeson.
Classical stars light up Regent Street
Tine Ting Helseth and Noah Stewart will join Classic FM presenters John Suchet and Jamie Crick at the iconic Regent Street Christmas lights switch-on on Tuesday 13 November
Slipped Disc
Breakthrough! Orchestra to play off digital music stands
The Brussels Philharmonic has become the world’s first orchestra to abandon paper scores and play from a digital screen.
Deceptive Cadence
‘A Late Quartet’: Melodrama With A Pounding Musical Heart
After a quarter century together as one of the world’s top chamber music ensembles, the Fugue String Quartet is falling apart at the seams. A generation older than his colleagues, cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) is experiencing the early symptoms of Parkinson’s, and with his sudden retirement, a morass of long-buried resentments and pain come spewing out of his three younger partners: first violinist Daniel (Mark Ivanir), second violinist Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and violist Juliette (Catherine Keener).
The Guardian
Toby Spence: ‘I’ll never take my voice for granted again’
Back on stage in the Metropolitan Opera’s Tempest, Toby Spence tells Tom Service about his recovery from cancer and surviving the storm
Boston.com
Holocaust opera to premiere in Austrian parliament
An opera focusing on Nazi atrocities against children will premiere next year at an unusual venue — Austria’s parliament.
Opera Now
Picasso inspires new Dublin Carmen
International Leisure and Arts, Ireland’s foremost producer of international ballet, have announced their move into opera with a new production of Carmen by the Moscow State Opera – coming to Dublin in March 2013.
RTL.de (via Slipped Disc)
(Written on November 9, 2012 )
Following her triumphant directorial debut with the production of Carmen in 2004, which was named Stowe Opera’s ‘punchiest and raunchiest production to date,’ Yvonne Fontane returns to Stowe Opera to direct this year’s production of Mozart’s comic masterpiece Le Nozze di Figaro. Yvonne is also performing the role of La Contessa in the opera, a dual responsibility that she discusses on Gramophone and one that she mastered in the Carmen (2004), lauded by Opera Now as a ‘revelation’ for both directing the opera and singing the title role. The production, which opens tomorrow evening, is taking place at Stowe Opera’s new home; Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire, a beautiful 18th Century country house believed to be built by Christopher Wren. This is a must see production which has been highlighted by Home Counties and Oxfordshire Magazine as ‘a true operatic gem in the summer festival calendar.’
Further information can be found on the links below:
(Written on July 20, 2012 )
The Telegraph
Peter Maxwell Davies: The old rebel has a new cause
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies talks about the inspiration for his Ninth symphony.
The Guardian
Carmen in the desert: Israeli Opera promises hot staging at Bizet
Dead Sea and Massada fortress form backdrop for ambitious performance of fiery, romantic opera.
Baritone Sergei Leiferkus, singing the Forester in Glyndebourne’s current production of the Cunning Little Vixen, talks about the opera.
Classical Music Magazine
Clandeboye’s former young musicians to return to celebrate tenth festival
Booking has opened for the tenth Clandeboye Festival, taking place 13 – 18 August at the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava’s Clandeboye estate near Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.
Gramophone
Universal’s ‘Bass Hunter’ search uncovers what may be the world’s lowest singing voice
For singer Tom Stroms, the low E is effortless.
Arts Journal – Slipped disc
Naked Spencer Tunick is modifying his art for Munich’s Ring
Bavarian State Opera have just announced that the naked flash mob it is preparing for Wagner’s Ring will not be in the altogether. The American artist Spencer Tunick has been persuaded to cover prudish Muncheners with body paint.
Cathedral fires choirmaster for ‘being rude about Scotland’
Ian Simcock has been sacked by Glasgow Cathedral for merciless teasing of singers and ‘being rude about Scotland’.
Jessica Duchen
On the future of music journalism
Here are a few thoughts I’ve cobbled together in the wake of last week’s panel discussion at Classical:NEXT.
The New Yorker
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s Art Songs
As everyone knows, Fischer-Dieskau, who died on May 18th, was the reigning master of the art song.
(Written on June 7, 2012 )
The Guardian
Magdalena Kožená: ‘I’m not scared of the big maestro’
What’s it like to sing Carmen when your husband is the conductor? Magdalena Kožená reveals all.
The NY Times
A Deadly Night in the Boxing Ring is Grist for an Evening at the Opera
The jazz trumpeter, band leader and composer Terence Blanchard is composing an opera based on Griffith’s life called “Champion,” with a libretto by the playwright Michael Cristofer.
ArtsJournal – Slipped disc
La Scala’s 1960s Butterfly has died
Maria Bieshu, the Moladvaian soprano who commanded the Scala stage and many others as Madam Butterfly, died today at the age of 76.
Bach’s hometown ensemble is saved
We’re hearing from the concertmaster in Eisenach that two million Euros have miraculously been found to save the theatre from instant closure
Gramophone
Echoes of the Quartet for the End of Time
A new work commissioned by the Gryphon trio takes inspiration from Messiaen’s wartime work.
Reflecting Olympian ideals in music
This year’s Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music takes as its theme the great sporting event.
Simon Halsey named chorus director of LSO and chorus
Conductor takes up the role in August 2012.
(Written on May 17, 2012 )
The Times
LSO/Järvi at Barbican
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/classical/article3197065.ece
Steve Reich, appeared for his 75th-birthday concert with the London symphony orchestra, was the highlight of the show.
BBC News
Italian Conducter Muti receives $1 million prize
Italian conductor Riccardo Muti has collected the $1 million Brigit Nilsson Prize- the biggest prize in classical music.
The guardian
Katherine Jenkins: Confessions of a choirgirl
Katherine Jenkins is glad her squeaky-clean image is behind her. The singer talks about drugs, classical snobbery-and why she dreams of singing Carmen.
The Independent
Don Pasquale, Glyndebourne, East Sussex Abbado/Uchida, Royal Festival Hall, London.
Only dynamic Bruckner and joyous Schumann in expert hands can match a Donizetti sparkler.
The Telegraph
Steve Reich at 75, London symphony orchestra, Barbican.
The London Symphony Orchestra’s 75th Birthday tribute to Steve Reich was a lavish affair, writes Ivan Hewett.
(Written on October 19, 2011 )