Opera Australia digs itself a bigger hole
The company has announced a triple change at the top. The new music director Andrea Battistoni has jobs all over the world and will have little attention to devote to deep-seated woes. The new board […]
classical music
Washington threatens Steinway’s soundboard forest
An industry PR has warned in the Wall Street Journal that new regulations jeopardise the singular source of new piano boards. … The specialized wood they use for the soundboards comes from the Tongass National […]
Bayreuth flips Gatti
There’s a pair of last-minute changes in Bayreuth’s Meistersinger tonight. Conductor Daniele Gatti is replaced by Axel Kober. Hans Sachs will be sung by Michael Volle, jumping in for the still-unwell Georg Zeppenfeld. What goes […]
Nabucco? Nothing to do with Jews
The new production at Arena di Verona has been totally detached from Verdi’s story of Jewish exiles in Babylon. The costumes are space suits, the stage set looks like a post-modern, peripheral bus terminus and […]
Bregenz breaks up stage after heavy rain
Two torrential downpours cost the Austrian laketop festival half a million dollars in ticket refunds. They’ve done the sums and started dismantling the Freischütz set ahead of schedule. Bit of a washout. Read here. The […]
An astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at Salzburg Festival, directed by Ulrich Rasche with Lisette Oropesa & Kate Lindsey
Donizetti: Maria Stuarda – Bekhzod Davronov, Thomas Lehmann, Kate Lindsey – Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus) Donizetti: Maria Stuarda; Lisette Oropesa, Kate Lindsey, Bekhzod Davronov, director: Ulrich Rasche, Vienna Philharmonic, conductor: Antonello Manacorda; Salzburg Festival […]
Travelling hopefully: defying age & ill health, Daniel Barenboim conducts his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Wagner, Mendelssohn & Beethoven at the Salzburg Festival
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll – Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Marco Borelli) Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’; Lang Lang, West-Eastern […]
Why would people tune their streaming to ‘sleep’
They’re still doing it on Apple Classical this week. Here’s the global top ten, exclusive to slippedisc.com: 1 Sleep Max Richter 2 Mozart: Violin Concertos Chloe Chua, Ziyu He, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Hans Graf […]
Aussies go for post-Gaza rebrand
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra which got caught in a hapless Gaza uproar and sacked its entire board is trying to repair the damage with these images under new CEO Richard Wigley. He says: ‘This brand […]
Covent Garden are damned if she sings, sued if she don’t
From my op-ed today in The Telegraph, under the headline ‘Why is the Royal Opera House allowing a Russian singer back on stage?’ … Are we victimising an important artist for her country’s crimes, a […]
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