Today’s other birthday

We hear that the orchestra of English National Opera has been engaged to play Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa at Grange Park Opera next summer. It will be conducted by ENO’s former music director, Martyn Brabbins, who resigned […]

I once offended the great man by deprecating the jacket he wore to work at IRCAM. It was a rumpled tweedy garment, half-town, half-country. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ he cried. ‘It lacks style,’ I said, […]

Christie’s London have a couple of interesting Wagner lots coming up next month. The first draft of the Tannhäuser libretto is expected to make six figures. Also under the hammer is a draft fragment for […]