Hugely popular wherever German is spoken and sung, Hofmann crossed all lines from opera to rock and enjoyed a stardom of almost Pavarotti-like dimensions.Curly-blond and bubbly, he sang at Bayreuth in the Boulez-Chéreau centenary Ring in 1976 and appeared there also in Lohengrin, Tristan and Parsifal. His opera career took him to Chicago, London and Vienna. But he also starred in the Hamburg production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera and kept up regular sessions with a rock band … [Read more...]
Richest man in modern music
November 29, 2010 By
The Grawemeyer award, the largest in contemporary music, has gone to the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen for his opera La Commedia, staged in 2008. The prize is worth $100,000, which was a life-changing amount when Witold Lustoslawski, Gyorgy Ligeti and Harrison Birtwistle won it in the mid-1980s but seems rather diminished today, not just in purchasing power so much as in the quality of its selections.Based at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, the peer-given award rarely goes to … [Read more...]
Soprano found dead after morbid Facebook post
November 26, 2010 By
The Rumanian soprano Roxana Briban has died in Bucharest, aged 39, apparently a suicide. Away from Bucharest, she sang in Vienna, Berlin, Toulouse and Amsterdam. Her husband said she had fallen into depression after being dropped last year by the Rumanian National Opera.On the day of her death, she posted on her facebook site a clip of Verdi's Traviata in which she, as Violetta, dies of a wasting disease.More here (in Rumanian) and here (German).And here's Roxana singing in La … [Read more...]
Let’s hear it from the paper shufflers
November 26, 2010 By
Arts Council England, shambolic and barely coherent, are demanding a right of reply to my Standpoint essay proposing a root-and-branch reform of arts funding.I shall post their letter here once it appears in print, but the tactic will be, as usual, more a matter of collective vindication than of substantive debate.My essay has been for the past 24 hours the most-read article on the Standpoint site and I am told that its arguments have been received by the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and … [Read more...]
Does he know what it’s worth?
November 26, 2010 By
Alex Ross in his new collection, Listen to This, makes reference to 'a secondhand LP of Leonard Bernstein's Eroica Symphony (which) ignited my love of classical music.'As I read that paragraph, an email dropped from an archivist friend in Vienna, informing me that some of his old Bernstein vinyls fetch thousands on ebay. Apparently, they never pressed that many, especially of Lenny with the European orchestras. Thomas Hampson singing Mahler's Kindertotenlieder with Bernstein and the Vienna Phil … [Read more...]
How to save the Arts Council
November 25, 2010 By
In the new issue of Standpoint magazine, I examine what has gone wrong with arts funding in Britain and propose ten concrete measures for redeeming it. Contrary to popular myth, I do not advocate the abolition of Arts Council England, alien though it has become from its Keynesian core purposes.However, if Maynard Keynes's vision is to be renewed in an era of financial strictures, the Arts Councils that he invented will need root-and-branch reform in order to be fit for their chartered … [Read more...]
Journalist announces job change in gobbledygook
November 25, 2010 By
BBC NewsGreg Wood, News Correspondent for the BBC, is to join Centrica in January as Head of Corporate Media Relations and will report to Mish Tullar, Director of Group Media Relations. In his new role, Greg will help embed Centrica's growth story across the media highlighting its significant upstream investment programme in gas, nuclear and renewables and the transformation of British Gas from an energy utility to an energy services business. Prior to returning to London in November 2009 to … [Read more...]
All the rage in Virginia
November 24, 2010 By
The firing of Peter Mark, founder of Virginia Opera and its director for 36 years, has fuelled a widening furore around the company. The board has hired Robin Thompson, formerly of New York City Opera, to help find a new artistic director, but Mark may sue and supporters are withdrawing their pledges all over the US.Here are snippets from some of the letters that have reached the intransigent board (with email copies to your devoted correspondent):From Don Conlan (ex-CEO Capital … [Read more...]
News just in: Midori loses her manager
November 24, 2010 By
Byron Gustafson, an artist manager who guided the violinist Midori from gawky teens to mature stardom, has died, his agency has announced. He was 56.In addition to managing her career, Gustafson was a director of her child education foundation, Midori and Friends. In a sea full of sharks, he was a gentle dolphin.Here's an internal memo from Midori and Friends:To: Board Members:From: Judi LindenIt is with great sadness that I have to relay the news of Byron's passing last evening. As an esteemed … [Read more...]
MPs to slash Mahler?
November 24, 2010 By
Amazing what can be done by means of selective quotation. Charlotte Higgins in today's Guardian has culled a few squibs from the proceedings of the House of Commons committee on culture, media and sport to suggest, without factual foundation, that their report will recommend a cull of orchestral funding.She begins by inflating into committee policy a casual witticism by chairman John Wittingdale to the effect that Gustav Mahler 'shouldn't have written works that require so many musicians'. … [Read more...]
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