Intermezzo

Placido slags off Bayreuth and Salzburg directors

In common with a large chunk of their audiences, Placido Domingo didn't care much for Sebastian Baumgarten's Biogas Tannhäuser at Bayreuth or Christof Loy's recording-studio Die Frau ohne Schatten in Salzburg.  "I have a problem with it," says Domingo, "It's incomprehensible to me. As the director of an opera house I would never allow anything like that. In Germany and Austria, controversial productions have unfortunately become the norm."

But unlike most, Placido is in a position to do something about it.

"When I haven't agreed with a staging, I've had a word with the director. When that hasn't helped, I've had the production shut down."

The world's hardest-working baritenor isn't afraid to accept a gig in Salzburg though. He's confirmed his involvement in a forthcoming co-production between the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, engineered by incoming artistic director and fellow conservative Alexander Pereira.

Bayreuth 2012 tickets go digital

The 2011 Bayreuth Festival drew to a close yesterday with the customary announcement about next year.

Tickets will be sold online for the first time, with registration from 15 September 2011 on http://ticket.btfs.de. As anyone who has experienced the town of Bayreuth's shaky internet connection will appreciate, this is a bolder move than it may first appear.

This year the 57,750 available tickets attracted 320,000 requests - a number I suspect will increase exponentially when they're just a keyboard tap away. If you're lucky enough to score seats in 2012, you can, again for the first time, pay by credit card. Hello 21st century.

Preliminary programme and casting details were also released - most of these had already trickled out anyway. The 2012 festival opens with a new Der Fliegende Holländer on 25 July 2012. Jan Philipp Gloger directs and Christian Thielemann conducts. Evgeny Nikitin makes his Bayreuth debut in the title role, Senta is Adrianne Pieczonka with Franz-Josef Selig as Daland, Michael King as Erik and Benjamin Bruns as the helmsman.

Stefan Herheim's Parsifal returns, with Philippe Jordan taking over conducting duties from Daniele Gatti. On 5 August 2012 it will be streamed live, with a DVD appearing in due course.

The remainder of the programme comprises the current productions Tristan und Isolde, directed by Christoph Marthaler and conducted by Peter Schneider, Lohengrin, directed by Hans Neuenfels with Andris Nelsons conducting, and Tannhäuser by Sebastian Baumgarten, with Thomas Hengelbrock wielding the baton.

Bayreuth also released the entirely superfluous statistic that all of this year's productions were sold out. At least some things will never change.

Another Kaufmann cancellation

 

After yesterday's sad news, it comes as no surprise to hear - officially this time - that Jonas Kaufmann has pulled out of the Bavarian State Opera's tour of Japan at the end of September.

In his place, the mighty Johan Botha will be stretching seam allowances to the max in the title role of Lohengrin.

Jonas Kaufmann and 'that' operation

Jonas Kaufmann has revealed exactly why he's withdrawn from the Bologna Opera tour of Japan next month. A letter published on the promoter Fuji's website (and reproduced in full below) reveals he needs an operation to remove a node from his chest.

He hints at the possibility the node may be cancerous. Let's all hope not.

"Dear Friends,

I regret very much having to tell you that I will unfortunately not be able to sing the performances of Carmen for you next month. I was so looking forward to coming to Japan now and I want to assure everyone that this decision has nothing do with the difficult issues you have had to face in Japan in these last months. The fact is that I need to have an operation to remove a node in my thoracic area. I do not wish anyone to become alarmed reading this, but my physicians have ordered me to have the surgery as soon as possible. This will take place after my appearance in Stockholm on September 2. I am pretty sure that the results of the histological examination will come up "benign" but as I said, this procedure could not be further delayed.

I am extremely sorry I must cancel my trip to Japan and thus disappoint many friends. From my previous appearances in Japan, I have the most lovely memories of the audience there as especially enthusiastic, knowledgeable and kind. I have always regarded the great affection lavished on me there as an exceptional honor. I therefore hope for the understanding of those of you who empathize with my situation, or who may even have been in a similar position themselves, and I hope to come to you as soon as possible in the future.

With warm regards,
Jonas Kaufmann"

Jonas cancels again - or does he?

Yesterday Jonas Kaufmann's official schedule included the Bavarian State Opera's tour of Japan.

Today it doesn't. Anyone surprised? 

 

******* UPDATE ********  The Bavarian State Opera dates have now (a couple of hours after the original post) mysteriously reappeared on his official schedule. What's going on is anybody's guess. 

Jonas Kaufmann pulls out of Japan - again

 
After pulling out of the Metropolitan Opera's tour of Japan following "the devastating events in Fukushima, and in view of the fact that the total extent of the disaster is still unforeseeable", Jonas Kaufmann is to disappoint his Japanese fans once again by withdrawing from another tour.

Scheduled to visit Japan shortly with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna's Carmen, he has instead "decided to undergo surgery in early September" according to the Japanese promoter. As is customary with cast changes, there will be no refunds and no ticket exchanges.

There's no word yet on his third and final Japanese engagement of the year, Lohengrin with the Bavarian State Opera at the end of September. If he pulls out of this one too, it could deal a terminal blow to the Munich house's plans. A few weeks ago two thirds of the opera company voted not to join the tour because of radiation fears - even though anyone who skips it will have to take unpaid leave.

(many thanks to Kyoko for research)

Anna is Erwin's woman (but she likes a bit of Jonas on the side)

Not nearly as toecurling as it could have been - bravo/a/i for trying.

That was perhaps the most experimental selection in the stream of greatest operatic hits at Anna and Erwin's blockbuster Waldbühne concert on Tuesday evening. Jonas Kaufmann joined them, and the entire highly-priced extravaganza was broadcast on the German channel ZDF.

You can watch the whole thing on ZDF's website (not all countries), or enjoy a few choice excerpts below.

Mortgage the garden shed and perhaps you too could catch them live in the Royal Albert Hall next year.

Oink if you like Mozart

Some people claim we humans are closely related to pigs. Speak for yourself I reply.

But it appears we do share some tastes. Playing classical music to pigs in abattoirs reduces stress, according to a research project carried out by masters student Philip Wrigglesworth at Moulton College, Northampton. The pigs played classical music showed less aggression and had lower blood levels of cortisol (a stress-related hormone) than pigs played white noise or no music. Then again, for those about to enter the bacon slicer, I guess any distraction is welcome.

Sadly it seems there are no videos of Mozart-digging porkers to be found. So here's one of their etymological relatives, a guinea pig, allegedly enjoying a classical break.

Lohengrin al fresco

 

Over 10,000 people crowded into a square in central Bayreuth earlier today to watch a free transmission of Lohengrin, live from the Festspielhaus just up the road. A 180-square-foot video wall provided a crystal-clear picture for spectators, who came equipped with folding chairs, picnics and blankets - and umbrellas of course.

Images from nine remote cameras were complemented by close-ups pre-recorded during the July dress rehearsal. 86 speakers dotted around the square provided Festspielhaus-style surround sound. 

Around 40,000 more people (including yours truly) watched the live webstream - pictures and sound were excellent, and Manuel Brug's perceptive interviews with the cast and production team filled the long intervals.

Those who watched the delayed live stream on the ARTE TV channel weren't so lucky. The picture broke up after 25 minutes and the broadcaster switched to an old Anna Netrebko documentary while they sorted things out. Oops.

 

Pappano takes a budget cut

The Royal Opera House's 2010 accounts are out. (A bit tardy, but that's accounts for you).

And just look who's saving the ROH a few quid. While CEO Tony Hall continues to extract over £390,000 a year for a job that leaves him enough time to chair an Olympics committee and float around the House of Lords, Tony Pappano has taken a pay cut.

Frankly, Welser-Möst

Is there any branch of showbiz that presents a more monolithic public front than operabiz?  Finances and future plans are concealed by mutual omerta and professional disagreements are the privatest of private matters. 

That's until a rare man comes along armed with the sword of truth and the bullets of pure snark - leaving the shield of diplomacy on the bus.

The Royal Opera House at the cinema

Miracles do sometimes happen. The ROH website finally shows some useful information about ROH cinema screenings for the next few months - including dates, times and cinema names - in a searchable database. Screenings later in the season are shown separately.

Don't ask me how you get there from the home page though.

You can see the whole lot in a rather more convenient format here  (with thanks to Manou).

Lights.....Camera.....Rats !

The Bayreuth Festival's rat-packed Lohengrin is comin atcha live on Sunday.  For 14.90 €, you have the choice of watching the live stream and/or picking up the recording at any time between 15 and 30 August - once only.

The production, conductor Andris Nelsons, and a cast which includes Klaus Florian Vogt, Annette Dasch and Petra Lang have all been widely praised by critics.

Kick off is 4pm CET (don't forget that's 3pm in the UK), and because it's live there will be the Bayreuth-standard one hour breaks between acts.

It's a good idea to sign up well beforehand, as you need to try a test stream first.

Free tickets for Bayreuth Festival

This year's new production of Tannhäuser at Bayreuth features an innovation more often seen in fringe theatre - an onstage audience.

These aren't actors or extras but actual punters. So just who are the lucky sods who got to watch the opera at close range?

The man who gets Bayreuth tickets every year

 
An interview with a typical Bayreuth regular in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung confirms what I discovered last year about the best way to get tickets for the Festival.

Axel Zumstrull has visited for five years in a row as member of the Society of Friends of Bayreuth. He explains how the Society receives a quota of tickets and distributes them amongst its members. The annual subscription is 205€ - "less than half the cost of a gym membership," he points out. And he doesn't even make any additional donation (which is believed to help). Although he doesn't always get the exact performances he wants, he increases his chances by ordering more tickets than he needs.

As I discussed in an earlier post, the German government bodies which help fund the Festival are not at all happy with the allocation to the Society, even though it pays around a quarter of the Festival's costs in return for receiving around a quarter of the tickets. Compare that with Covent Garden, who allocate up to three quarters of tickets to Friends for a much smaller proportion of funding.

Mr Zumstrull, needless to say, finds the government's criticism "totally unjustified."

Netrebko / Kaufmann / Schrott at Royal Albert Hall

 

Don't all rush at once! But if you've got a couple of hundred quid to spare, you might fancy spending it on a blockbuster date with Anna Netrebko, Erwin Schrott and Jonas Kaufmann. They're coming to the Royal Albert Hall on 6 June 2012 for "a superb gala of their favourite arias and music by Puccini, Verdi, Mozart and many more".

Promoters Raymond Gubbay have set prices from £25 in the corner of the side circle, where you will see virtually nothing, to £185 for a grand tier box seat, and tickets are on sale now.

Makes Jonas's £75 Royal Festival Hall date in October sound a positive bargain.

(via Carlos)

The opera club for MPs

With thanks to cher Mike of Opera Holland Park, who commented on the post below, I have unearthed a bunch of MPs who do care about opera, the All-Party Parliamentary Opera Group.

do MPs go to the opera?

Commenters on an earlier post speculate whether Our Nation's Leaders lack an interest in the arts.

Certainly, compared with Festspiele-groupie Angela Merkel, their collective operatic profile is non-existent. But then few of them swan around in paparazzi-friendly lilac taffeta. Could they be sneaking in under the radar with all the other middle-aged, middle-class denizens of the posh seats?

I decided to undertake a little online investigation.

Instant Mozart - just add water

The fantasy:

The reality:

The stage is set (well, almost) for Seefestspiele Berlin, a new outdoor opera festival opening in a few days time on the shores of Lake Wannsee. The organisers originally envisioned a Bregenz-style aquatic extravaganza, with their Katarina Thalbach production of Die Zauberflöte set on a mid-lake pontoon. But after the Berlin council and local environmental protestors stuck their oar in, the venue was shifted to a lakeside parking lot with a watery view.

Construction of the vast set, a Masonic-style one-eyed pyramid, continues in parallel with rehearsals. Meanwhile the unforgiving Berlin rain lashes down on performers and construction workers alike.

Despite the fact that tickets are issued with an anorak advisory warning, the organisers claim to have shifted over 30,000 so far.

Angela Merkel's Festspiele faux pas

The German Chancellor, who clearly finds it hard to pass up on a free ticket for an opera premiere, has fallen foul of the Salzburg fashion police. German-language newspapers have been up in arms about her appearance at last week's Die Frau ohne Schatten, and not merely because they'd noticed their hotel curtains had gone missing.

No, Mrs Merkel's crime was to wear the identical outfit to successive Salzburg Festivals. The pictures above may look the same, but they were in fact taken on three different nights - in 2008, 2010 and 2011.

Predictably enough, none of the papers have commented on the fact that her husband, shown in the right hand photo, sports the same kit every single time he steps out for the evening.

(By the way, I regret to point out that the Chancellor's ensemble, levitating clutch bag and all, was positively tasteful compared to some of the monstrosities on show.)