After 16 years as CEO of Opera Australia, Adrian Collette is leaving the company at the end of 2012 to take up a post with the University of Melbourne. Collette began his career with the company as a Young Artist, interleaved with a career in publishing before returning to the company as CEO in 1997.
The Managing Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Matthew VanBeslen, discusses new ways of sustaining “classical” music. (See post on “Where To Next For Symphonic Music?”) http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/orchestras-strike-chord-with-their-communities/story-e6frg8n6-1226071948052
Did you know….. the Estates Theatre in Prague where Don Giovanni received its premiere on October 29th 1787, conducted by Mozart himself, still stands. It puts on regular performances of the opera in much the same way it would have been performed in Mozart’s time. Outside the theatre is an ominous looking hooded statue of Il Commendatore. The …
The next week of free Nightly Opera Streams from The Metropolitan Opera features five powerful Italian dramas—including Lucia di Lammermoor, starring Natalie Dessay as the young bride driven to madness, as well as Dvořák’s haunting fairy tale Rusalka and Wagner’s epic Die Walküre. For more details, cast, notes and other resources and to donate, click…
After running for nearly one month in Melbourne, Opera Australia’s first Ring cycle has come full circle bringing to an end an assemblage of outstanding performances by artists and musicians, acclaimed by the critics, and attended by audiences from near and far. The number crunchers have trawled through the details of the production and…
Controversy erupted with previews of Benjamin Britten’s latest biography written by the Australian born conductor and scholar , Paul Kildea and published by Penguin. Gramophone magazine has a podcast of Paul Kildea talking to interviewer James Jolly about this major project. http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/benjamin-britten-%E2%80%93-by-his-latest-biographer-paul-kildea
The “visceral, ethereal quality of his playing” has likened him to Liszt, but it is the music of Rachmaninov which piano wunderkind Daniil Trifonov has been recording for release in Australia next month (September 11, 2015). Described by the Washington Post as “a pianist ahead of his time”, Trifonov says of Rachmaninov, “he is one of my…