An (almost) unseen photo from the archives at Teatro alla Scala which shows an emotional Maria Callas moved to tears by the incredible success of her Lucia di Lammermoor as the curtain closes mid-performance. A young Herbert von Karajan looks pleased too.
These historic performances of Donizetti’s opera were during the 1954/5 season.
The Italian opera singer and director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, Cecilia Bartoli, has won this year’s Herbert von Karajan Music Prize, which comes with a sum of €50,000.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Cultural Foundation Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Clemens Borsig, said Bartoli was honoured for her constant quest to discover forgotten treasures of music history, and for raising awareness of classical music. The award will be presented at a gala concert at the November 30, and the prize money will be used for training young people.
The board also noted the great success of the mezzo-soprano, who has sold ten million records, won five Grammy music awards and two Classical Brit Awards. In Germany, she has received nine Echos.… [continue reading]
Bulgarian pianist Alexis Weissenberg has died aged 82.
Born into a Jewish family in Sofia, Weissenberg began piano lessons at the age of three with his mother, giving his first public performance when he was eight. Bulgarian national radio reported he died on Sunday in Lugano, Switzerland after suffering a long illness.
When he was 10, he and his mother attempted to flee the rise of European fascism for Turkey but were caught and sent to a concentration camp.
They were saved by the young child’s skill on an accordion which was a present from an aunt. A German guard who liked music let Weissenberg play and after three months put the Weissenbergs on a train to Istanbul.
He studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and performed with the Israel Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein before entering New York’s Juilliard School of Music in 1946.… [continue reading]
Ahead of her much-anticipated Belfast Festival appearance, Matthew McCreary of the Belfast Telegraph talks to Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. In what is a rather mundane interview (the fault of the Dame, not the interviewer) here are the most interesting replies:
You will be singing a duet alongside Ben McAteer, the winner of the NI Opera Festival of Voice competition. What tips will you have for the young star on stage?
I was so happy to meet Ben McAteer last week in London when he attended a masterclass I was giving — he seems a very hardworking young man and I have been hearing excellent reports about his talents.
I am thrilled we will work together in Belfast and I really wish him all the very best for the future.… [continue reading]
A much-anticipated exchange between the Vienna Opera and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala will go ahead despite earlier fears it might be cancelled because of a strike.
Two unions at the Milan opera house — Cgil and Uil — had threatened to strike tomorrow, because of proposed changes to staff contracts announced earlier this year, thereby cancelling the performance by the Vienna State Opera. But after talks with the management, the trade unionists agreed not to go ahead with the protest action.
Tomorrow’s performances mark a renewal in traditional exchanges between La Scala and the Vienna Staatsoper. The last exchange between the two world-famous opera houses — both currently led by Frenchmen: Stephane Lissner in Milan and Dominique Meyer in Vienna — goes back to 1956 when the Staatsoper’s Herbert von Karajan invited soprano Maria Callas and La Scala’s orchestra to perform “Lucia di Lammermoor” in Vienna.… [continue reading]
