Italian Opera History for Sale!
The Palazzo Orlandi in Busseto, Italy—where Giuseppe Verdi wrote Rigoletto, Il trovatore, Luisa Miller and Stiffelio—is for sale. The composer lived there with Giuseppina Strepponi, his future wife, from 1845 to 1851. The home remained in the couple’s possession until after Verdi’s death in 1901, when Strepponi sold it and distributed the proceeds to the town’s poor.
The current owners want to sell the building because it needs more repairs than they can afford. It has a bar on the ground floor, but the level above includes a beautifully frescoed grand salon that houses a grand piano used by the composer.
www.ibc.regione.emilia-romagna.it/
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1416849,00.html
Internet Radio Station Features Classical Vocal Music
VivaLaVoce.com is a new, Washington, D.C. Internet radio station that is playing vocal music 24 hours a day. The station’s programming includes opera, art song and choral selections, offering shorter works and excerpts during the workday and longer pieces in the evening. Every night between 8 and 11, VivaLaVoce.com plays a complete opera.
www.VivaLaVoce.com
www.VivaLaVoce.com
New Opera Will be out of This (Opera) World
Does a new kind of opera bring in a new audience? Evidently, Sean Doran, artistic director of the English National Opera Company, thinks so. In 2006, his company will present a work based on the life of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, featuring a musical mix that includes rap songs. The new work is being written in conjunction with a hip-hop group called the Asian Dub Foundation.
Doran said he wants to find artists who have something to say, and that he does not intend to be limited by the usual parameters of the opera world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3835905.stm
Angelotti Gets a Twin
Most singers know that some smaller theaters have to leave the scenery loading doors open when an entire set does not fit inside. At a performance of Tosca in such a theater, when Cavaradossi turned from his painting to ascertain who was in the chapel, he was surprised to see not only the expected colleague, but also another fellow. A homeless gentleman had wandered in through the open doors looking for a warm place to sleep and was totally amazed when he found himself on stage before several thousand onlookers!
—Story courtesy of Charles Handelman
Mezzo-Soprano Nell Rankin Dies Jan. 13
Nell Rankin, 81, passed away Jan. 13 after suffering from a bone marrow disease. She was born in Birmingham, Ala., on Jan. 3, 1924 and made her recital debut in 1947. She sang with smaller companies until 1950, when she garnered a great deal of attention as the first American to win the top prize at Geneva’s International Music Competition.
The following year, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut, and sang with that company for 25 years, taking on such leading roles as Carmen, Amneris, Azucena and Ortrud. She was also heard at Covent Garden, La Scala, the Vienna State Opera and other major houses around the world.
After 1976, Rankin taught at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and gave private lessons in New York.
www.topix.net/music/opera
www.topix.net/music/opera
http://listserv.cuny.edu
Conductor Records On His Own Label
Sir John Eliott Gardiner had a contract with Deutsche Gramophone under which he expected to record all the Bach cantatas for that label at live performances. Unfortunately, the German company backed out part of the way through the process, leaving Maestro Gardiner with nothing but the recorded masters for some of the cantatas.
Determined to finish the project, Gardiner performed concerts and made a CD for contributors to raise funds to start his own label, Soli Dei Gloria (Only for the Glory of God). The name is taken from the words Bach wrote at the end of each composition. The new label plans to release the previously recorded cantatas shortly, and to record and release the rest in time, thanks to the forward thinking maestro.
http://guardian.co.uk
Elvis Costello Is Writing an Opera
The Royal Opera of Copenhagen has commissioned British composer Elvis Costello to write an opera. The Secret Arias will examine Hans Christian Andersen’s unrequited romantic longings for Jenny Lind, the 19th century soprano known as the Swedish Nightingale.
Although no cast has yet been chosen, the premiere of the new work is expected to be sometime in 2006. The premiere will be recorded and an international tour is being planned.
www.chicagosuntimes.com/output/music/cst-ftr-elvis22.html
Atlanta Opera Hoping to Get out of Debt
Atlanta Opera’s board of directors has raised enough cash among themselves to allow them to lend the company sufficient money to pay off its $l.4 million debt to the Wachovia Bank and replenish the opera’s endowment. It is expected that the company will hold a fund drive to pay the board members back within three years.
Meanwhile, new General Director Dennis Hanthorn can begin his term of office with a relatively healthy financial outlook, and a company that is determined not to do any more deficit financing.
www.ajc.com/friday/content/epaper/editions/friday/living_140f99ee1504d06900c0.html
Cincinnati Opera Getting More Space
Cincinnati Opera’s offices are moving to new and larger accommodations at the Corbett Opera Center. By October, the company should have the use of its own street-level box office, office space and rooms for rehearsals or meetings.
In the future, the company will add larger rehearsal and production areas. Until now, the opera had shared space with the symphony and the May Festival.
www.cincinnatiopera.com
www.cincinnati.com [The Cincinnati Post]
