NYC Opera Sells Sets and Costumes from Older Productions
The New York City Opera is selling older sets and costumes in order to save storage fees, according to the New York Times. The company has asked the Glimmerglass Festival, which has produced a number of shows jointly with City Opera, to take over the storage of those productions. Portland Opera, which is renting its 2009 Don Giovanni, was asked to dispose of it rather than ship it back. NYCO is talking with a broker about selling other productions. Some of the company’s older shows include productions created for Beverly Sills, such as Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux, and Manon Lescaut.
General Manager and Artistic Director George Steel said that maintaining the company’s warehouse in North Bergen, N.J., costs more than $500,000 a year. He says he wants to find more cost-efficient storage. One way of saving on storage costs that he mentioned would be to keep productions that are scheduled for revivals stored in trucks.
www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/arts/music/city-opera-to-dispose-of-former-productions.html?_r=0
Downloads and Streaming Will Eventually Replace CDs
Some music critics have been surprised lately at the arrival of URLs for digital downloads in place of compact discs for their appraisal. Klaus Heymann, who founded Naxos 25 years ago, thinks that streaming and downloading will be the way the general public consumes all types of music in the future, reports San Francisco Classical Voice. He says that within five years at least half of the recording business will no longer be concerned with discs.
In October, Naxos released its first high definition (24 bit, 96 kHz) audio download of Modest Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Songs and Dances of Death, and The Nursery. The new download has better sound quality than that generally heard on a disc, and Naxos does not plan to release a hard copy of this music until 2013. Thus, the writing seems to be on the wall for the future of the CD.
www.sfcv.org/article/full-stream-ahead-can-naxos-download-the-future
German Opera Company Offers Free Performances on Internet
The Bavarian State Opera will present free live streams of all its 2012-2013 opera and ballet productions. They will come directly from the National Theater in Munich to Internet viewers. The schedule for opera is as follows: November 25, Turandot; December 30, Rigoletto; March 9, Jenůfa; April 20, The Flying Dutchman; and May 11, Macbeth. The company will also stream a live festival performance of a yet-to-be-decided show in July.
www.bayerische.staatsoper.de/866–
Long-Lost Cherubini Cantata Premiers in Perugia
Sagra Musicale Umbra is a summer music festival in the area around Perugia in northern Italy that attracts an international audience. This past summer it showcased a newly discovered Masonic cantata, Amphion, ou l’Alliance de la Musique à la Maçonnerie, which had been commissioned from Luigi Cherubini by the Paris Loge Olympique in 1786, according to All Thing Strings.
On September 9, 2012, the Cologne Academy Chamber Orchestra, an original instrument ensemble, played the work’s world premiere in the 13th-century church of San Bevignate. The newly found 27-minute cantata for tenor, chorus, and orchestra had been lying unperformed in the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, Poland, for centuries before French editor Philippe Castejon resurrected it in 2011. It is a fine example of Freemasonry expressed in music—and such pieces have often been popular, but this work may have been too advanced for the 1780s.
www.allthingsstrings.com/layout/set/print/News/News/World-Premiere-of-Cherubini-Cantata
Conductor Bruno Aprea Quits Palm Beach Opera
Bruno Aprea, who restored confidence and vitality to Palm Beach Opera after the death of its long-time artistic director Anton Guadagno, gave the company very little notice before leaving, according to South Florida Classical Review. Aprea had successfully led Palm Beach Opera for the past seven years, but according to General Director Daniel Biaggi, the Italian conductor did not accept the terms of the contract offered to him for the 2012-13 season. Maestro Aprea then fired back at Biaggi, accusing him of continually undermining the conductor’s authority and eventually forcing him out of the company.
Palm Beach Opera has had many artistic successes during the last few years but, at the same time, has had some financial troubles. Last season it reduced the number of its productions from four to three and stopped offering Monday matinees. No further cuts, however, have been planned for the upcoming season.
southfloridaclassicalreview.com/2012/09/conductor-aprea-departs-palm-beach-opera/
While Others Are Mired in Debt, Buffalo Charges Ahead
The Rochester Philharmonic and the Atlanta Symphony are struggling with heavy loads of debt. A strike temporarily shut down the Chicago Symphony. The Minnesota Orchestra has cancelled all concerts through November and the Indianapolis Symphony cancelled part of its season. Even European orchestras and opera companies have faced cutbacks this year.
The Buffalo Philharmonic, however, seems to be Teflon coated. It ended its 2011 fiscal year with a balanced budget and has a modest cumulative debt of $2.5 million, according to the Buffalo News. Subscriptions and single-ticket sales are at an all-time high. The orchestra’s endowment fund has increased by $1 million over the past year. Its popular music director, JoAnn Falletta, is in the first year of a five-year contract and the orchestra’s musicians have a contract that extends until 2016.
Orchestra executives caution, however, that this is no time for music lovers to become complacent. “It’s never going to be easy,” said Executive Director Dan Hart. “We’re climbing out of the hole. There’s no rest.”
www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121006/CITYANDREGION/121009378/1010
