New Performing Arts Website Launched
The website classicaltv.com, which touts itself as having “The Greatest Performing Arts Online,” has been amassing videos of concert and opera performances, reports the Los Angeles Times, and is now starting to offer them on demand. So far the website has more than 1,100 full-length performances ready to show, but not all of them will be online at any one time. The for-profit website offers many shows for free and requires customers to pay to view some performances, but paid advertisements played at the beginning of each free selection will cover the majority of the costs. The website now shows opera, dance, and concerts and plans to eventually include films of Broadway shows and some more popular music.
www.classicaltv.com
www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-classicaltv6-2009sep06,0,6184765.story
Rest in Peace, Erich Kunzel and Hildegard Behrens
In August the world of classical music lost two important artists: Cincinnati “Pops” conductor Erich Kunzel and dramatic soprano Hildegard Behrens. The 74-year-old conductor had suffered for four months from several internal cancers. When he informed the orchestra, its management established the Erich Kunzel Pops Fund to carry on his vision for the ensemble. For more information, visit the company’s website, which is linked to a page created to honor his memory.
On tour in Japan, 72-year-old internationally known soprano Hildegard Behrens was hospitalized and later died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. A great actress as well as an extraordinarily gifted singer, her interpretations of leading roles in the operas of Wagner, Strauss, and Berg have carved deep impressions into the memories of audience members.
www.cincinnatipops.org
news.cincinnati.com/article/20090901/ENT03/308120005/1028/ENT/Erich%20Kunzel%20dies%20at%2074
www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/arts/music/20behrens.html
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6802369.ece
Soprano Takes Too Big a Step
Puerto Rican soprano, Ana María Martínez, who was singing the title role in Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Glyndebourne Festival, caught her foot in a piece of scenery and fell backwards into the orchestra pit, according to the United Kingdom newspaper the Telegraph. She landed in the string section, but the soprano was not hurt. The opera company sent her to the hospital for a checkup, however, and after a 30-minute intermission, the performance continued with her cover, Natasha Jouhl, in the leading role.
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/6073811/Drama-at-Glyndebourne-as-soprano-falls-offstage.html
New Scholarship Comes to Oberlin
Voice teacher Helen Hodam taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1963 to 1984. Her students included many great singers who have gone on to appear with major opera companies in the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Vienna State Opera, and La Scala. Denyce Graves and Lisa Saffer were two of her pupils at Oberlin.
When Hodam passed away in 2008, she left a sizable estate, $1.7 million of which will go to Oberlin for the Helen Hodam Scholarship in Voice. It will help extraordinarily gifted students to study voice at the conservatory beginning with the graduating class of 2014.
new.oberlin.edu/conservatory/news/detail.dot?id=1476845
