Mortier to Succeed Kellogg at NYCO
Gerard Mortier, current director of the Paris Opera, will become general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera in September 2009, various news organizations report. Mortier says he will keep the company at its present site, the New York State Theater, but may try to have the theater renovated to provide a better venue for opera. He also wants the company to perform in other halls within the city, saying he prefers that it complement rather than compete with its Lincoln Center neighbor, the Met.
For the next two seasons Mortier will spend one week per month in New York learning his new job, which will include raising much of the necessary funding from corporate and individual donors, something he is not accustomed to doing, said the reports. In Paris most of the funding for the opera comes from the government.
www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/arts/music/27cnd-opera.html?hp
www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/stage/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003552236
Berlin Opera Appoints American Music Director
In 2008, Texas-born Carl St.Clair, now at the National Theater in Weimar, Germany, will succeed Kirill Petrenko as general music director of Berlin’s Komische Oper, according to the Orange County Register. The Komische Oper is one of three opera companies in that city.
St. Clair, who is also the music director of the Pacific Symphony in Orange County, Calif., has conducted many of the major orchestras in the United States and Europe. He has also been active with the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, but he says that relationship may have to change.
www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2007/02/komische_oper_i.shtml
Met Movie Simulcasts Meet with Unexpected Success
Many operagoers and opera executives doubted that the Metropolitan Opera’s high definition simulcasts would pack audiences into movie theaters, but the shows have been a rousing success.
Tan Dun’s contemporary opera The First Emperor played to an audience of 33,000, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is believed to have found an even bigger audience. A large number of theaters, some of which were unable to show the originals, are replaying the operas.
Next season, the Met will feature eight simulcasts: Romeo et Juliette, Hansel and Gretel, Macbeth, Manon Lescaut, Peter Grimes, Tristan und Isolde, La bohème, and La fille du regiment.
www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/16772035.htm
www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6078.html
www.metoperafamily.org/hdlive/
Instrumental Musicians Can Run Afoul of Airline Security
For instrumentalists, flying with an instrument as carry-on baggage may be a thing of the past, reports CBS news correspondent Trish Regan. When jazz trumpeter Valery Pomonarev refused to check his instrument as baggage in a Paris airport, security guards grabbed it by pushing the musician against a wall and breaking his arm.
On this side of the ocean, Krista Bennion Feeney, a violinist with New York City’s St. Luke’s Orchestra, says her group canceled a European tour because of concerns over the transportation of their valuable instruments.
www.kdbc.com/news/national/5931516.html
RIAA Sues Universities
The Recording Industry Association of America has identified 25 schools that appear to have the largest number of students who download copyrighted music without paying for it, reports The Orange County Register.
The institutions involved include Ohio University, Purdue University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the University of Tennessee, the University of South Carolina, Michigan State University, and Arizona State University. Those schools, and 17 others, have been put on notice that their computers are being watched.
At many schools, first-time offenders get a warning. Further offenses can be punished by suspension, says the report, adding that nonpaying downloaders can also be sued.
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58340,00.html
www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/22/riaa_sues_students/
Tenor’s DWI Case Dropped
The case against tenor Jerry Hadley, for allegedly intending to drive while intoxicated, has been dropped, says the Associated Press. Hadley was arrested in New York City while sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked car with the key in the ignition. He was not driving and the prosecution finally admitted they could not show definitively that he intended to move the vehicle.
The singer contended that when he got in the car he realized he was in no condition to drive and decided not to do so.
www.jam.canoe.ca/Theatre/2007/02/23/3658941-ap.html
Germany Wants Every Child to Make Music
Germany has launched a new government program, “an instrument for every child,” in the industrial district known as the Ruhr, German sources report. Officials expect to implement the program throughout the country by 2010, said the reports. In the autumn of 2007, pupils in grades 1 through 4 in the Ruhr, which includes the cities of Essen and Düsseldorf, will receive music instruction in school and have access to instruments. Middle-class parents will be asked to pay modest fees, but there will be scholarships for low-income students, the reports said.
Government leaders say that playing music stimulates children’s imaginations, awakens ambition, and promotes a feeling of community. By 2010 the schools hope to be able to form orchestras, said the reports.
www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2339451,00.html
www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/main.jsp?articleID=3006&applicationID=203&languageID=2
Proposed Orlando Performing Arts Center Gets a Million
Pest control industry mogul Charles Steinmetz and his wife, Lynn, have donated $1 million to the Dr. P. Phillips Orlando Center for the Performing Arts, according to the Business Journal. Already well known for their donations to musical and charitable organizations, the couple’s gift brings the building fund close to the halfway mark, leaving $51.5 million left to raise to complete the project.
www.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/
2007/02/12/daily17.html?from_rss=1
