Heldentenor Goes to Valhalla
James King passed away in Naples, Fla., on Nov. 20 at the age of 80, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He began singing as a baritone, but a few years later restudied with Martial Singher and became a tenor. In 1961, he garnered critical acclaim for his San Francisco Opera performance of Don José opposite Marilyn Horne in Carmen, and in 1965, he debuted in Bayreuth as Siegmund in Die Walküre. The following year he sang his first performance at the Metropolitan Opera.
For four decades, King sang the German repertoire at the world’s major opera houses. He taught at Indiana University from 1984 to 2002, and sang his last operatic performance there in 2000.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/4463558.stm www.cleveland.com/obituary/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/11329110585041.xml&coll=2
New Music Sells Tickets!
Despite Arthur Honegger’s statement that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead, both symphony orchestras and opera companies are finding out that reasonably accessible new music sells tickets. When Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., says that we have to establish the works that will be around 50-75 years from now, he is pointing out that it is up to our generation to nourish the pieces that will draw concert-goers to the concert halls and opera houses of the future.
Composers whose works seem to filling 21st century auditoriums include John Adams, Tobias Picker, Daniel Catan and Jake Heggie.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB113269564745404442lMyQjAxMDE1MzIyODYyOTg1Wj.html
Opera Singer Found Murdered
Tenor Deon van der Walt was found dead at his family’s home in South Africa on Nov. 29, with two bullets in his chest, according to The Guardian. His father’s body was found nearby, with a bullet in his head and a gun in his hand. The older man may have shot his son and committed suicide, said the story.
The tenor bought the home, with its accompanying vineyard, in 1988, and put his father and brother in charge. Since then, there had been a considerable amount of dissension in the family, said the story, and it is thought that Deon was planning to move his parents elsewhere.
www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/obituary/0,12723,1655793,00.html
Rostropovich Quits Bolshoi Opera
Conductor Mstislav Rostropovich broke his contract to conduct Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace at the Bolshoi Opera this season, according to Russian news sources. The cellist-turned-conductor is said to have complained that there were too few rehearsals, that singers were unprepared, and that the orchestra did not always consist of the same players.
Since a new conductor had to be found, the premiere was postponed and refunds were offered to ticket buyers. Opera company director Anatoly Iksanov says he still hopes for cooperation with Rostropovich at some time in the future.
http://en.rian.ru/culture/20051128/42246504.html
Makropolous Composer Gets the Last Laugh
Leos Jána?ek altered the score of The Makropolous Affair so many times during the rehearsals for the premiere that the conductor lost his temper. Thus, when the composer again wanted to make some changes, he did not dare approach him.
Late on the night before the premiere, Jána?ek surreptitiously entered the library where the parts were kept and wrote in some new music. Imagine the surprise of the first cellist during the premiere when he had to sightread a solo!
Source: anecdotage.com (Margaret Tausky, Vilem Tausky Tells his Story, 1979)
http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=4531
Music School Gets $40.6 Million
Indiana University president Adam W. Herbert announced in November that Barbara Jacobs of Cleveland had donated $40.6 million to the music school in memory of her late husband, David. To honor the couple for the gift, the college has been renamed The Jacobs School of Music.
Of the total, $20 million will be used for graduate fellowships, $10 million will fund undergraduate scholarships, and the rest will endow three faculty positions, said the university, adding that it is the largest gift ever given to a public university music school.
http://www.music.indiana.edu/
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/2626.html
Newspaper Reduces Arts Coverage
Although managing editor David McCumber insists that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s classical music and dance coverage will continue, critic R. M. Campbell has been reassigned to the position of general arts reporter. Coverage of serious music is expected to decrease because the publication will focus on performances that are given often enough to warrant significant advertising by the theaters involved, according to Seattle Weekly.
Events that occur only once may no longer receive attention. Internet review websites can be expected to take up some of the slack, the story added.
www.seattleweekly.com/features/0547/051123_news_classicalcritic.php www.artsjournal.com/music/
Did Sony Put Spyware On CD Buyer’s Computers?
It is alleged that some popular music CD’s issued by the Sony BMG Corp. with XCP copy-restriction software on them can infect the user’s computers with a type of spyware. The company has agreed to withdraw the discs concerned, but lawsuits are being filed in Texas and California in the expectation that Sony will have to pay for repairing consumers’ computers.
www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php
www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8E14D486.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down&chan=tc
Memorial Collection Marks the 60th Anniversary of Liberation
As a memorial to musicians who died in Nazi concentration camps, curator Jaroslaw Mensfeld of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum has purchased a collection of orchestral scores that were once used by the Auschwitz Orchestra. They include music by Franz von Suppe, Josef Rixner and Carl Robrecht.
Many of the parts, bearing the camp’s seal, are hand-written, and some have numbers that identify specific players, says a story on the Radio Polonia website.
http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=30138&j=2
