Rest in Peace, Ghena Dimitrova
On June 11, Ghena Dimitrova passed away in Milan after a long and debilitating illness, according to news reports. The remains of the 64-year-old Bulgarian dramatic soprano were taken to Sofia, where many well-known artists and high-ranking government officials attended her funeral at St. Nedelya’s Church.
Born in 1941 at Beglezh, Dimitrova graduated from the Sofia Conservatory in 1965 and made her operatic debut in that city two years later. Her career spanned more than 35 years, and during the 1980s, she sang at La Scala, Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, and the Met.
www.music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=193643
The Met and Its Unions Reach Agreement
On June 28, the Associated Press announced that the Metropolitan Opera Association, together with the American Federation of Musicians and the American Guild of Musical Artists, agreed on a contract that will assure continued performances at the opera house for the next five years, according to backstage.com
Wages will be frozen for the first two years, but artists and musicians will receive raises of 4 percent during the third year and of 2 percent in each of the two succeeding years, said the story. The new contract also provides a basis for the negotiation of a media agreement that will protect the interests of AGMA members.
http://www.backstage.com/backstage/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000969535
Counter-tenor Denied Audition for Texas Choir
Mikhael Rawls, a 17-year-old high school senior, was refused the opportunity to try out for the Texas All State Choir—because he wished to sing soprano, according to a CNN story. The Texas Music Educators Association denied Rawls’ application, possibly on the grounds that some students could damage their voices by singing in unusual categories.
Rawls says he has sung baritone in the past, but both he and his teacher agree that he is more comfortable singing soprano. He is disappointed at being refused—but it has brought him considerable publicity and prompted several invitations to join even more prestigious choral groups, said the story.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/06/29/texas.soprano.ap/index.html
www.ap.lancasteronline.com/4/male_soprano
Minnesota Opera Season Ends On a Positive Note
Minnesota Opera announced that its 2004-2005 season ended with an 11 percent increase in revenue, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The company sold 92 percent of the tickets for the 1,754-seat Ordway Theater, general contributions increased by 15 percent, and half of a $20 million endowment designed to help keep opera at its present venue has been raised, said the story.
Interestingly, the past season’s presentations included not only operas that usually sell out, such as Carmen, but also a much lesser known work, Donizetti’s Maria Padilla, which attracted international attention.
Exercise Is Important for All Performers
Mezzo Janice Meyerson was engaged to sing La Frugola in Arizona Opera’s Il Tabarro. Since her character sings about her cat, Janice and the management agreed that she should bring her own kitty, an experienced performer named Mrs. Margaret, to carry on stage.
Performing in Arizona might have been good for both singer and feline, but Mrs. Margaret had been forgetting to exercise. She could no longer fit into a regulation airline cat carrier and, as a result, had to cancel her appearance. Janice sang well as usual, but the cat will have to lose weight before she can travel with her owner.
Spoleto USA Reports a Successful Season
The 17-day Spoleto Festival of Charleston, S.C. recently announced that its 2005 box office receipts exceeded last year’s total of $2.5 million by some $2,000.
General Manager Nigel Redden said he was thrilled with the results of the company’s 29th season, which included Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Walter Braunfels’ almost forgotten Die Vögel, and Ottorino Respighi’s puppet opera, La bella dormente nel bosco.
www.spoletousa.org
Manhattan School of Music Names
New President
Robert Sirota, who has been president of the Peabody Conservatory for the past 10 years, will take over the same post at the Manhattan School of Music on Oct. 1, says the Baltimore Sun. Sirota will replace Marta Casals Istomin, 67, who is leaving to spend more time on the legacies of her two late husbands, cellist Pablo Casals and pianist Eugene Istomin.
One of eight finalists for the position, Sirota, who is a composer, will also teach at the New York City school. Speaking of his appointment, Sirota commented on “the changing landscape of concert music, recordings, jazz and music theatre,” observing that this is a time in which musicians are met with both great challenges and significant opportunities.
Would You Like to Play a Musical Game?
Either Mozart, or an imposter claiming to be the composer, contrived a system that would allow anyone with some musical knowledge to put together a minuet, selecting each measure by a throw of the dice. The originator of the game wrote 176 measures of music and arranged them in a table that correlates to the results of dice throws. Players were required to follow a complicated set of rules that helped them decide where each measure should be placed in the finished composition.
Recently, the game has been reformulated for use on a computer. It can be played at <i.http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/Mozart/dice/
More information is available at http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/Mozart/dice/rules.html
and http://www.studyworksonline.com/cda/content/article/0,,EXP1237_NAV2-95_SAR1238,00.shtml
Ozawa to Remain In Vienna for Five More Years
Conductor Seiji Ozawa will stay on as music director of the Vienna State Opera until at least 2010, according to the Associated Press. A student of Herbert von Karajan and one-time assistant to Leonard Bernstein, Ozawa has conducted opera in the world’s most important theaters, including La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden and the Paris Opera.
Ozawa made his Vienna State Opera debut with Eugene Onegin in 1988, and became that company’s music director in 2003.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/news/pressrelease.aspx?id=927
