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Recently, the Metropolitan Opera has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Be it pre-season labor disputes with the man Peter Gelb, opening night unrest care of Leon Klinghoffer and Rudy Guiliani or just a simple technical glitch during the broadcast at your local cinema, what's been lost as of late is a lot. Such controversies, however inflated, do obscure the institution's real mission statement. First and perhaps foremost, is the fact that the Met remains this country's most enduring repertory company. For every Klinghoffer or Iolanta premiere in 2014-15, there are as many, if not more, reheated Aidas and prefab Meistersingers. Come the holidays, highly touted new productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and The Merry Widow will run alongside evergreen faire like Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Hansel and Gretel. And, let's be honest, it is the latter, lighter of these programming options that the casual opera-goer is wont to experience there at Lincoln Center. In fact, Mr. Gelb is banking on it. -
Katherine Jenkins Sings Bizet's 'Carmen,' "Dreaming of the Days" (Ludovico Einaudi's 'I Giorni') Single from New Album 'Home Sweet Home' at SubCulture
Seriously, though, can Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins really sing opera? It's a curious line of inquiry everyone who has heard her asks. Eventually. -
Joshua Bell on HBO YoungArts Masterclass & Mendelssohn Octet; Washington Metro Reprise & Bach Concertos
With his Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority mulligan miles behind him, Joshua Bell is Skyping with me from his suite at the Ritz-Carlton, Dubai. As per usual when talking to the press, the world's greatest living violinist is in between rehearsals. Yes, Bell has traveled to the United Arab Emirates to perform Felix Mendelssohn's 'Violin Concerto' in E minor, Op. 64 at the Royal Opera House Muscat with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields--the storied British band, founded by Sir Neville Marriner in 1958, that Bell remains the only American to have led as both music director and conductor. -
UPDATE: Polish Pianist Rafal Blechacz Receives the 2014 Gilmore Artist Award...and $300,000
UPDATE: Well, it's official now in Kalamazoo. 28-year-old polish pianist Rafal Blechaz (pronounced BLEH-hatch) has received the 2014 Gilmore Artist Award. -
Franz Welser-Möst Taking Over Zubin Mehta's 'Der Rosenkavalier' at Salzburg
Suffice it to say that Q4 of 2013 hasn't been too kind to, quote, "one of the greatest global living Indians." For starters, Zubin Mehta made a mess of things with Bavaria in Kashmir. (Why there wasn't more of an outcry from the Bayerisches Staatsorchester back in Munich... -
WATCH: Russian/British/Jewish Pianist Evgeny Kissin on Finally Getting His Israeli Passport
Russian/British/Jewish pianist Evgeny Kissin issued the following quite emotional appeal--in Russian/English/Hebrew--for his fellow professionals' solidarity with his newest country.
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