N.C. Symphony cuts season, salaries

The North Carolina Symphony, which ended the season $4 million in debt, has cut its musicians' contracted working year from 43 to 37 weeks plus one week of unpaid furlough, which will reduce players' incomes by 17 percent in the coming season.

Grant Llewellyn, the orchestra's music director, will take a 10 percent salary cut, and its president and CEO, David Chambliss Worters, will take a 30 percent salary cut. The orchestra already had canceled engagements of some guest soloists and conductors, reduced its concert and touring schedule and eliminated programming requiring extra musicians.

The orchestra's operating budget is being cut from $14.1 million in 2008-09 to $11.9 million in 2009-10, Rob Christensen reports in The News & Observer of Raleigh:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1606526.html

New York Times selling WQXR

The New York Times has agreed to the sale of WQXR, the classical-music radio station it has owned since 1944, in a deal with New York public-radio station WNYC and the broadcasting firm Univision.

WQXR will become a listener-supported station with a narrower broadcast radius; its webcasts (via http://www.wqxr.com/cgi-bin/iowa/air/listen/index.html) will not be affected by the deal, expected to go through late this year, The Times reports:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/arts/music/15radio.html?_r=1&ref=music

Castleton Festival returns in 2010

Conductor Lorin Maazel has announced a second season of the Castleton Festival at Maazel's Castleton Farms in Rappahannock County in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwestern Virginia.

The second season, which will run from July 2-18, 2010, will present two new chamber-opera productions and a revival of one of the four Britten operas being staged this summer. Programming will be announced later.

In the current economic downturn, "we should have been deterred, but we weren’t," Maazel said in a prepared statement. Castleton events "have been packed all the way through the festival, and we look towards the future with confidence knowing that there are people out there who appreciate what we’re doing and that love us and as much as we love them," he added.

For details on the current Castleton Festival, running through July 19, visit www.castletonfestival.org

Music to 'keep people moving'

The Lynchburg Public Library has installed a sound system that pipes baroque music, swing tunes and opera into its parking lot, joining "a growing number of communities worldwide using music to discourage loitering and prevent crime," Alicia Petska reports in The News & Advance:

http://www.newsadvance.com/lna/news/local/article/lynchburg_public_library_pumps_music_into_parking_lot_for_security/17551/

Petska quotes the director of the southern Virginia city's library system: "We’re trying to create an overall more pleasant environment for all users. And to keep people moving."

Castleton Festival opens

The reviews are in for the opening of the Castleton Festival, a production of Britten's "The Turn of the Screw."

The festival, staged by conducted Lorin Maazel and his wife, Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, at Castleton Farms, their estate in Rappahannock County, continues through July 19 with productions of Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia" and "Albert Herring" and the composer's adaptation of "The Beggar's Opera" in the 131-seat Theatre House (a converted hatchery building), as well as two outdoor orchestra concerts and other events on the farm and at satellite locations. (For details, see the July calendar.)

My introduction to the Castleton Festival, with comments from Lorin Maazel, in print in Style Weekly, online at:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=92CBF6163B1A49EDA35EE49A248BA3C9&AudID=C3A7C1EDE4E54E24AF4637F9AAFFD1B6

Here's Anne Midgette's review of "The Turn of the Screw" in The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/05/AR2009070502601.html

Tim Smith's review and take-you-there in the Baltimore Sun:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/2009/07/castleton_festival_on_lorin_ma.html#more

Charles T. Downey's review, posted on Ionarts:

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2009/07/summer-at-opera-castleton-festival-1.html

Symphony Chorus auditions

The Richmond Symphony Chorus, directed by Erin Freeman, will hold auditions for the 2009-10 season from 6:30-9:30 p.m. Aug. 18. The deadline for applications is July 10.

In the coming season, the Symphony Chorus will perform in Orff's "Carmina Burana," Handel's "Messiah," the "Let It Snow!" holiday pops concert, Borodin's "Polovtsian Dances" and Brahms' "Gesang der Parzen" and "Nänie."

The chorus rehearses from 7:30-10 p.m. Tuesdays at Grace Baptist Church, 4200 Dover Road in Windsor Farms.

For an application and more information, call (804) 788-4717, Ext. 109, or visit www.richmondsymphony.com

Theater of the perverse

Writing for The Guardian, Geoffrey Wheatcroft surveys the twisted world of Regieoper ("director's opera"), in which "there is no stage direction however simple, or musical sense however clear, that some director somewhere can't ignore it," and offers examples of directors' abuses ranging from the laughable to the barf-inducing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/01/falstaff-opera-regieoper

Wheatcroft, alas, is an aging Brit, a perfect foil for the kind of director who likes to confront or confound the opera audience.