The Guardian's obituary of Evelyn Barbirolli, the English oboist and widow of the conductor John Barbirolli, notes: "In 1948 she gave the first performance of the newly discovered Mozart Oboe Concerto at the Mozarteum in Salzburg." A little reminder of how many now-standard classical works were unknown not so long ago.
The obituary, by The Guardian's June Emerson:
http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2248512,00.html
My take on the current state and future prospects of classical music in Richmond is in print in the Winter Arts issue of Style Weekly, online at:
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=16218&letmein=1
The Virginia Opera will present an exclusively Italian season of Verdi, Donizetti, Puccini and Rossini in 2008-09.
* Verdi’s "Il Trovatore," cast including Eiliana Lappalainen (as Leonora), Gustavo López Manzitti (Manrico), Nmon Ford (Count di Luna) and Victoria Livengood (Azucena), Oct. 3, 5, 8, 10 and 12 at Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House, Oct. 17 and 19 at the Center for the Arts, George Mason University, in Fairfax, Oct. 24 and 26 at Richmond’s Landmark Theater.
* Donizetti’s "The Elixir of Love," cast including Jane Redding (Adina) and Joshua Kohl (Nemorino), Nov. 14, 16, 19, 21 and 23 in Norfolk, Nov. 28 and 30 in Richmond, Dec. 5 and 6 in Fairfax.
* Puccini’s "Tosca," cast to be announced, Jan. 30, Feb. 1, 4, 6 and 8 in Norfolk, Feb. 13 and 15 in Fairfax, Feb. 20 and 22 in Richmond.
* Rossini’s "The Barber of Seville," cast including Jason Detwiler (Figaro), Steven Condy (Dr. Bartolo) and Mark McCrory (Don Basilio), March 13, 15, 18, 20 and 22 in Norfolk, March 27 and 29 in Richmond, April 3 and 5 in Fairfax.
Peter Mark, Virginia Opera’s artistic director, marking his 100th production with the company in 34 seasons, will conduct "Trovatore," "Tosca" and "Barber." Joseph Walsh, the company’s associate conductor, will lead "Elixir."
Season subscriptions are $99-$531 in Norfolk, $81-$297 in Richmond. Fairfax subscription prices will be announced later.
Details: (866) 673-7282, www.vaopera.org
Three dozen Virginia Tech students get "pre-litigation settlement letters" from the Recording Industry Association of America about alleged illegal music downloading, Rex Bowman reports in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-01-23-0116.html
"Altogether 4,400 students at 158 U.S. campuses are facing demands to pay $3,000 to $5,000 for alleged piracy," reports the British columnist Norman Lebrecht.
Lebrecht recalls asking a record-label executive 10 years ago about how the industry would cope with music file-sharing. "The response was, 'We've put the lawyers onto it.' There was no B-plan. So set was the biz in its ways, so wedded to the [compact disc], that it did not recognise the download culture until too late."
http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/080123-NL-future.html
Meanwhile, Greg Kot writes in the Chicago Tribune, "the Songwriters Association of Canada is proposing a $5-a-month licensing fee on every wireless and Internet account in the country, in exchange for unlimited access to all recorded music."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/chi-0120_musicbiz_coverjan20,1,5854932.story?track=rss
David Simon, creator of the cable-TV series "The Wire" and former police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, offers as clear an explanation as I've read of why newspapers, and newsgathering in general, are in decline:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011802874.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Mark Russell Smith conducting
Jan. 19, First Baptist Church, Richmond
Mark Russell Smith will continue as music director of the Richmond Symphony through the 2008-09 season, but this month’s Masterworks series concerts may turn out to be the 
artistic culmination of his decade in Richmond.
The program is devoted entirely to the Austro-German classical and romantic repertory in which Smith has excelled. Its main attraction is the Ninth Symphony of Anton Bruckner, whose massive, austere symphonies Smith has conducted most memorably, if not always to the most enthusiastic receptions from musicians and audiences.
This Ninth is the best of Smith’s Bruckner, a performance of technical precision, intense concentration, imposing sonority, reverence and passion. This interpretation reveals the internal logic of the composer’s rocky streams of consciousness, not just making sense of movements that meander through long explications and lurch between dissimilar themes and contrasting tones of voice, but making Bruckner’s often ungainly musical syntax sound like epic sacred poetry. It also fully vents the Wagnerian sensuality of lyrical themes, a quality rarely heard in performances of Bruckner's late works.
The orchestra played keenly and sensitively in the Jan. 19 concert. A smallish complement of 40 strings held its own against oversized (and elevated) brass choirs, and eight French horns (four of the players doubling on Wagner tubas in the final adagio) sounded far more cohesive and refined than might be expected from two regular and six substitute players. Horn player Paul LaFollette, oboist Gustav Highstein and clarinetist Ralph Skiano were fluent and expressive in their solos, and flutist Mary Boodell found just the right tone for her elusive balancing act with the Wagner tubas.
Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth – he died, in 1896, while still struggling to compose a final fourth movement – was preceded by the best-known of unfinished symphonies, Schubert’s two-movement Symphony in B minor, long numbered his Eighth, now listed as his Seventh. (Its nickname notwithstanding, available evidence suggests that Schubert considered it a finished symphony; several attempts to tack on two more movements have not improved it.)
Smith and the orchestra emphasized the symphony's abundant lyricism, but not at the expense of its emotional turbulence. String and wind timbres were suitably dark, and, in a refreshing departure from the usual treatment of this frequently played piece, collective string tone was not excessively lush or sweet.
The program opens with six German dances that Mozart wrote for the court balls of Vienna in the late 1780s. Each of the first five could serve as the menuet of a garden-variety classical-period symphony. The sixth is enlivened by "Turkish" percussion – side drum and cymbals – and complementary effusions from high winds.
The program repeats at 8 p.m. Jan. 21 at St. Michael Catholic Church, 4491 Springfield Road, in Glen Allen. Tickets: $28. Details: (804) 788-1212, www.richmondsymphony.com
Renée Fleming will make her debut with the Washington National Opera next season, starring in Donizetti’s "Lucrezia 
Borgia." The company also will stage Wagner’s "Siegfried" in advance of three full performances of the composer’s "Ring" cycle in November 2009.
The WNO’s 2008-09 season opens with Verdi’s "La Traviata" (Sept. 13-Oct. 5), and continues with Bizet’s "The Pearl Fishers" (Sept. 20-Oct. 7). "Lucrezia Borgia" (Nov. 1-17), in which Fleming alternates with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role, will be conducted by Plácido Domingo, the company’s general director. The fall season concludes with Bizet’s "Carmen" (Nov. 8-19), starring Denyce Graves, and two Domingo-led performances of Rossini’s "Petite Messe Solennelle" (Nov. 21-22), featuring Andrea Bocelli among the soloists.
The company’s spring 2009 productions are Britten’s "Peter Grimes" (March 21-April 4), "Siegfried" (May 2-17) and Puccini’s "Turandot" (May 16-June 4).
The WNO’s cycle of "Das Rheingold," "Die Walküre," "Siegfried" and "Götterdämmerung" will be staged on Nov. 2, 3, 5 and 7; Nov. 9, 10, 12 and 14; and Nov. 16, 17, 19 and 21, 2009. The cast includes Alan Held (Wotan), Iréne Theorin (Brünnhilde), Gordon Hawkins (Alberich), Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Anja Kampe (Sieglinde), Ian Storey (Siegfried), Elisabeth Bishop (Fricka), Gidon Saks (Hunding), Robin Leggate (Loge) and David Cangelosi (Mime). Heinz Fricke, the company’s music director, is slated to conduct. Francesca Zambello is the stage director of this co-production of the WNO and San Francisco Opera.
Subscriptions for the 2008-09 season are available by calling (800) 876-7372. For information on ticket packages for the 2009 "Ring," call (877) 640-7464.
More details on the coming season and "Ring" at the Washington National Opera Web site:
http://www.dc-opera.org/
