DC Opera takeover?

The Washington National Opera is currently in negotiations with the Kennedy Center on continued use of the center as its home venue.

The Wall Street Journal's Erica Orden is told the talks are turning to merger:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704532204575397620488218174.html

The Washington Post's Anne Midgette writes that "there are some who have suggested, even behind the scenes, that the Kennedy Center take over the financially troubled company." WNO President Kenneth R. Feinberg tells Midgette that "all options are on the table" . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072906601.html

What's being considered, apparently, is an administrative partnership similar to the one that exists between the Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Unintentional mezzo joke

Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Andersson, the Swedish electro-pop duo known as The Knife, are introducing their opera "Tomorrow, in a Year" in London.

"I didn't have any knowledge of opera," Karin tells The Guardian's Priya Elan, and goes on to prove it by saying the piece is scored for "a mezzo-soprano, an opera singer and an actress" . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/28/knife-opera

. . . bringing to mind the old joke about a male vocal quartet being composed of "three men and a tenor."

Castleton's winning finale

The 2010 Castleton Festival, staged on Lorin and Dietlinde Maazel's estate in Rappahannock County, closed over the weekend with a double-bill of Igor Stravinsky's
"L'histoire du Soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale") and Manuel de Falla's "Master Pedro's Puppet Show."

Here's a review of the productions by The Washington Post's Anne Midgette:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502616.html

* * *

The New York Times reports that Lorin Maazel was paid $3.3 million in his last season (2008-09) as music director of the New York Philharmonic. His earnings from the Castleton Festival? Zero.

In 1999, then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told Virginians that they should gratefully accept the city's garbage in this state's commercial landfills because, as he said on PBS' NewsHour, "we're a cultural center, because we're a business center. . . . So this is a reciprocal relationship."

Reciprocally, then, the big bucks that New Yorkers paid for Maazel's services now subsidize a first-rate music festival in the hill country of Virginia.

Proms online

The Proms, the classical concert series staged each summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, is under way again, and the performances are being streamed online. The BBC's overview of the 2010 festival, which runs through Sept. 11, is here:

www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/

BBC3's broadcasts of the concerts (UK time is five hours ahead of US Eastern time) can be accessed here:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/

Previous broadcasts are archived for one week here:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t02py/episodes/player

txt @ concert :(

At its recent Central Park concert with pianist Lang Lang and the Shanghai Symphony, the New York Philharmonic invited concertgoers to vote for an encore via text-messages. Voters got a reply offering a discount on the pianist's next recording and directing them to his Facebook page. Other such interactions have gotten texters offers of ticket discounts and solicitations for donations, Daniel J. Wakin reports in The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/arts/music/22text.html?_r=1&hp

Am I the only one feeling nostalgic about "please turn off your electronic devices?"

ANOTHER VIEW: Highbrow groups, "which we'd wager are struggling just as much as any other sector in this economy, are no longer willing to thumb their noses at cell phone spam if it means any kind of positive return," Matthew Zuras writes for the online magazine Switched:

http://www.switched.com/2010/07/23/fancy-orchestra-goers-disturbed-by-lowly-text-marketing/

'Last man standing'

The Washington Post's Anne Midgette interviews Klaus Heymann, founder and CEO of Naxos, who aims to be "the last man standing" in the business of recording classical music:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-classical-beat/2010/07/the_future_of_the_recording_in.html#more

Note Heymann's remarks on the recession: "The 2008 recession hit manufacturing. People in manufacturing don’t buy classical music. . . . But in the [U.S.], if they start firing school teachers and government employees, that will affect classical music sales."

BACKLOG: Naxos has "149 orchestral recordings in the pipeline now; 174 chamber music, 148 instrumental, 85 vocal/choral. More than 700 in all. I told my staff not to take on new projects for a year, maybe a year and a half," Heymann tells The Baltimore Sun's Tim Smith:

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/classicalmusic/2010/07/naxos_founder_klaus_heymann_up.html

Charles Mackerras (1925-2010)

Charles Mackerras, the conductor esteemed for his mastery of orchestral and operatic repertory from the baroque to the modern, has died at the age of 84.

Born in Schenectady, NY, to Australian parents, Mackerras was reared, received his early music education and began his career as an oboist in Australia. He moved to Great Britain in 1947, and subsequently studied conducting with Vaclav Talich in Prague.

He remained an authority on Czech music, notably the operas of Leos Janáček, throughout his career. He was also among the leading interpreters of Handel and Mozart in the opera house and concert hall.

Mackerras was one of the first conductors to alternate freely between modern- and period-instruments ensembles, and one of the first "mainstream" musical figures to apply historically informed performance practices to 19th-century repertory – for example, leading Brahms’ symphonies with the smaller orchestra that the composer would have known in his lifetime.

Mackerras was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, but continued to perform. He had been scheduled to conduct two concerts this summer in the Proms series in London.

An obituary by The Guardian’s Matthew Weaver:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/15/conductor-charles-mackerras-dies

Alan Blyth, who died in 2007, left this more extensive obituary, also published by The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/15/sir-charles-mackerras-obituary