Thursday

Apololgies for thin-on-the-screen blogging. Heavy week ahoy. But if you're in Manchester on Thursday (24 May) and fancy hearing a wonderful concert of Brahms and Schumann, come to the Bridgewater Hall and pop along to the pre-concert talk at 6.30 when Lynne Walker and I will be be discussing 'Mystery, Mastery and Madness' - the cross-currents between the lives and works of the two composers. In the concert, Gianandrea Noseda will conduct the BBC Philharmonic in the Brahms Double Concerto with Olivier Charlier and Alban Gerhardt as soloists, plus, appropriately, Schumann's 'Spring' Symphony.

No.15

According to Scott Spiegelberg, JDCMB is now officially no.15 out of the top 52 classical music blogs. I'm not entirely clear how this is calculated - it involves Technorati and maths, and my strong points do not notably include understanding of either. Still, 15 sounds all right to me. Scott has the full list.

New section

I've added a new section to the sidebar entitled MUSIC INSPIRATIONS, linking to the websites of organisations that enable music to change lives. I've started with three, but there will be others in due course. Please explore!

OMG. She's back

The sensational Rinat Shaham returns to Glyndebourne to sing Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, opening next Tuesday, 22 May. I fear I shall have to put an electronic tag on Tom for every single performance.

Here's 'Rini' as Carmen...need I say more?



But hey. I can get my revenge: Rini has a brother, Hagai Shaham, who's a fabulous violinist (=prerequisite), and looks my kinda guy. Here he is with his answer to the Gypsy:



Cold showers all round.

Giuseppe MacVerdi

It's going to be a hot summer. Whenever the first Glyndebourne dress rehearsal is cold & wet, the weather for the rest of the season is glorious. Yesterday, we pinicked in the car with a thermos flask of soup.

Suitably atmospheric, of course, for the Scotland of Verdi's Macbeth. Hmm. Last year I thought that Betrothal in a Monastery was about to become the hottest ticket in town, but it wasn't, so I won't risk my luck this time. Suffice it to say that IMHO Richard Jones's production is startling, fresh, original, clever and a treat for anyone who likes hairy knees. And I'll never be able to look at a cardboard box in the same way again. Vladimir Jurowski's conducting is red-hot, seat-of-the-pants stuff and the singing - Andrzej Dobber as Macbeth and Sylvie Valayre as his blonde-beehived Lady Macbeth - is top-notch.

Debate will probably rage over whether Macbeth is this full of irony and black humour, and no doubt many will think not...but, weirdly enough, the production suits Verdi's remarkably effervescent score and I found the second half both powerful and moving.