Back soonish

To forestall any more barbed comments from the likes of Viola in Vilnius below, this is just to say I am, as a friend of mine would say, "under the snow". Normal blogging, both writing and reading, to resume as soon as humanly possible.

Whatever will they think of next?

First it was classical music in the London underground to soothe commuters. Now it's ballet-dancing traffic cops - at least, in Timisoara. Read all about it.

More about traffic, too, in the marvellous tale of how a motorbike courier made everything possible for ace soprano Marina Poplavskaya, who's about to sing Tatyana in the ROH's Eugene Onegin - here's my interview with her from yesterday's Independent. Spassiba balshoy, Marina, and toi-toi for the big day!

Oscar and Dario

Big cheers and congratulations to our fabulous Italian turned Londoner Dario Marianelli, whose music for Atonement last night scooped the Oscar for Best Original Score. Watch his 'thank-you cam' spiel here. And for a more in-depth look at the score, read his interview at Music from the Movies here.

Heard the one about the naked busker in the ROH 'Salome'?

If not, hear it in the Sunday Times today, here.

Meadows, 35, will appear in a new production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, where he will take centre stage at the end as the executioner, chopping off the head of John the Baptist before handing it to Salome.

How did a busker capture the spotlight inside Covent Garden? The transformation began when Meadows, a body builder and former Mr Wales, was spotted in the piazza outside the opera house by David McVicar, one of the world’s best opera directors.

“I saw him outside and thought that he had just the right body for the part,” said McVicar. “But he also had the ability to move well, and, particularly importantly, to stand still, which is necessary for the role of the executioner as for much of the time he is stationary in the crowd...”

Viva Maya & Rodion

The Shchedrins have been in town for last night's UK premiere, chez BBC Maida Vale, of Rodion Shchedrin's Concerto Parlando for violin and trumpet, written for Philippe's festival in St Nazaire in 2004 and now recorded by said violinist, trumpeter Martin Hurrell and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Agrest for future broadcast on BBCR3 and, we hope, an eventual CD.

I'd have posted something ahead of the concert, but it was already chockablock and about 40 people were turned away at the door. For future ref for those within easy reach of Little Venice, it's worth keeping an eye on the Maida Vale studio concerts because they offer world class music free on your doorstep, if you book in quickly...

This morning I went to interview Shchedrin, who is not only charming but utterly fascinating (more of this in due course). His wife, Bolshoi prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya, kindly autographed one of her DVDs that I'd brought along.

For ballet nuts like me, Plisetskaya is basically God. Here she is in Maurice Bejart's Bolero, choreography as startling and elemental a force as she is herself. (It's only viewable on Youtube in two parts, but at least it is viewable.)