Dame Harriet Walter stars in my play THIS FRIDAY

Please come to the Brighton Fringe and the MOOT - Music of Our Time series on FRIDAY 9 MAY when the utterly incredible Dame Harriet Walter (above) stars in my play A Walk through the End of Time together with Guy Paul, the wonderful American actor who happens to be her husband.

The play, in one act, explores the way Olivier Messiaen created his Quartet for the End of Time in a prisoner-of-war camp in 1940, through the prism of a contemporary story about two people whose lives have been profoundly touched by the work. (More about it here.) In the second half the Ether Quartet plays the complete quartet. St Nicholas's Church is close to Brighton station. Book here!

Cygnets in Odessa

Ukrainian ballerinas perform the Dance of the Cygnets from Swan Lake in front of Odessa's military museum and some tanks. The clip was apparently broadcast on Wednesday and thereafter went up online. Many thanks to Gramilano for drawing attention to it.

According to The Moscow Times:

Ballerinas in the Ukrainian city of Odessa have performed a dance from the Swan Lake ballet for Russian President Vladimir Putin — but the gesture was far from salutary.
The dance, performed to music by composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky outside Odessa's military history museum, was a nod to a Soviet-era tradition, the performance's organizer said, noting that state-run television traditionally aired classical music during periods of great change in the Soviet Union. 

"For millions of Soviet people, televised performance of the world-renowned ballet 'Swan Lake' always signaled a change in the country's leadership — either the death of the Secretary-General, or his ouster as a result of a coup," regional lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said when introducingthe performance in front of Ukrainian television cameras. 

"Because Vladimir Putin has made a fatal mistake by unleashing aggression against Ukraine, today Odessa, as a cultural capital, performs for him this portentous composition," he said in footage that aired on Ukrainian television and was posted online Wednesday. 

This morning there comes news that more than 30 people were killed and 200 injured in Odessa yesterday when a trade union building was set on fire during clashes between pro- and anti-Russian groups. Our hearts go out to everyone there, together with a plea for peace.

These Cygnets also remind us of the way that classical music/ballet is often used as a kind of official safety curtain when seismic events are taking place behind it; it is a trick that is by no means exclusive to the old USSR. Depending on who is doing it, and how, and where, and when, it can also be distraction, a whitewash, or - very occasionally - part of a larger-scale brainwash.

You don't even have to look at world politics to see this in action. I once worked for a company that had an open-plan office in Camden Town; and if you heard Bach violin concertos drifting peacefully across the space on a Friday afternoon, it was a sure-as-hell sign that in the MD's corner box someone was being made redundant.

Music to your WHAT?

It seems the profile of female conductors has been raised to the point that they can be considered a good way to advertise...well, certain bits of clothing. One maestra mate sent me a link to this video, declaring herself lost for words and hoping I'd have some. Hmm.

Vienna takes the digital Sachertorte

Have a read of this announcement today from the Vienna State Opera. Now, THAT'S the way to do it!

WIENER STAATSOPER live at home Overview
What Vienna State Opera is offering is not comparable to standard live streaming programmes – it’s more like what a TV station or network does.

•   Completely new state of the art video and audio equipment and studios have been built into the house – all remote control, invisible and distracting neither public nor artists, with full live streaming technology;
  
•   Full HD video and high end audio – every single evening can be broadcasted, if decided for, and capable of postproduction if required; for the 2014/2015 season there will be about 45 opera and ballet performances broadcasted;
  
•   A new webportal, a SmartTV, a Second Screen and a Publications App have been programmed;
  
•   Innovative technologies offer synchronized multilingual subtitles and a “moving score” functionality - the customer at home can watch the opera, while enjoying subtitles and (for selected performances) historic scores from Vienna State Opera’s archives on a tablet computer or smartphone in Wiener Staatsoper Second Screen App;
  
•   Opera lovers all over the world can switch between two live channels of the same performance at any time while watching: a total view of the stage, and a live cut opera film with closeups, moving cams, backstage views ...;
  
•   On all platforms: computer screens or connected beamer / TV set, Connected or SmartTV – on Samsung SmartTV also through an exclusive App;
  
•   Everywhere in the world at Prime Time: the live streams from Vienna State Opera are played out timeshifted, according to the viewers’ timezone;
  
•   Multimedia progamme booklets can be downloaded in the Wiener Staatsoper Publications App.
  WIENER STAATSOPER live at home is payable, not free of charge,
   because art has value, also on the internet
   new revenue streams have to be assured for the opera and its artists, facing the decline of
  the physical music industry and the chances that lie in the growing digital markets For WIENER STAATSOPER live at home
  

Vienna State Opera has been transformed into a completely independent producer of high class digital and live opera content

delivering high class opera to the homes of music lovers worldwide through the internet;
a video store opens the vast archives as “Opera rental” on-demand streams

Vienna State Opera and Samsung are working together on a world première:
 On May 7 premium UHD content – Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco with Plácido Domingo in the title role – will be streamed live for the first time ever to UHD TVs all over the world:. It will be fully implemented in the Wiener Staatsoper Samsung SmartTV App, offering a timezone shifted playout, so that opera lovers can watch this broadcast at their
respective prime time.
staatsoperlive.com | www.wiener-staatsoper.at

ENO turns to musicals

ENO announces its 2014-15 season this morning. Gently buried within is the information that they are going to do... musicals. They have a new partnership with Michael Grade and Michael Linnit to this end.

The latter two say:
"We are delighted with this unique and exciting partnership, which creates an opportunity to embrace the new climate where audiences seem to enjoy the blurring of boundaries between opera, theatre and musicals and clearly they love a first class show. Bringing the considerable creative flair of ENO to bear on modern musicals will bring new audiences to the Coliseum, new revenues to ENO, and a new look at some of the greatest pieces of musical theatre ever written."

OK, so maybe they need the money; who wouldn't these days? But er, modern musicals? Isn't the West End a bit full of commercial theatres doing this already? Major, major hmmm. That is not, repeat NOT, why we need a subsidised English-language opera house. Jerome Kern's Showboat would be great, of course, as would West Side Story, but these are hardly modern...

First reaction to the rest of the season, though, is that it is absolutely yummy scrummy. A few highlights, in no particular order:

Stuart Skelton sings Otello.
First full staging of John Adams's The Gospel According to the Other Mary, directed by Peter Sellers.
Meistersinger with Ed Gardner conducting, directed by Richard Jones. Yes yes yes!
Mike Leigh to make operatic directorial debut in The Pirates of Penzance. (?!)
Richard Jones also directs The Girl of the Golden West, with Susan Bullock as Minnie.
Felicity Palmer as the Countess in The Queen of Spades.
New opera about 9/11 by Tansy Davies.
Joanna Lee writes ENO's first opera for children.
New partnership with Bristol Old Vic => Monteverdi Orfeo directed by Tom Morris.
ENO conducting debuts for Joana Carneiro and Keri-Lynn Wilson.
London Coliseum to open to the public all day, with new foyer cafe & general retweaking of eateries/foyers.
New research project with UCL into the future of the performing arts. (But do see other announcement, top.)

UPDATE: Here is the season trailer, just released...