Long live King Roger!

Karol Szymanowski's operatic masterpiece is coming up at the Royal Opera House next week, and not a moment too soon. My God, what an impossibly gorgeous score it is. I nearly died of joy the first time I heard it. So I had a chat with its director, Kasper Holten - and wasn't sorry to hear about his passion for early 20th-century opera, or the fact that one of his happiest experiences to date was with Korngold's Die tote Stadt (his production, for the Finnish National Opera, is on DVD).

Tony Pappano conducts, the wonderful Mariusz Kwiecień is the King, Georgia Jarman is Queen Roxana and the production opens 1 May. NB the live streaming on the Internet on 16 May.

Here's my piece from today's Independent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/karol-szymanowskis-krl-roger-a-forgotten-classic-setto-rule-again-10193436.html

Dinosaurs, brainwashing and bunkum...

The other day I came across the expression "Music shouldn't be a Museum Culture" just once too often. I've got out my Amati Soapbox to explain why I think this clichéd phrase is a daft bit of pernicious brainwashing idiocy... http://magazine.amati.com/149-comment/comment-dinosaurs-brainwashing-bunkum.html

A big step up for...

...the brilliant young British-Australian conductor, Jessica Cottis, who has just been signed up for general management by Inverne Price. This is a Very Good Thing. Official info below.

If by their pedigree shall you judge a young conductor, Jessica Cottis is set to do great things. She has recently finished her tenure as Assistant Conductor at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, first to Vladimir Ashkenazy and then to David Robertson, and previously she has assisted Donald Runnicles at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas with the San Francisco Symphony. Before all of which, the Royal Academy of Music graduate was taught by Sir Colin Davis. In the light of such undoubted talent and musical intelligence, Inverne Price Music Consultancy is delighted to announce that they have signed Jessica Cottis for general management.

Hailed as a "fast-rising star" by Jessica Duchen in the UK's Classical Music Magazine, "one of the big hopes for change" by the Sydney Morning Herald and as one of The Independent's "next generation" of five conductors making their mark in Britain (a list that put Cottis in the company of Robin Ticciati and Daniel Harding), the Scottish-Australian maestra is racking up the impressive credits expected from conductors of her calibre. She has given high-profile performances with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony (where she returns later this month with soloist Sarah Chang), BBC Scottish Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony, Bit20 Ensemble, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales; Scottish Opera, the Edinburgh Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival and elsewhere. Yet amidst all of the Mozart and Beethoven and her beloved Richard Strauss, Cottis always looks to find time for her passion projects away from the well-trodden paths.

These include conducting an all female composers programme in Cardiff for International Women's Day and the Women Of The World Orchestra at London's Royal Festival Hall, founding London's Bloomsbury Opera, championing the music of her native Australia and bringing contemporary music into the spotlight. This last led to one of her career breakthroughs, the hugely successful premiere of James Dillon's Nine Rivers cycle with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Les Percussions de Strasbourg - an event that The Guardian called "unquestionably the most significant new-music event in Britain this year." In 2014, she conducted a new work by Peter Maxwell Davies  for the opening of the restored organ at London's Royal Festival Hall. Most recently, Cottis was appointed Principal Conductor of the new Scotland-based ensemble, the Glasgow New Music Expedition.

"I am obsessed with great music, whether new or old, symphonic or opera," she says, "and as much as anything, conducting the music of our own time guides us to discover anew the relevance, excitement and sense of adventure of the music of the past. So that Mozart and Berlioz and Wagner and the rest become again the music of the present."

Cottis's talent as a communicator has been welcomed by broadcasters. She has  appeared on various programs, including as conducting mentor to presenter Jenni Murray on a Radio "Woman's Hour" special (BBC Radio 4) and in a similar capacity to DJ Trevor Nelson in BBC Two Television's series "Maestro at the Opera". She has broadcast on the subjects of Brahms and of Verdi, both for Radio 4.

Ahead of her coming engagement at the Queensland Symphony - other forthcoming engagements include the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and a return to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - she was asked to write a feature for Australia's Limelight magazine on today's "golden age" for Australian composers, which can be read here. And you can watch Cottis conduct the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at her new YouTube channel.

Between Worlds: the premiere

I reviewed ENO's world premiere last night of Between Worlds, Tansy Davies's new opera with librettist Nick Drake on the awe-inspiring topic of 9/11. The piece? Quite a lot of problems where different aspects were at odds with each other, but some of us wept anyway. The performance? Superb. My review is in The Arts Desk, here (£).

Now Tchaikovsky announces contestants

Hot on the heels of Leeds, Moscow has declared its participants for this year's Tchaikovsky Competition. In four categories - piano (61 accepted), violin (50), cello (49), voice (40 male, 39 female) - there are only two from the UK, and they are both pianists: Oleksandr Grynyuk and Alexander Ullman (who is indeed going for 'the triple'). Quite a few non-UK nationals are studying here, though, including, we're told, six at the RCM.

Among the female singers, all but nine of 39 are Russian. Your grasp of cyrillic, though, has to be rather good to determine exactly who they are. I find it somewhat unsettling to log in to the site to read the list, only to discover that Russian contestants are listed in cyrillic lettering, along with one from Belarus and one from Moldova. Everyone else is in our plain old usual alphabet. Honest, guv. Have a look.