The unbearable lightness of...oh dear

Having greeted the idea of this CD with huge enthusiasm and given it some warm announcements right here, I'm sorry to say that a certain tenor's new recording, 'Du bist die Welt für mich' (English title is on the cover, right), has in its entirety proved a tad underwhelming. So I've written a piece for Amati's magazine about why a little lightness can't hurt. Read it here: http://www.amati.com/magazine/149-comment/comment-the-unbearable-lightness-of-jonas-kaufmann.html

Vienna breaks new operatic ground, in your home

Back in April we were quite excited to read about the Vienna State Opera's ambitious plans for digital webcasting on the grand scale. Here it comes. The ad above shows you something of what they're doing and a few questions from me about how/how much have elicited the following information: 

For payment you have several possibilities. You can pay 14 euros per view for a live opera/ballet or 5 euros per view for the performances in the vidéothèque. But you can also subscribe to the “smart live” offer which gives you eight live opera performances at home for just €11 each or the “premium live” offer with 12 months of live opera and ballet at home.

Here's how you can use the services offered by the Wiener Staatsoper at home:
- directly from the website www.staatsoperlive.com on your computer, optimally on a TV set or beamer connected to it.
- by using the Samsung Smart TV App on a Samsung TV.
- by downloading the Staatsoper Live App on your smartphones and tablets.  The latter device can also be used to see the subtitles and the scores while watching the performances on TV or computer.

The live broadcasts from the Wiener Staatsoper can be watched everywhere and are also transmitted time zone delayed within 72 hours. When you make your purchase, you can choose whether you wish to watch the broadcast live at the Vienna starting time or in your personal prime time in your time zone. You have to specify your desired starting time within 72 hours.

There are two live channels. Many opera lovers want to have a view of the entire stage the whole time, but sometimes it can be interesting to get a closer view of the singers and the events taking place on stage as well. With the live broadcasts from the Wiener Staatsoper, we offer both. Viewers at home can switch between two live channels at any time: an overall view of the stage ("Total"), and a live-edited opera film with close-ups and moving cameras. 

I particularly like the idea of the app that enables you to follow the score while listening...

The series kicks off on 14 October with Mozart's Idomeneo, directed by Kasper Holten and conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Next up, Roberto Devereux, Ariadne auf Naxos, Tannhäuser, La Bohème, Khovantshchina, The Marriage of Figaro, Mayerling, La Cenerentola, Arabella, The Nutcracker on boxing day and Die Fledermaus on new year's eve. The list, and the variety of repertoire, continues. As far as I can see, the only thing missing is a replacement for absconded maestro "Frankly..." on the conductor's podium once or twice. 

UPDATE, 8 October 11.15 am: The Vienna State Opera is very kindly offering JDCMB readers free access to the live stream of Ariadne auf Naxos on 23 October. Use the code JDCMB#aria

And finally on the Rach bag of spellings...

...let's let SERGEI RACHMANINOFF himself have the final say. As you see: Sergei with an i. Rachmaninoff with fortissimo. (I wonder what he did in London in 1929.)

Many thanks to Richard Bratby for sending me the link.

Go Sober so far, thanks and acknowledgements!

Delighted to say that in the first five days of October, Team JDCMB has clocked up £166 for the appeal by Macmillan Cancer Support. The challenge is, as you know, to stay away from alcohol for the whole of October, something that can be more difficult for journalists than we'd like it to be.

I've promised all musicians, organisations and those supporting them an on-blog acknowledgement and link by way of a thank-you, with lists presented weekly. So here is the first group of marvellous people who have given generously to our campaign.

Thank you a thousand times to:

Lady Ellen Dahrendorf
Simon Spence, chairman of the excellent Co-Opera.
David Nice, Classical Music Editor of The Arts Desk. Do take out a subscription - you get quantities of quality arts writing for less than the price of one cappuccino a month.
Gill Newman of The Chopin Society. Great series of world-class piano recitals (and the occasional concert-of-the-novel!) in Westminster Cathedral Hall on Sunday afternoons.
F L Dunkin Wedd, composer - have a listen to him at his website.
Nick Spindler

So, six days in and there's still a long way to go. Keep 'em coming, folks. It's a wonderful charity and terribly necessary.

You can donate via my personal page, or via Team JDCMB's (which is wide open for any other doughty campaigners to join, should you so wish!)

Update on Battle of the Rachs...

Interesting info re the spelling of Serge(i) Rachmaninov/ff has been popping into the in-box since my post the other day, so here's what they're saying.

Alexandra Ivanoff, culture journalist and music editor of Time Out, Istanbul, gives her interpretation:

"As I understand it from my grandparents, -OFF was their generation's anglicization of the Cyrillic letter B (lower case). The 20th century generations chose the -OV, partly because it's one less letter to deal with.

Also, the Cyrillic B can be pronounced like an f or a v, so it's kind of toss-up - that evidently continues."

My doughty editor at The Arts Desk, ace critic and Russophile David Nice, offers further explanation:

"The solution is simple, though the inconsistency is maddening: both Prokofiev and Rachmaninov were known in France as 'Serge' and with two ffs, the French transcription. They were published by Editions France de Musique which was bought up by Boosey and Hawkes, hence the publisher's insistence...The Rachmaninoff Society insists on this, and the foundation is supporting the concerts... I ALWAYS put v (and one s in Musorgsky, no reason for two in transliteration. And always Ye for the Russian E (ie Yevtushenko, Yesenin, Yevgeny, Yelena...)" 

Critic and author Matthew Rye adds: "I had always understood that the 'ff' was R's own self-spelling when he moved to the US (in the same way that Schoenberg chose to lose his umlaut and added the first 'e', and Rubinstein became Arthur rather than Artur)." 

John Riley says: "Academically it should be Rakhmaninov, but that seems the least popular option."

The discussion has put me in mind of my experience aged 18 in what would now be called a gap-year internship, but was then simply a part-time job in a year out between school and university. (It was paid, too, and we even got luncheon vouchers.) I was lucky enough to be taken on as office junior by a famous musical publication with an eminent editor, whose letters I had to type from audio-recorded dictation - and he had spelling issues that I simply could not fathom. They were far indeed from Music A level. Skryabin, for a start; and I think my fuzzy memory must have blanked out his solution to the -off/-ov issue. The most confusing, though, was Chaikovsky, with no T. The terror that this struck into my heart has never quite left me.

Come to think of it, my own name in its eastern-bloc Cyrillic original would have been best transliterated as DUKHEN. I've evidently been missing a trick. By this token you are now reading...

DZESIKA DUKHEN'S CLASSICAL MUSIC BLOG