Mao Weitao has performed in Yue opera (the form from the city of Shaoxing) for almost 50 years, and she’s one of very few performers in traditional Chinese theater to have achieved mainstream celebrity. And she’s done that in part by upending the conventions of the genre. - Sixth Tone
We already knew that the cost would be huge — €1.15 billion for the overhaul and a temporary venue at the former Tempelhof Airport — but Philharmonie management announced that the project is expected to last from 2032 to 2040. (And that’s before overruns.) - AP
The musicians say that, in contract negotiations, management has rejected any cost-of-living increases in pay. (Their salaries have been flat for the past four years.) The company’s season begins on Halloween with the world premiere of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Minita Gandhi. - Minnesota Public Radio
Well, so says librettist Royce Vavrek. The subject matter — Abraham Lincoln grieving his young son Willie, who is stuck in the place between death and rebirth — would seem grim. So Vavrek and composer Missy Mazzoli took care to include humor and even joy. - AP
"LA Opera should be an identity, unmistakably, just be L.A. Never imitate any other opera capital in the world. We are not New York, Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin, Vienna. So, what is L.A.? It’s creativity. It’s cinema, theater, visual art, technology, and all these together, that makes the LA Opera." - San Francisco Classical Voice
That day, October 20, is opening night for a new production of Gounod’s Faust, directed by Johannes Erath and conducted by Daniele Rustioni. House employees are demanding that their next contract include a 15% increase in gross pay. - Moto Perpetuo
While the ACO is perhaps best known, outside Australia at least, for its championing of new music alongside the classics, at home it’s Tognetti’s openness to music from other genres, and the rich cross-fertilisation that results, for which he’s equally celebrated. - Gramophone
Independent artists, Sahunta tells Rolling Stone, “are unfortunately the most powerless group in the music industry. And the irony is we comprise the majority of music on streaming, yet we’re so easily taken advantage of and screwed over by these companies that claim they are for independent artists… - Rolling Stone
“(It’s) the kind of thing that you do when you’re younger and you’re figuring out how exactly it is that you’re going to work,” the composer said of In All Your Ways. “It’s invigorating to be 89 and say, ‘Well, this is new!’” - The New York Times
“Since COVID, the orchestra feels that it has fallen behind some of the other Canadian orchestras and they’re not happy about it,” said a union official. “There are other odds and ends, like work schedules, but primarily it is money.” - Ottawa Citizen
More to the point, why are some of them so dire? There’s no comparison between God Save the King and La Marseillaise; one’s a dirge, the other makes me want to march to the barricades. - The Guardian
"'Wild scene,' the writer George Saunders said, a little wide-eyed, after witnessing a portion of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lincoln in the Bardo unfold." - The New York Times
"There is something profoundly human about sitting quietly in a great building, hearing young and old voices combine in astonishingly beautiful music." - The Guardian (UK)
Andrew Potter says it's the money. "We just have to start telling the truth, and that is that unless you're in the top 1- or 2% of singers in the world, this is not something that you'll be able to sustain a family with." - NPR
“So this machine that we have here is the only machine currently in service for two-inch, 24-track — it's a Studer 827 from, I believe, the late ‘90s,” Healey said as he guided the media across magnetic heads. - WBUR
