Royal Opera Appoints Jakub Hrůša; Philippe Jordan to Leave Vienna

Well, now, here is a biggie: Jakub Hrůša will succeed Sir Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, starting in September, 2025. He immediately takes the title Music Director Designate.

And here is another: Philippe Jordan will leave Vienna after 2025, when his contract ends. (From the November, 2022 issue of Opera.)

Open positions:

• Marin Symphony
• Indianapolis Symphony
• Sarasota Orchestra, following the death of Bramwell Tovey
• Seattle Symphony, following Thomas Dausgaard's abrupt departure in January, 2022
• Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where Riccardo Muti leaves at the end of 2022-23
• Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra: open in 2024
• Staatskapelle Dresden: open in 2024
• New York Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Hong Kong Philharmonic, when Jaap van Zweden leaves in 2024.
• Oakland Symphony, owing to the death of Michael Morgan in August, 2021.
• Teatro Regio Turin: Open now with departure of Gianandrea Noseda. The Teatro Regio has not named a new music director.
• Minnesota Opera: Michael Christie has left. MO has not named a new music director. 
• Virginia Symphony: JoAnn Falletta is now laureate, but no successor has been named.
• Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
• San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, at the end of 2022-23.
• Marin Symphony, at the end of 2022-23.
• Vienna Staatsoper, when Philippe Jordan leaves at the end of 2025.

Conductors looking for jobs (that is, as of the near future, or now, they do not have a posting): 

• Osmo Vänskä
• Alasdair Neale
• Ben Simon
• Susanna Mälkki, who leaves the Helsinki Philharmonic at the end of 2023-24
• MGT (apparently does not want a full-time job, as of early 2022)
• Krzysztof Urbański
• Miguel Harth-Bedoya
• Lionel Bringuier
• Ludovic Morlot
• Sian Edwards
• Ingo Metzmacher
• Jac van Steen
• Mark Wigglesworth
• David Robertson
• Peter Oundjian
• Philippe Auguin
• Kwame Ryan
• Ilan Volkov
• Aleksandr Markovic
• Lothar Koenigs
• Henrik Nanasi
• Philippe Jordan, eventually

And closed:

• Seoul Philharmonic appoints Jaap van Zweden.
• Royal Opera appoints Jakub Hrůša to succeed Antonio Pappano in September, 2025.
• Garry Walker: now full-time music director of Opera North
• Jun Markl: music director of the Malaysian Philharmonic
• Juanjo Mena: music director of the Cincinnati May Festival
• Eric Jacobsen is the new music director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
• Andrés Orozco-Estrada is now music director of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (not to be confused with the Vienna Philhamonic).
• James Gaffigan appointed Music Director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, succeeding Henrik Nanasi, who left several years ago. 
• Royal Stockholm Philharmonic: Ryan Bancroft is chief conductor designate. He starts in 2023-24.
• Anja Bihlmaier is the new chief conductor of the Residentie Orchestra, The Hague.
• Dalia Stasevska is the new chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
• Daniela Candillari named principal conductor of OTSL.
• Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where Klaus Mäkelä, now their artistic partner, becomes chief conductor in 2027.
• Jonathon Heyward becomes music director of the Baltimore Symphony, succeeding Marin Alsop. Baltimore is not in great shape; they've had terrible management and terrible financial problems, although they've also hired Mark Hanson, who is known to be competent.
• Thomas Søndergård becomes music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, succeeding Osmo Vänskä. (The NY Times can manage the umlauts in Vänskä, but not the diacriticals in Søndergård. C'mon, you can do better than that.) Two interesting things about Søndergård: he was a timpanist, unusual among conductors, who tend to be pianists; he married his partner, a baritone, less than two weeks ago. Me, I'm wondering whether he was worried that Obergefell might be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, given Justice Thomas's threat in Dobbs.
• Michigan Opera Theater: new principal conductor is Daniela Candillari.
• Teatro Comunale, Bologna: Oksana Lyniv becomes music director.
• Sarasota Orchestra: Bramwell Tovey becomes MD in 2022-23.
• Atlanta Symphony: Nathalie Stutzmann to succeed Robert Spano in 2022-23.
• Carlos Kalmar is now Director of Orchestral and Conducting Programs and Principal Conductor of the Cleveland Institute of Musicas well as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. 
• Houston Synphony: Juraj Valčuha to succeed Andrés Orozco-Estrada.
• Opera de Paris: Gustavo Dudamel succeeds Philippe Jordan.
• Melbourne Symphony: Jaime Martin becomes chief conductor in 2022. Sir Andrew Davis left at the end of 2019. 
• City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Kazuki Yamada replaces MGT when she leaves at the end of 2021-22
• London Symphony Orchestra: Sir Antonio Pappano becomes Chief Conductor Designate in September, 2023, Chief Conductor the following year.
• Fort Worth Symphony: Robert Spano to succeed Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
• Oregon Symphony: David Danzmayr succeeds Carlos Kalmar at the beginning of the 2021-22 season.
• Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Maxim Emelyanychev has succeeded Robin Ticciati
• Orchestre de Paris: Klaus Mäkelä to succeed Daniel Harding
• Montreal Symphony Orchestra: Rafael Payare has succeeded Kent Nagano.
• Richmond Symphony: Valentina Peleggi succeeds Steven Smith.
• Singapore Symphony: Hans Graf succeeded Lan Shui.
• BBC National Orchestra of Wales: Ryan Bancroft succeeded Thomas Søndergård
• BRSO hires Sir Simon Rattle to succeed the late Mariss Jansons, effective 2023.

News from London

Something not-quite-old, something very new.

The news came out a few weeks ago that no, London will not be getting a new concert hall after all. This plan, to build a new Centre for Music at the current site of the Museum of London, dates from 2019.

What changed? Brexit and the announcement that Sir Simon Rattle was returning to Germany after a sadly short tenure at the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Closely related is today's news: Sir Antonio Pappano will take the helm of the LSO following Rattle's departure. He becomes Chief Conductor Designate in September, 2023, and steps down from Covent Garden at the end of the 2023-24 season. This opens up the top job at the ROH, of course.

Upcoming Livestreams

Here are several upcoming livestreams that are awfully close to the don't-miss category for me. First, we've got hot and cold running Trittico performances, then a pair of great works by Philip Glass.

• In 2009, San Francisco Opera performed a modern-dress Il Trittico with Patricia Racette in the three leading female roles. She was especially great in Suor Angelica, where Ewa Podles was her terrifying aunt, and in Gianni Schicchi, which I think is the funniest hour of opera ever written. Her accomplices included the wonderful Paolo Gavanelli as Michele in Il Tabarro and the title character in Gianni Schicchi, Brandon Jovanovich, David Lomeli, Meredith Arwady, Andrea Silvestrelli, Catherine Cook, and others, many others. The production came from NYCO, so the likelihood is that it is gone gone gone. I loved this production so much I saw it three times. SFO streams this production from their home page on Saturday, June 13, at 10 AM Pacific Time. If you're a subscriber or donor, it will be available to you past the initial window; just log in with your SFO account.
• The Royal Opera is streaming another modern-dress Il Trittico, this one by Richard Jones, on YouTube. It's running until June 19. Annoyingly, their site doesn't have the full cast list...
• The Met is streaming Akhnaten and Satyagraha next week, on the 19th and 20th. I saw Akhnaten on the big screen in the HD Live series, and the same Satyagraha production a couple of years ago at LA Opera. Both are Phelim McDermott productions, and they're excellent.

Guest Post: The Exterminating Angel

Review by Burst of Beaden

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

April 24, 2017

Music by Thomas Ades

Libretto by Tom Cairns

Conducted by Thomas Ades

Directed by Tom Cairns

Royal Opera Orchestra & Chorus

For anyone who has seen Luis Bunuel's 1962 surrealist film, "The Exterminating Angel", the idea of writing a theatrical version might seem like a very bad idea The film depicts a dinner party where the guests are not able to call it a night and leave. They remain in the same room for weeks, with disturbing results. This situation is inherently static and claustrophobic. The main events are psychological rather than actual.

Despite this basis, two important composers, Thomas Ades and Stephen Sondhiem, have decided to set this piece to music. Sondheim is adapting 2 Bunuel films "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie" (1972) and "The Exterminating Angel" as a two-act musical entitled "Bunuel," which had a workshop performance in November 2016. A New York opening is planned for the near future.

Ades's opera, also entitled "The Exterminating Angel," premiered in Salzburg at the relatively intimate Haus fur Mozart in August 2016. The U.K. premiere took place in London at The Royal Opera House on April 24 ,2017, with (as far as I can tell) the same cast, Ades conducting. (The opera will be performed at the Met next fall with mostly the same cast and conductor). I was able to get a ticket for the sold-out London premiere by visiting the box office and getting a returned ticket.

I'm not a music critic or a trained musicologist, so I will not try to describe this huge, overwhelming, but ultimately rewarding score. For that I refer you to Alex Ross's excellent critique of the Salzburg opening in the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/thomas-ades-the-exterminating-angel). 

Ades (the composer) does not ease the audience into the opera's dense and complex sound world. For example, the entrance of the party guests is accompanied by loud blasts from the orchestra that are not comfortingly diatonic or chromatic. We are immediately adrift in a Berg-like vortex of sound. 

As told repeatedly in the program notes, the music is a "musical collage" that includes parodies of late romantic, 12 tone, baroque, folk, bel canto, symphonic, … I must say that I didn't discern any rock, hip-hop, or rap (doesn't mean it wasn't included, though). I could discern recitative, trios, duets, arias, songs, choruses, and orchestral interludes. But in the end, I just let the music wash over me without trying to analyze it, which is an approach that I recommend.

The cast includes the expected array of S-MS-T-B-B parts. This being Ades, the cast also includes the unexpected. There is a brilliantly applied use of the counter-tenor voice for a highly agitated young man, who at one point complains that he cannot drink coffee with a tea spoon. The "diva" character sings in a high tessitura like that of Ariel in Ades "The Tempest." In other words, maybe only dogs can actually hear every note. 

It's an opera with a very large cast of characters. (At one point, I counted 11 characters onstage, but there are more.)   How to tell them apart?  Who are the principal characters? Who are the minor characters? Where's the exposition that tells us right away who the host and hostess are? Who is the diva of the piece?  Why are there sheep onstage before the opera begins and are they principal characters? Needless to say, I was perplexed, but by the second act, I got my bearings.

There are several starry singers in the cast, including Anne Sofie Von Otter (a neurotic woman), John Tomlinson (her doctor), Thomas Allen (a conductor), Christina Rice (his wife, a pianist), Charles Workman (host), Amanda Echalaz (hostess), Sally Matthews (a widowed mother), Iestyn Davies (her highly agitated brother), and  Audrey Luna (a diva). The singers were all excellent and comfortable in their roles. I must say it was fun to see Sir Thomas Allen running around in his boxer shorts, compete with garters, in the second and third acts. 

I would like to give shout-outs to a few musical passages where Ades extends a perhaps patronizing had to the less-musically sophisticated of us in the audience: 

• The interlude between acts 1 and 2. It was wonderful and Ades (the conductor) and the orchestra played the heck out of it. (It is as brilliant as interludes in "Peter Grimes" or "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.") 
• Christina Rices's poignant singing of a song-within-the-opera in Act 1.
• The diva's final virtuoso aria in act 3, in which Audrey Luna makes the opera her own. 

So, what of the opera itself? Does it succeed? I think it does succeed, on its own terms.

Just like the characters in the opera, we, the audience, are guests who are transfixed by an invisible force. For us, the invisible force is the opera; our Exterminating Angel is Ades himself.  (I'm not making this up, the clues are in the libretto.) What the opera does, what Ades accomplishes, is to hold up a brilliant, unflattering mirror to us, the audience. We must look back. Bravo, Ades, for that!

You'll Need a Scorecard for This

Anna Netrebko withdrew just last week from upcoming  Norma productions at both the Metropolitan Opera (opening night, 2017-18) and the Royal Opera (fall, 2016-17). Now the Met has announced what will happen instead. Presumably the ROH, Dallas Opera, and Vienna State Opera (just wait) have done the same.

• Sondra Radvanovsky replaces Netrebko in the Met opening night 2017-18 production. (In my opinion, this was a predictable and desirable casting, and let me say that Rad was terrific in SF the other year.) She is also singing Leonora in Calixto Bieito's new staging of La Forza del Destino in the same season, which will be her company role debut.
• For this to happen, the Vienna State Opera released Radvanovsky from her scheduled appearances as the Trovatore Leonora....
• ....which will instead be sung by Anna Netrebko. In other words, they are swapping engagements.
• Netrebko is still singing the Trovatore Leonora and Tosca at the Met in 2017-18.
• MEANWHILE in London, Sonya Yoncheka (!) will sing Norma at the ROH in the fall of 2016-17. I did not see this one coming.
• The Met released Yoncheva from scheduled appearances as Mimi in La Boheme so that she could sing Norma in London.
• Ailyn Perez is available to sing Mimi in the Met performances originally to be sung by Yoncheva....
• ...because she decided to postpone her role debut as Tatiana at the Dallas Opera this fall.

Whew! Fast work, y'all.

What I want to know (not covered in the Met's four-company press release): when will Sonya Yoncheva sing in San Francisco, and what will she be singing?

Netrebko Out of Norma

Photo by Ruven Afandor, courtesy http://www.annanetrebko.com/

....at both the Royal Opera House (fall, 2016) and Met (fall, 2017 - opening night, in fact).

That's two, two, two cast changes in one!

Read all about it:

• NY Times article has the Met news
• Press release from the ROH, in which Kasper Holten is obviously annoyed