Bulletin Board

Longtime opera buff to take lead role at Met

Peter Gelb, 51, will report for duty Aug. 1, 2005 at the Metropolitan Opera, where he will work with current General Manager Joseph Volpe before taking over that position at the end of the 2005-2006 season.

Gelb, currently head of Sony Classical Recordings, has been an opera buff since he was a teenager. He has produced a number of Met opera telecasts and is expected to bring a wealth of knowledge to the position—but he is relatively inexperienced when it comes to fund raising. The 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons are planned already, so Gelb’s input will be apparent beginning with 2007-2008.
www.metopera.org/gelb.html

Austrian librettist garners Nobel Prize

Elfriede Jellinek—a reclusive Austrian novelist, playwright and librettist—has won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature. Jellinek is best known in this country for her 1988 novel The Piano Teacher, which was made into a movie in 2001.

Her three opera librettos are: Robert der Teufel, to music by Hans Werner Henze; Bahlamms Fest, to music by Olga Neuwirth; and Lost Highway, also to music by Neuwirth.
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2004

Whodunnit?

Immediately before making her stage entrance at Covent Garden, Dame Nellie Melba deposited her chewing gum on a small glass shelf that had been put there for that purpose. When she came off, she put the wad back in her mouth, only to spit it out, along with a stream of curses.

Somehow, the gum had metamorphosed into chewing tobacco! She blamed the stagehands and tried unsuccessfully to get them fired—but laughing with them in the background was the evening’s tenor, Enrico Caruso.

Maestro Conlon addresses music critics

In late October, the Music Critics Association
of North America and the National Arts Journalism Program sponsored a symposium for print journalists in New York City. Discussions included the future of reviewing. In his address to the group, conductor James Conlon noted that art flourishes in a positive environment, appealed for more positive, constructive criticism, and suggested that music reviewers use their influence to widen the appeal of classical music.
http://www.najp.org/news/news.htm

New opera festival in Duluth?

Duluth, Minn. is already a summer destination for lovers of bluegrass music and ethnic foods. If Craig Fields, planning director of Minnesota’s North Star Opera, has anything to say about it, the city will soon become a magnet for opera fans as well.

Fields plans to open the Duluth Festival Opera in 2006, with top quality singers in leading roles, but he admits that a great deal of fund raising has to be done first. Since he hopes eventually to have a major summer company that will compete with Santa Fe, costumes and scenery will be constructed on site. Local talent will be hired for smaller roles and the chorus.
www.duluth.com/placed/index.phpsect_rank=1&story_id=185550

Researching a new kind of piano

Many singers are not satisfied with the sound quality of electronic keyboards, but find it hard to afford a good piano. The Facility for Research in Piano Design, Technology and Manufacturing, led by Canadian engineering professor Stephen Birkett, is looking into new ways of making pianos.

The professor had once considered a career as a concert pianist but decided that engineering was a more secure profession. With promised funds of $280,000, he expects to be able to examine new construction materials, various types of keyboard mechanisms, and innovative designs, which he hopes will result in an instrument with a first-class sound but a much lower price tag.
www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca Search for Oct. 21, Birkett

Oregon Symphony tuning up for record challenge grant

The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation of Portland, Ore. has offered a $6-million challenge grant to the Oregon Symphony. To get it, the orchestra will have to raise $8 million in completely new money (only donations from new contributors and increases in contributions by current donors can be counted). If successful, the orchestra will receive its largest grant ever.

Symphony executives expect to wine, dine and sweet talk prospective donors all over Oregon, and in the warm places Oregonians frequent in winter.
www.playbillarts.com
www.orsymphony.org
http://fdncenter.org Click on Miller Fdn

Cleveland Opera’s Robert Chumbley aiming high

Robert Chumbley, Cleveland Opera’s new general director, has already enlarged the company’s board of directors and revamped his administrative staff. His newest plans include well-designed, locally built productions, an expanding repertoire, and an advertising campaign geared to draw a much larger audience. He also expects to spread out performance dates so that double casting can be eliminated and artistic quality improved.

Chumbley says he is working toward the day when Cleveland Opera will be as highly esteemed as the Cleveland Orchestra.
www.clevelandopera.org/history/rcbio.html
www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/ don_rosenberg/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/1097314341240872.xml

Lincoln Center boasts fortissimo economic impact

A new study on the economic role of the Lincoln Center reports that during 2003 the arts facilities paid out $350 million in wages to 9,000 full and part-time workers. Spending by tourists generated $445 million and is part of the total direct and indirect spending associated with the center, which added up to $1.1 billion in sales. That money also paid the salaries of 8,300 more workers holding various kinds of jobs, both in the city and in other parts of New York state.
http://www.edrgroup.com/edr1/about_us/news/economic-impact-of-lincol.shtml