Suffering what appeared to be a stroke while playing a Liszt work at Berlin’s Konzerthaus on October 1, the 61-year-old lost feeling in his left hand and then collapsed. He is currently in stable condition in a Berlin hospital.
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Zoltan Kocsis Recovering After Major Heart Surgery
The veteran pianist, now chief conductor of the Hungarian National Philharmonic, suffered a heart attack on September 21 and was rushed into surgery. He is now slowly recovering and anticipates returning to the podium in time for the Christmas season.
Madrid’s Teatro Real Faces Strike Threat
Employees at the opera house are protesting the sudden layoff of ten staffers in August, during the summer vacation period. A union spokesman says that labor actions will be taken during each of the Real’s next three productions if management does not meet with the union and take steps to reinstate the laid-off workers.
Orchestre De La Suisse Romande Fires Its New Managing Director
With a terse two-line statement, the Geneva orchestra announced that Miguel Esteban, a co-founder and former manager of the Verbier Festival who began a five-year contract term in January, “no longer exercises [his] functions.”
Barcelona’s Liceu, Short Of Cash, To Close For Eight Weeks
With two successive years of major funding cuts and a deficit now estinated at €10 million, the Gran Teatre del Liceu will close down from March 20 to Apri 10 and again from June 5 to July 8. Seven programs have been cancelled, including two opera productions and a ballet.
Gustav Leonhardt, Giant Of Baroque Music Revival, Cancels All Future Concerts
The 83-year-old Dutch harpsichordist and conductor was at the very center of period-instrument movement as it took off in the late 1970s and remains an admired éminence grise as well as a beloved solo recitalist. At a Paris concert on Monday night, Leonhardt looked “extremely weak and thin” and completed his encore with visible strain. Afterward, he decided that his health would no longer allow him to perform.
Conductor Falls To His Death During Rehearsal
The Swiss maestro Carl Robert Helg was rehearsing a gala performance at the Baden State Theater in Wiesbaden, Germany and climbed up to a lighting catwalk, ostensibly to get a better view of his massed choirs. He then fell from the bridge, sustaining fatal injuries; police are speculating that the incident may have been a suicide.
A Brief History of Time: The Opera?
In another of the joint commissions by the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater, composer Osvaldo Golijov, director Robert Lepage and author Alberto Manguel are working on a stage adaptation of physicist Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.
Eschenbach Calls PhilOrch Management Incompetents And Liars
Near the end of a Q&A to mark his 70th birthday, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s ex-music director attributed his departure “to an incompetent new management. They pretended that the orchestra couldn’t stand me. What a lie that was. This mismanagement has led to a $9 million accumulated deficit and no chief conductor [sic] found. I’m glad I’m away from there.”
Lissner To Stay At La Scala To 2015
The director Stéphane Lissner has extended his term as artistic director of Italy’s largest opera house to 2015, through major Verdi and Wagner anniversary years. (He also pointedly says that he is not interested in the top job at the Paris Opera thereafter.)