December 23, 2007

It’s this week in classical music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world, I’m Randy Kinkel.

The met Opera’s “Live in High Definition” series of live satellite broadcasts into movie theaters drew record crowds in it’s first weekend of the season.  Last Saturday’s transmission of Romeo and Juliet by Gounod  with Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna drew a worldwide audience of 97,000, 77,000 of those in the US and Canada.  88 of the US screenings sold out.  Met general Manager Peter Gelb said, “More people are interested I Opera Today, which is great news for the Met.”  Check our website at kbaq.org or call 480-833-1122 to find out when and where the next Live Met opera screening is here in the valley.

Conductor Gerard Schwarz will be conducting Beethoven’s Ninth later this month a little differently than usual—he’ll be sitting instead of standing—the maestro broke his left leg and ankle while skiing in Canada recently.  Although he had surgery on the ankle, he’ll be OK. Said Schwarz:  I always knew it was a dangerous sport, but I wish I could have been convinced another way.”

A time capsule containing great operatic voices from the past has been unearthed in Paris.  Two urns containing 24 discs of opera recordings by Caruso and Nellie melba and other greats of the time were buried in 1907 in the basement of the Palais Garnier Opera House by the gramophone Company of France.  "so men of that epoch can hear what the leading voices of our time sounded like," Alfred Clark, head of Gramophone Co., said at the time.  EMI, heir to Gramophone, plans to release the recordings, but they won’t be extracted from the urns until next year since they were packed in asbestos and require special handling.  The urns will be on display at the Paris Opera and the national Library.

For more information on these and other items and events,  go to our website at kbaq.org, be listening again at this time next week for another update, and join me every weekday at noon for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel For KBAQ’s this week in classical music, on listener-supported 89-five K-Bach, KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.