This Week in Classical Music-August 30, 2009

August 30, 2009

Unfortunate Fall during Rusalka Performance

( Phoenix, AZ )
•Bayreuth releases DVDs
•Muti in Chicago, Rome
•Martinez falls during Rusalka

This Week in Classical Music 8/30/09

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

Germany’s Venerable Bayreuth Festival has entered into an agreement with the Royal Opera House to release DVDs of Wagner Operas recorded at the annual festival. Co-Director . Bayreuth Festival co-director Katharina Wagner said Tuesday the first recording would be Christoph Marthaler's production of "Tristan and Isolde" conducted by Peter Schneider at this summer's festival. It is scheduled for release in November. The production company Opus Arte will also release an audio recording of the complete Ring Cycle, conducted by Christian Thielemann in 2008. Thielemann's Die Walkuere will be released in 2010.

Just as he prepares for his new music director gig with the Chicago Symphony orchestra starting in 2010, Conductor Ricardo Muti, evidentally feeling he didn’t have enough to do, has accepted the title of “Director” of the Rome Opera, start date also in 2010. The CSO job requires 10 weeks of concerts a year in Chicago, plus all the orchestra’s international tours, which leaves plenty of time for his Rome commitment of 2 opera productions and two concerts per season.
We all know that opera is not for the faint of heart—but Dangerous?? It proved to be so for Puerto Rican born Soprano Ana Maria Martinez, who accidentally fell into the orchestra pit at the Glynbourne Opera Festival during a performance of Dvorak’s “Rusalka”. The accident happened at the end of the first act when Rusalka, played by Martinez, pushes away from the Prince, played by Brandon Jovanovich; the soprano’s feet became entangled in some stage props and she struggled for a moment to stay upright, then fell backward into the pit. a real trooper, Martinez insisted she was OK to resume singing the role, but as a precaution, she was taken to a local hospital where she was treated for minor injuries and then released. A spokesman said that Ms Martínez was "a little bruised but thankfully fine".
For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time 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 “This Week in Classical Music” on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.