Before Covent Garden's performance of Manon the other day, I had always presumed I'd rather have my eyes out than listen to an entire opera by Massenet. How wrong I was. This Saturday I hope to be proved wrong again, when my colleague on theartsdesk David Nice will attempt to open my ears to another great French worshipper of the pretty in music, the first true master of ballet music before Tchaikovsky, Léo Delibes - whose music I've been even more studious in avoiding.
classical music buzz
josh.spero
Last night, I went to a concert by an orchestra which can wholeheartedly say that the steep cuts coming to the budget of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport won't affect it at all - because it receives no Government money, despite being one of London's most promising orchestras.
igor.toronyilalic
It's amazing to think that Marcel Proust first heard Wagner's four-and-a-half-hour opera Die Meistersinger down his telephone. That same day, in 1911, he also ingested three hours of Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande. We learn all this from Edward Seckerson's brilliant new Radio Three documentary about the remarkable world of the Théâtrophone, a device that used telephone transmitters to relay operas - and later news and sermons - live from wherever (the Opéra Comique to begin with) to hotels and houses around Paris. By 1893, this prototype radio had 1,300 subscribers; takers included the King of Portugal and Victor Hugo. The pleasure telephone industry spread first to Hungary, where one of Edison's assistants, Tivadar Puskás, had set up one of the world's most advanced telephone networks, then to Britain and the Americas.
David Nice
It already has the finest balance in its team of house conductors, and fortunately - though few are more sought after worldwide - Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nézet-Séguin have pledged to extend their contracts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
David Nice
Having trailblazed in the Choral category at the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Awards, Antonio Pappano's EMI recording of the Verdi's Requiem with stylish Italian forces and a top-notch quartet of soloists has just been awarded the Critics' Prize at the tawdry but compelling mix of the sublime and the ridiculous that is the Classical Brits.
And well deserved it is, too. When did you last hear a Verdi Requiem with a truly operatic, 80-strong Italian chorus? That makes all the difference. And the fact that the finest Verdian soprano of our day, Anja Harteros, crowns it all with a "'Libera me" of blistering intensity sets the seal. Pappano's comment was telling: "Recording the Verdi Requiem was a labour of love, and fear!... This is a great honour for both the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. It comes at a very critical moment when Santa Cecilia is faced with proposed drastic cuts to its funding from the government in Italy."
The tireless and endlessly curious Pappano has been doing well all round with his Rome team. Their delicately-coloured recording of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, another top recommendation in a crowded field, claims another Classical Brit award: "Best Female Artist of the Year" goes to Angela Gheorghiu for her luminous Cio-Cio San. How well I remember Gheorghiu at a previous Classical Brits evening following Russell Watson on to the platform and talking, with a no doubt purposeful slip of her English, about "performers who try hardly to sing this music". Well, she may be a bit of a diva, but she deserves to be.
- Find Verdi's Requiem conducted by Antonio Pappano and the Ochestra and Chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia on Amazon
Ismene Brown
Who cares about the Classical Brits? Should we be carrying you the news? Should the seriously serious conductor Antonio Pappano and his Accademia di Santa Cecilia be trumpeting their double win yesterday for his Verdi Requiem (Critics' Choice - the top "serious" award) and his Madama Butterfly, for which the soprano Angela Gheorghiu won Female Artist of the Year?
igor.toronyilalic
The announcement by the Royal Philharmonic Society's keynote speaker Grayson Perry that the Queen had sent for David Cameron last night was met with audible groans from the great and the good of the classical music world at their Awards ceremony. Speaker after speaker made it perfectly clear that the Lib Dems (though almost certainly not the economically liberal, pro-nuclear, immigration-capping, Tory-serving Lib Dems that they have now woken up to) were the choice of the majority here and one after the other they pleaded that the Government ring-fence arts funding.
Jasper Rees
Performing on the organ is, if you will, a lofty pursuit. Its repertoire calls for devotional focus. And then there’s this bloke.
David Nice
...So who says classical music is dead, apart from that critic on the grisly Late Review a couple of years ago (re Birtwistle's The Minotaur - to be precise, "If you think classical music is dead, go to Covent Garden and see the corpse")? Of course, it would be even better if the Proms's wow factor could spread to the rest of the season. But let's not complain.
Many have, though, about the new online system, which allowed newcomers to book on a blank-cheque basis; and last night I met an outraged old-timer who'd failed on Day One to get a seat for the first night performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony. And before you say he can always queue to stand in the arena, he's in a wheelchair.
Everyone else who's desperate to be there and doesn't have a seat is going to have to take along the thermos and sandwiches and join the queue for those super-cheap sold-on-the-day Prommer places. Because already the number of Proms with sold-out notices slapped over them is considerable, and growing by the day.
Many have, though, about the new online system, which allowed newcomers to book on a blank-cheque basis; and last night I met an outraged old-timer who'd failed on Day One to get a seat for the first night performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony. And before you say he can always queue to stand in the arena, he's in a wheelchair.
Everyone else who's desperate to be there and doesn't have a seat is going to have to take along the thermos and sandwiches and join the queue for those super-cheap sold-on-the-day Prommer places. Because already the number of Proms with sold-out notices slapped over them is considerable, and growing by the day.
Jasper Rees
In their recommendations of the best of this year's BBC Proms, theartsdesk's music writers have been thunderously silent on the only event that will excite a certain section of the audience demographic. I refer, of course, to what will no doubt become the traditional Doctor Who Prom. Or Proms.