Opera Chic

Not Always as a Tenor: Grigolo at the Royal Opera House

Last night in London, Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo flexed his podium prowess as a presenter at the Laurence Olivier Awards at the Royal Opera House to toast the best of British theatre. With wife Roshi, Grigolo arrived uncostumed, in a suit (Giorgio Armani's our guess) and presented the award for the best new opera production.

Four nominees went to three of ENO's productions (Castor and Pollux, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Passenger) and Clemency (in association with the Scottish Opera). Castor and Pollux won! w00t ENO!

Grigolone's currently in London to sing the Duke in David McVicar's Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House.

Vladimir Ashkenazy Retires From Piano Concerts Due To Joint Disease; Will Concentrate on Conducting and Studio Piano Recordings

One thing Opera Chic wanted to do, was to one day see the great maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy play the piano -- OC dreamt of basking in his sound, in the emotional power and the frightening pulse of his playing.

It won't happen.

In today's Corriere della Sera, Ashkenazy (who's in Rome for Peer Gynt with Santa Cecilia) explains that degenerative joint disease in three fingers of his hand makes it too hard for him to mantain his standards for live concerts and recitals; he will henceforth concentrate his efforts  on conducting and on piano studio recordings:

"My hands don't hurt, but if I played in public I wouldn't be satisfied. I'll work in the studio, where you can stop and start all over again... It is my choice, I'm not acting on doctor's orders, it's my life".

^^^update^^^

Our dear Jessica "Mighty Jess" Duchen links us, and gives a shoutout to Murray Perahia -- here's our Perahia proxy-post from a few months ago -- Murray is back in form, yay!

Maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy Does the Sydney Symphony

Vladimir Ashkenazy has been appointed to lead the Sydney Symphony (um?) as Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser starting 2009, where the Russian-born pianist super-star will flex his baton for three years.

Currently leading is Maestro Gianluigi Gelmetti, who had been appointed in 2004 as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, and will help Ashkenazy ignite a battle royal in bringing more obscure and celebrated works to the Sydney stage.

Sydney Symphony has gotten all hypercrunked about this one, which we'll admit is a pretty sweet deal:

“Sydney Symphony executives found it hard to contain their excitement as they announced the signing, with one of them claiming it the most prestigious musical appointment in Australia's history: ‘I dare to say that it's one of the most prestigious appointments in Australia ever, he is certainly a door opener,’ Mr Fink said. ‘It will help us to position the orchestra internationally on a very high level.’”

damn str8.

Stupidest quote ever??:

“Sydney Symphony chairman David Maloney said that while Ashkenazy was known as a leading interpreter of Rachmaninov, the orchestra should not expect to be deluged with music composed by Russians.”

OMG the dreaded and inevitable russian invasion!! evry B0dy RUN RUN RUM@!! drunk vodka-swilling spies r evrywhare!

Silly Conductor Haircuts, Aka The Jimmy Levine Award: Part II

A couple weeks ago, Opera Chic has awarded the first Levine Award for the wackiest conductor hairstyle to Claudio Abbado's cute 1970s moptop.

This week, we honor the super-cool Vladimir Ashkenazy: in these vidcaps (bad, I know, I totally win the Zapruder Award for suckiest shakiest handheld video ev4r) from a 1960s London concert he sports a truly awesome, savage, uncontrollable cowlick on the back of his skull.

Because, we assume, in the 1960s for the kewl kidz combs were clearly something only  Lusers used, with a capital "L". All those notes flying off of one's brainium cavity apparently have an adverse effect to one's hair, at least according to the Russian-born maestro. Or maybe he had already traveled to Iceland and his hair was just frozen like that. Anyway, we dig. Jimmy "Hair Bear" Levine would love it.