........well not really - but there was no early start and the first "date" was in the jury room for lunch prior to meeting with some of the singers who did not make the cut to participate in the Semi Finals tomorrow. I had a good many on my "sign up sheet" so I was at it for two hours - all good time spent enjoyably, and I hope helpfully, with the gifted young people who all showed a remarkable maturity in dealing with what was obviously something of a disappointment. But they will all have good careers and they know it - so all this will pass.
A propos the jury - we have a splendid collection of people on the team.
Artistic Director of Neue Stimmen from the beginning in 1987 is Gustav Kuhn. His drive and energy has made this thing happen all these years. But he is a fine conductor above all and was a key member of the conducting roster at Glyndebourne in the 1980s. I "discovered" him in the TV studio in Hanover in 1977 by chance when I was there to hear a singer as a last minute substitute for Don Ottavio at Glyndebourne. As it turned out we did not take the singer but instead found a valuable new friend in Gustav. Such is life.
Francisco Araiza is our Chairman in the absence of Gerard Mortier. He has all the attributes - exceptional intelligence, excellent judgment, and superb diplomatic skills. All three are needed all the time. So he is perfect! He is of course a famous tenor and now a rather experienced and effective teacher as well. I first heard him in Zurich some 30 years ago as Don Ottavio. He sang 12 seasons in Chicago during the Ardis Krainik years and was a natural favorite with public and colleagues alike.
Edith Mathis is a beloved retired soprano of the highest distinction. During my very first season at Glyndebourne in 1962 she was a magical Cherubino, and in 1965 the Sophie in a Rosenkavalier which had Montserrat Caballe as the Marschallin and Teresa Zylis Gara as Oktavian. Never was the trio more ravishing than with these three.
Edith Wiens is a retired Canadian soprano who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years and whose son, Johannes Moser, is one of the finest young cellists in the the world today. He played the Rococo Variations in the recent Tchaikovsky celebration in New York with Lorin Maazel and the NY Phil. Edith came with Glyndebourne to Hong Kong in 1986 as Donna Anna so we go back to those days. She has been on the jury for the last three or four Neue Stimmen years.
Siegfried Jerusalem needs little introduction - the premier Wagner tenor of his day he sang at Bayreuth for more than 20 years. The place would have collapsed without him. I first heard him at the very beginning of his career as Max in Freischutz in Luzern. He had a whole career as a bassoonist before taking up singing. The amusing story of how this happened can be found here. He is now Rektor of the Musik Hochschule in Nurnberg - appropriately enough one might think for a Wagnerian Meistersinger!
Jurgen Kesting is a writer and critic and amazingly knowledgeable about all things related to opera and singing. Poor Jurgen was cut out of the picture of the jury I posted on Tuesday so to remedy that there is a little one of him here - and also a link here to his famous book about Luciano Pavarotti. He has been on the Jury since 2001 and brings an extremely valuable additional perspective to the process.
The remaining three jury members are all old hands at running opera companies. That's Bernd Loebe, now Intendant of the Frankfurt Opera, and Nicholas Payne, formerly General Director of Opera North in Leeds, and of the English National Opera. He now runs Opera Europa - Opera America's European brother. And me!
And it is now time for us all to get together again for dinner!
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