A baritone from South Korea, Eung Kwang Lee, has won the top prize in the Ernst Haefliger Competition, held at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. It carries with it a prize of 10,000 Swiss Francs and performance opportunities at the Menuhin Festival and the Lucerne Festival.
The festival, named after the famed Swiss tenor, is now in its third year. Lee, born in 1981, is currently a part of the Basel Opera ensemble and competed against 80 other candidates.
Roberto Villazon was obviously hyped – isn’t he always – by the fact that he actually finished the recital the evening of August 15 at Salzburg. Opera Chic has clips of him after the show and also interviews with lots of satisfied fans. Are his cancellations, including July 31 in Verbier and his outrageous seven minutes of strained singing in Copenhagen, in the past? Stay tuned.
The annual “German Record Critics Prizes” for 2010 were announced recently. Ten recordings were honored, five from the classical field.
Those classical recordings honored were Johann Sebastian Bach’s Motets BWV 225-230 from Bach Collegium Japan under the direction of Massaki Suzuki, Mahler’s “Lieder” by baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber, Dvorak’s “Symphonic Poems” by Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the late and much missed Charles Mackerras, Chopin’s Piano Concertos 1 & 2 (Rafal Blechacz, piano, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Jerzy Semkow) and, a surprise, the young French pianist Eric Le Sage’s recording of the complete piano works of Schumann. A special prize honored a “Recording of the Year” and that was “Hommage à Steuermann.”
Figaro Si! 