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Telegraph
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Salome, LSO: This take on Wilde is truly sensational
Great operas in concert have now become a regular feature of the LSO's seasons at the Barbican, but none can have made quite as much noise as this searing performance of Richard Strauss's Salome under conductor Antonio Pappano. The overwhelming sonorities of Strauss's score, so outrageous when they were first performed in 1905 – and still terrifying today – pulverised us into submission. At times it seemed that all the voices could do was surf along on the top of this torrential instrumental sound, only sometimes coming up for air. But at the crucial moments they cut through, thanks to a world-class cast. The grisly story derives from Oscar Wilde's one-act play, which Strauss saw in 1902: Salome, the stepdaughter of Herod, forms a sensual obsession with Jochanaan (John the Baptist) and asks Herod, who is in thrall to her, to receive his head on a silver platter. The holy Jochanaan has rejected her in life; now she only wants to kiss his lips in death. There's something compelling about not having any staging – no Dance of the Seven Veils for Salome; no black cistern in which Jochanaan lurks (unless you count the Barbican's backstage, from which he sang); no head of Jochanaan for Salome to embrace. It enabled our imaginations to roam freely. Pappano conducted Strauss's Elektra as his final, new production at Covent Garden, and so Salome was perhaps a natural choice for an opera at the end of his first season with the LSO. He also had support from the Royal Opera's director of casting, Peter Katona, who ensured an experienced, A-list lineup: some used scores, others had no need in shorter roles they knew well. As Salome, Asmik Grigorian was phenomenal, capturing perfectly the role's dissonance between girlish charm and brutal eroticism; her voice mixed purity with power in a way that demolished any idea that wayward vibrato is necessary to express passion, and her E-major arpeggio as she asked for Jokanaan's head chilled the blood. Matching her in defiance, but with a stentorian command that overrode the orchestra, Michael Volle's Jochanaan tremendously portrayed religious fanaticism. Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke struggled to make the fussy, manic writing for Herod register, but Violetta Urmana as his wife Herodias soared in support of her daughter. John Findon as Narraboth and Niamh O'Sullivan as the Page were both sharp-edged and clear, while the two fluent Nazarenes and ensemble of five Jews crowded onto the already teemingly full stage, struggling to make their presence felt. Pappano had one basic decision to make in this performance: whether to suppress the orchestra as if they were buried in a theatre pit, or to unleash them with their full sonic potential on the open stage. He chose the latter, accepting all the issues of balance that created, but delved deep into the score, in control of every detail; and the result was both astonishingly accurate and emotionally draining.
Times
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Jamie Barton: Opera singers are being forced to take Ozempic
When Jamie Barton waved a large rainbow Pride flag as she sang Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms, the crowd fell in love with her. The American mezzo-soprano had chosen the flag because it 'represents love, acceptance and tolerance' and because she'd vowed to use her voice and her public profile for good. 'I've rarely heard a bigger cheer in the Albert Hall,' the Times critic Richard Morrison wrote. He continued: 'We may not be a land of hope or glory right now, we certainly don't rule the waves … at least, however, we now cheer sexual and gender liberation. Some progress, then.' That was in 2019. Barton will once again publicly fly the flag for LGBTQ+ rights in July, when she sings at the finale of Classical Pride with the London Symphony Orchestra, an event also heading to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. But the general mood has changed drastically since that Proms moment, she tells me from her home in Atlanta, Georgia. 'It does feel like a different world, for sure. The screws have been tightened on the queer community in so many ways,' she says. • Read more opera reviews, guides and interviews This year Pride has taken on a different meaning for the 43-year-old opera star, who came out publicly as bisexual in 2014. 'I'm reminded of how Pride started as a riot, as a fight for rights, for liberty, for freedom. We are who we are. We are not going to silence ourselves.' No surprises that Barton is not a fan of President Trump; if the White House invited her to sing, she would say no. She would, however, perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, even though Trump has made himself chairman and criticised its 'woke' programming. 'I would hands down gladly go there because that's my place. That's ours,' she says. 'I would show up as exactly who I am and do my job to the best of my ability. In and of itself, that would be an act of rebellion.' Some believe the age of identity politics is over. For Barton, talking about being queer, bisexual, body positive and neurodivergent (she was diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic) has become non-negotiable. 'I can't tell you the number of people who lean in and whisper, 'I'm queer but I can't come out, I don't feel safe, but thank you for validating my existence by telling people this is normal,'' she says. 'That's more important to me than just about any other aspect of what I do. It goes hand in hand with trying to be at the highest level of artistry I can.' As her career has soared — taking her from Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera to Verdi at Covent Garden, Mahler at the Proms to Stravinsky in Paris — so has her resolve strengthened. While she hopes the BBC would still allow artists to wave a Pride flag at the Last Night ('It would be a real shame if they didn't'), she would now think twice about singing Rule, Britannia! and backs artists who believe its time has passed, such as the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. 'I fully support the questioning of it. There might be other songs that would be able to celebrate the legacy of Britain… I would be interested in the BBC figuring out a new celebration song, something that would make people feel nationalistic in the best way, not at the expense of others.' The words 'safe' and 'dangerous' crop up a few times during our interview, and it makes me wonder whether Barton fears for her safety. As she puts it to me, with her purple hair and side-shave she no longer 'passes' as a Republican in small-town Georgia, where she grew up. 'Most of the time I feel safe,' she says. 'I will admit that when I was flying back to the States I got a recommendation of a lawyer in case I was held at border control and they searched through social media for any sign of dissent against this administration, because that's been happening. I came back into the US with my face ID turned off on my phone and those numbers written on my arm.' She got home without a hitch — but it made Barton realise her life is far from normal right now. 'Earlier today I was chuckling in this black comedy way, because on my 'to buy' list are laundry detergent, avocados and a go-bag with proper contents just in case society collapses,' she says. Firmly off her shopping list, however, is Ozempic. In 2019 Barton told The Times about her struggles with binge-eating and crash-dieting, and how she has become anti 'diet culture', even though she knows she's missed out on roles because directors have believed she's 'too fat'. But with weight-loss drugs going mainstream, the pressure on opera singers to take them is real, she says. 'I have heard from colleagues of the pressure,' she says. 'I know of one high-level singer who a new opera was being written for. He lost the job because the general director of the house decided this singer wasn't aesthetically pleasing enough to carry the subject. Later he went on Ozempic specifically because of that. He was worried because he didn't want to lose further jobs. It makes me sad. Mounjaro and Ozempic are not easy drugs to be on, which is why I feel they're best left for the people who absolutely need them.' • Nicky Spence: 'Fat shaming still goes on in opera' Barton is speaking from experience. 'I have my own sad tale when it comes to these particular drugs,' she says. 'I have been diabetic for a long time and back in 2011, when those drugs were just starting to enter the market, my doctor at the time put me on an earlier version. Long story short, I ended up with a chronic, never-going-to-go-away condition called gastroparesis, which means every once in a while my stomach doesn't process food. Sometimes it freezes, which is quite literally the effect of that class of drug: to slow your stomach function. I was on it for less than a week before I had my first flare-up.' The condition made her very ill and made working difficult. After trying Trulicity during the pandemic, which resulted in another bad flare-up, Barton concluded that the drugs weren't for her. As a result she now feels 'no pressure whatsoever' to take Ozempic. She's equally accepting of reaching middle age. It is the subject of the new song Or Am I in a Rut? by Jake Heggie, which she'll be premiering at Classical Pride in London before flying over to the US to sing it in Los Angeles as part of the whole song cycle Good Morning, Beauty. 'It's about the moment when you start to clock how time is affecting your body, your desire, your sense of self in so many ways,' she says. 'I love that because I'm very much in that place in my own life right now.' She's long been a fan of Heggie's music and will be singing Sister Helen Prejean in the 25th anniversary production of his death-row opera, Dead Man Walking, in San Francisco next year, as well as appearing on the first recording of his opera Intelligence. 'There's always a point, with putting together a new Jake Heggie piece, when you're sitting at the piano and you dissolve in tears. It's just part of the process,' she says. 'How magical to have a creator of music who knows how to play the heart strings so deftly … there's an indelible truth and visceral honesty to what he does that hooks me.' Words that could have been written about Barton Barton sings at Classical Pride at the Barbican, London, Jul 4. The series runs from Jun 27,
Times
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
BMW Classics review — the LSO and Pappano's operatic alfresco party
'Earth has not any thing to show more fair,' Wordsworth once wrote of the view from Westminster Bridge in 1802, but he hadn't yet seen Trafalgar Square — at least not with its grand neoclassical glow-up: the National Gallery's proud portico, the curvaceous fountains, Nelson on his column with the lions in wait at its base. A couple of those lions were majestically incorporated into the temporary stage for BMW Classics, a free open-air concert the London Symphony Orchestra has performed (its players sporting sunglasses when the weather's fine) to thousands of people gathered in the city and more via broadcast abroad since 2012. In one of his addresses to the crowd, on a blue-sky day, the LSO's principal conductor, Antonio Pappano, called the square the 'greatest concert venue on earth'. Clearly he was in a Romantic mood for hyperbole. But then again, when is he not? He was the music director of the Royal Opera House for 22 years before moving to his role with the LSO. Looking at this year's concert programme, you might suspect he was missing his old job. We were offered the capricious overture to Rossini's Semiramide; the less capricious yet more luscious Capriccio sinfonico by Puccini, a graduation piece whose material he returned to for his operas; Opera for Orchestra, a new commission from Isabella Gellis from the LSO's composers' scheme and the Triumphal March and Dance from Verdi's Aida. For the last two, the orchestra were joined by young east London musicians supported by the LSO and others supported by the Guildhall School. Pappano regretted they weren't also able to provide the chorus and elephants and camels for the Verdi. We had instead motorcycles, ambulances and double-deckers, the adverts plastered on their sides giving BMW a run for its money. Their interjections would be one reason to shrink Pappano's big claim about the square. Despite the sound technicians' admirable efforts, you couldn't always make out the finer detail — which perhaps makes this an unfair arena in which to assess Gellis's somewhat hallucinatory composition, less operatic and more filmic in its atmospherics. But still, you could enjoy the grander gestures that this programme, and Pappano, had in spades. After the young musicians departed the LSO launched into Juventus — not the football club but the Latin for youth, Pappano was keen to point out — written by the Italian opera conductor Victor de Sabata. As a composer, he has a reputation as an Italian Strauss though this flashy but also melancholic tone poem had shades of Holst and Walton. Fitting, under all the Italian exuberance, to find pomp and circumstance. ★★★★☆ On demand Follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Toronto Sun
05-06-2025
- Toronto Sun
MANDEL: 'Voices' commanded him to kill his husband, court hears
Get the latest from Michele Mandel straight to your inbox Leahain Malcolm They were a power couple — Rupert Brown was a respected doctor; Leahain Malcolm was a trained lawyer and investigator — and after meeting in Jamaica in 2016, they wed in the U.S. two years later and came to Canada in 2020 to claim refugee status. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Likely because their gay union would face persecution back home. While they awaited the outcome of their asylum claim here, Brown wasn't working as a doctor and Malcolm had applied to be accredited as a lawyer by the Law Society of Ontario. But in January 2021, the LSO turned him down. Two months later, Brown, 38, was found stabbed to death in their Eglinton Ave. W. walk-up and Malcolm, 28, was under arrest for murder. At the opening of his judge-alone trial, where Malcolm has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, the couple's downstairs neighbour recalled being woken from her sleep at 3:25 a.m. on Feb. 27, 2021 and hearing a man's voice from the third floor above her, begging, 'Help, help, help.' A short time later, Malcolm calmly called 911. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'I was hearing voices and I killed my spouse,' he said on the recording played for Superior Court Justice Heather McArthur. 'I think he's dead.' He could then be heard slapping him to check. The ambulance operator asked how it happened. 'No, when I get a lawyer, I'll tell you what happened,' Malcolm replied. He was then asked about his spouse's condition. 'I don't know, I'm not a doctor,' he said. 'There's a lot of blood.' He told 911 that he'd used a kitchen knife but he wasn't holding it. 'It's on his body.' When the ambulance operator tried to give him instructions on how to stop the bleeding, Malcolm interrupted him. 'He's dead.' Recommended video The 911 call taker asked what the voices had told him. 'They said he was a demon and he was going to kill me,' Malcolm explained. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. She asked if he had any mental health issues. 'Yes I do. I'm going to hang up.' He then stopped answering their questions. Meanwhile, Toronto Police Const. Kevin Moore had been dispatched at 3:27 a.m. and arrived about five minutes later at unit 304. He found a gruesome sight. The officer walked into the blood-soaked apartment and agreed with defence lawyer Andrea VanderHeyden that his first words were 'Oh, Jesus.' He then warned the arriving firefighters about what they were about to see. Read More 'It's pretty bad,' Moore told them. 'We can agree it's a pretty bad scene, all things considered, right?' the lawyer asked. 'It's a little bid disturbing, right.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The 22-year veteran agreed that it was. Horrific photos shown in court — but not to family members watching on Zoom from Jamaica — show the site of what looks like a massacre. Blood is smeared everywhere in the bedroom: on the parquet floor, the radiator, the yellow walls, the bed's grey sheets, and the wooden dresser. Brown's body lay on his back with 'numerous' stab wounds, a bread knife and chef's knife beside him. Also on the floor were torn and blood-stained documents from a cognitive behaviour therapy group at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Police found several prescription pill bottles dispensed to Malcolm, including aripiprazole, used for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. In the kitchen was a stockpot that oddly contained scissors and three knives, apparently from an empty butcher's block on the counter. And on the living room window ledge was a textbook on criminal law. The aspiring Ontario lawyer answered the door, in a tank top and shorts stained with blood, and was immediately handcuffed. Moore agreed the accused killer appeared calm but didn't respond when asked repeatedly if he understood he was under arrest for murder. Instead, all he asked was, 'Is he dead?' The trial continues. mmandel@ Canada Celebrity Columnists Canada Toronto & GTA
Cision Canada
22-05-2025
- Business
- Cision Canada
Murray Klippenstein announces campaign for leadership of Ontario Law Society following unprecedented scandal and cover-up
TORONTO, May 22, 2025 /CNW/ - Murray Klippenstein announced today his candidacy for the leadership of the Board of Governors of the Law Society of Ontario ("LSO") in elections to be held for Treasurer on June 18. The election comes amid an unprecedented scandal at the highest echelons of the institution, Canada's largest and oldest law society, which regulates more than 70,000 legal professionals and has operated independently since 1797. Klippenstein stated: "We at the Law Society and in the profession have been badly betrayed by our two top leaders. The fact that former Treasurer Horvat could unilaterally skyrocket the CEO's salary on her way out the door to a lifetime judicial appointment without the knowledge or approval of the board is very far removed from any notion of 'good governance'. How could anybody believe that that was proper? The incompetence, arrogance and hypocrisy are breathtaking. We expect and demand integrity from thousands of our members every day, and we hold them strictly accountable, but then this happens at the top without consequence or accountability." "The LSO board is from where many of our senior judges are appointed. Eight of the forty directors elected in May 2023 are now Superior Court judges. There is no regulatory body that deserves more scrutiny and accountability of its leadership than the LSO", said Klippenstein. Campaign Background In March of this year a report to the LSO by former Ontario Associate Chief Justice Dennis O'Connor found that the LSO's two top officials, its Treasurer and its Chief Executive Officer, had secretly signed a highly lucrative new CEO contract without knowledge or approval of the board, with the new contract being kept secret from the board for many months. The new contract jumped the CEO's compensation by 60% to almost $1 million annually, as well as awarding over $200,000 in a lump sum retroactive benefit. The O'Connor Report revealed that the secret contract was signed by then Treasurer and board chair Jacqueline Horvat just a week before her Treasurer term ended, and just a few weeks before she left the LSO to become a judge of Ontario's Superior Court. Several LSO board members and senior staff had learned about the new contract, including the Chair of the Finance Committee and the LSO's CFO, but kept it hidden from the board for many months. The Treasurer who replaced Horvat in June of 2024, Peter Wardle, also knew about the contract but did not inform the board until November 2024. When the LSO board received the O'Connor Report in March of 2025, it voted to terminate the CEO's employment on the same day, but the current LSO leadership sought to suppress public disclosure of the O'Connor Report. Board member Klippenstein and eight other members of the board issued a public press release calling for the Report to be made public to the profession and the public at large. "We felt it was contrary to our profession's values to have this kept secret, and that the O'Connor Report's release was a first step towards ending the culture of cover-up and secrecy," said Klippenstein. The O'Connor Report was finally released after unprecedented media scrutiny and outrage in the profession at large. Lawyer Carole Hansell, a leading corporate governance expert, recently released a study entitled "Governance Crisis at the Law Society of Ontario: A Cautionary Tale for Boards of Directors". In effect the current governance of the Law Society has become a case study in bad governance. The "what not to do" programme. Campaign Platform In this scandal-plagued environment Klippenstein says he will stand for "Clean-up, not cover-up. Integrity, not hypocrisy. Competence, not arrogance". He is calling for: Former CEO Diana Miles to repay the LSO at least $500,000 improperly received by the ex-CEO. The LSO to formally call for the removal of former Treasurer Horvat as a judge. Release of all the O'Connor Report documentation, including the still suppressed Book of Documents appended to the Report. A forensic audit of the LSO. "Justice O'Connor made it clear that his limited mandate prevented him from fully reviewing many irregularities. Many of the issues O'Connor noted remain unexamined," said Klippenstein. A sunshine list for LSO executives. "But for the scandal the public would not know of Miles' $1.2 million compensation package and they still know nothing about other salaries inside the LSO or how they're determined. For example, the confidential executive compensation report used by the then Treasurer to justify the CEO salary increase (the Gallagher Report) equated the LSO's CEO ( head of a not-for-profit regulator with a budget of $100 million) to the CEO of a $1 billion private sector corporate enterprise. Says Klippenstein: "That comparison was obviously nonsensical. And no one knows about other senior salaries or how they are determined, because LSO leadership refuses to allow salary disclosure under a sunshine list, as is expected of almost every other public interest entity." Current Treasurer Peter Wardle, who is running for re-election, has called for "governance reform". Klippenstein says "Sadly, abstract talk of going-forward 'governance reform' is a distraction from the obvious issue in front of us, which is that certain people behaved badly, and we need to honestly expose that. Reducing elected board members to a minority as some propose would just make things worse. This is not an issue about training, record-keeping, and more clarity in policies. This is about misconduct. We need to face it head on and be consistent with our professional values. Otherwise, we are being profoundly hypocritical when we enforce these values on our membership but try to wiggle out of them at our top levels." "I have spent my whole career fighting for disadvantaged individuals and communities both inside and outside Canada and they, like the rest of us, need an honest profession and judiciary." "I hope that more than a small group of current directors can be persuaded to act during this election campaign. I am the only candidate for Treasurer who believes that past accountability is required before we can have the future respect of the public." Candidate Klippenstein has had a long career as a litigation lawyer and rights advocate, and has won numerous awards for his work.
