Catherine Kustanczy

<heavy sigh>

I am keen to see the work of New Zealand Opera, not only in Auckland but on their national tours.

#RIP director Bob Wilson (1941-2025).
An utterly singular talent.

(Photo: from Act 2 of Turandot, Teatro Real; by Javier del Real)

this is brilliant.

For all his success abroad, Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley’s heart remains at home A leading dramatic interpreter within the operatic world, Finley’s work has long been noteworthy

Speaking with bass-baritone Gerald Finley was a real pleasure: history (Joseph Rouleau); inspiration (German art song); Canadiana (mosquitoes) -- and he was so great in his Munich recital recently. My new feature for The Globe & Mail: www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article... #music

Seriously excellent conversations this week, with conductor Susanna Mälkki & bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee – about various mythologies, ideas on theatre & music, & so much more.
Coming soon to theoperaqueen.com.

viele schreckliche Menschen verstecken sich hinter diesem Schleier der „tiefen Spiritualität“ 😑

there's a scene in the 2015 film 'Youth' where Rachel Weisz's character tells off her musician father (Michael Caine) that feels like a direct echo of this.

Soo I’m talking about this a lot with people!!!

Because people don’t have tastes or arousals any more it seems , they have “positions” they think they win with

it wasn't transparent initially (at all) -- not until a Globe & Mail article last week. (And there are still lots of details that were left out.)

Jared is one of the best people!

NEW: Pay-for-play; demons, staging reality "as it is", remembering Pierre Audi, and much more. My latest: www.theoperaqueen.com/2025/06/21/r... #music

Sir Simon Rattle im Gespräch: So hat Musik sein Leben verändert | BR-Klassik Musik kann das Leben ändern. Davon ist Sir Simon Rattle überzeugt. Im Gespräch mit BR-KLASSIK reflektiert der Dirigent über Kunst und Moral, erzählt persönliche Anekdoten und spricht über Herausforder...

"Du wirst alle Erfahrungen brauchen können, denn wenn es nur die Musik gibt, worin liegt dann der Sinn?"

www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news...

🎯

so viele Sendungen, die ganze Zeit über O_o

Enraging

The Problem With Men Who Date Much Younger Women Leonardo DiCaprio gets older. His girlfriends are forever 21.

"... the inequities are baked in, and that's the point." jill.substack.com/p/the-proble...

Ich war,
wo ich von je gewesen,
wohin auf je ich geh':
im weiten Reich
der Weltennacht.

surely the best Goths.

Show us your writing process in a gif

🎯

with PAID writers.
(This goes for arts coverage especially, which is deeply tied to all of this, at multiple levels...)

The Bezos Cannes-tastrophe Starring Jeff Bezos as himself, Lauren Sánchez as an environmentalist, and Cannes as the end-stage symptom of elite delusion.

"...this is how the ultra-rich think: if you aestheticize the environment hard enough, maybe people won’t notice you’re torching it."

Very brilliant writing by Louis Pisano.
louispisano.substack.com/p/the-bezos-...

very snappy !

FFS

Dear students (& most post-secondary institutions in Canada tbh):

Pay writers. Pay writers. Pay writers. Pay writers.

Readers – & artists – get the benefit of expertise through paid work. This goes triple for arts writing. Not paying writers perpetuates an inequality that already plagues so much of the classical music world. Again: writing is WORK.

Pay writers.

and c-r-a-z-y (junk) traffic from Poland too... ! Ah, the interwebz o_O

... and TWO just this morning. JFC. 😭

.. .and again today. Arrrgh. :(