Mashinka

Just received a phone call with the news, she will be guest principal, details will be announced later. This clearly follows on from her performances in Swan Lake, presumably she liked the company and a lot of the rep will suit her very well.

There are a number of factual errors in this. Still when did journalists let truth get in the way of a story.

There seems to be a place for just one baritone on the Telegraph list (unless you count Domingo) so not so much a comparison more a judgement on who deserves that place. Terfel is the more versatile of the two without a doubt.

You have a good point there, but always interesting to read the views from the other side of the pond which don't always correspond to UK taste. I rather like Hvorostovsky but more as a recitalist, he cuts very little ice in London where most preferred Sergei Leiferkus. Bryn Terfel lost out to Hvororstovsky in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition because Hvorostovsky was some years older and more experienced but in my book Terfel has totally eclipsed him now. I love Sarah Connolly but don't think she has an international reputation, as a star of the baroque she is very much to my taste. In a couple of years Calleja will be a recognised star and so, though not popular with people here, will Grigolo. He is still a bit erratic at the moment but on top form e.g. Manon Lescaut with Netrebko, he can be superb.

The Telegraph often comes up with all sorts of top lists (the ballet one raised my blood pressure) but here is the opera take: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/the-big-question/9922320/Top-ten-opera-stars.html#?frame=2506006 No Juan Diego Florez or Cecilia Bartoli, nor my personal fave - Andreas Scholl. Anyone care to dicuss?

I believe he is 39 this year, which means that he will be forced to retire in 2014. Many people think he is deserving of the rank of etoile, both in Paris and beyond. Perhaps Benjamin Millipied will reconsider Thibault's status and get his new position off to a flying start by righting an almighty wrong.

Tsiskaridze has always been extremly fair-minded. Volochkova was never un-liftable, but she was allowing her ego to get out of control. She started out as an exceptional talent but sadly she preferred to aspire to become a diva rather than to become a ballerina.

Out of interest, is it common practice to publish the address of victims of an attempted break-in in Russia? It certainly isn't in the UK, furthermore a compensation claim could be made for such a disclosure and the paper involved would probably be fined.

Someone is clearly getting desperate as I imagine this was to search from incriminating material to blackmail him with. Blackmail has proved effective at the Bolshoi before so why not again. Actually everything he says and does has always (for better or worse) been in the public domain, so no joy for the bad guys there I suspect.

Good question: maybe it's because her mentor Wayne Eagling is no longer around and..... well, you know the rest.

Exactly. When you have admired someone as a dancer it is hard to take some things on board, the same with Iksanov whom I once met, a charming cove, but his tenure as general director has been tainted by rumours of misconduct. I started off not wanting to believe these things only now I'm not so sure. As for Volochkova, I think she is still smarting from the 'fat' slur, but she may be onto something about sexual favours being demanded as that was certainly the case in the Cold War period so it may well persist today. On the other hand who is prepared to 'fess up to that kind of thing? probably no one.

Wow...this is getting more and more bizarre each time. So Dmitrichenko is indeed popular among ballet dancers, even after his arrest...? I think they believe his so-called confession was beaten out of him and if he is right in some of his accusations about pay and conditions it's little wonder the dancers are behind him.

All in all I tend not to agree with Christiansen (I rarely do) as unreliable singers have always existed and it is hardly fair to pick out the singers of today. As a lover of baroque opera above all else, I'm now in opera heaven with so many operas getting premiere recordings and more counter tenors than you can shake a stick at, but perhaps outstounding interpretors of the conventional opera repertoire are fewer than when I started opera going back in the 1970's. There are comparisons to be made between opera and ballet stars as the greats are now names from the past in both art forms, however the disintegration of ballet technique, the celebration of the tawdry and tasteless, not to mention the current instances of corruption all conspire to lead me away from ballet to more frequent opera visits where I only have to contend with the odd mad producer.

Not sure I agree, though I'll admit I've seen some terrible productions in London that left me wishing I'd saved my money and simply bought the CD instead.

I've a feeling young singers may be health conscious to the point that some may well be gym bunnies. I've a picture in my mind of Simon Keenleyside swinging above the rigging in Billy Budd a couple of years ago, but then baritones have always tended to be a bit more trim.

To be fair to Grigolo I don't think he has a reputation for being unreliable, and I think you should reconsider if he ever sings Des Grieux in your neck of the woods. He is certainly not your average tenor though. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/11/vittorio-grigolo-faust-music-feauture-interview-peter-conrad?INTCMP=SRCH

I saw Grigolo in Boheme on Wednesday and the orchestra drowned him out, but then the rest of the cast were subject to heavy-handed conducting too. Out of interest, what did you see him in? He is very impressive in both Manon Lescaut and Rigoletto, but on the whole he divides the London opera buffs.

Antonio Pappano is critical of unreliable modern singers. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/news/song-and-dance-at-opera-as-director-sir-antonio-pappano-lays-into-underperforming-stars-8533125.html Critic Rupert Christansen doesn't agree http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/9930191/Opera-singers-need-to-be-sensitive.html There's some truth in the comment about nasties caught on planes though, a rogue germ I picked up on a flight in December nearly carried me off.

Almost certainly that is the case. Don't forget it wasn't just dancers that signed but also members of the opera, stage hands, and many others on the Bolshoi pay roll. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21766692

Romeo & Juliet and Eugene Onegin weren't masterpieces in their orignal forms?

How old is Grigorovich now? 86? and slowing down from what I've heard. As Filin allowed him to oversee his productions, wildly popular with the Russian public in spite of what westerners think, I don't actually see a motive. Filin himself thinks there is more than just fall-guy Pavel D. involved in this so there may yet be more revelations to come.

For what it's worth, the dancers Dmitrichenko mentioned in court as being part of Filin's alleged kickback scheme are corps members Anna Voronkova and Dmitri Zhuk, who transferred from the Stanislavsky to the Bolshoi at the beginning of the season. This seems to be a "native Bolshoi" vs. "interloper" sort of conflict. Again, it's grumblings from the peanut gallery, but some of the commentary from anti-Filin segments on the Internet take him to task for pushing his recent recruits from other companies, namely, Kristina Kretova and Semyon Chudin. Hallberg doesn't seem to come up in these discussions, probably because so far he has performed in Moscow so infrequently owing to injury. As Filin was Stanislavsky director before moving to the Bolshoi, I can understand the disquiet. As I don't know the names can anyone say if there is anything outstanding about Voronkova and Zhuk? Surely as an international star Hallberg is in a different category.

I’ve enjoyed reading the thread concerning Parsifal, especially the comments about productions that take operas out of the periods they are set in. It is pretty much the norm in the UK and it sometimes works, for example the Glyndebourne Meistersinger with Gerald Finley as Hans Sachs was set in the early 19th century at the period we would roughly call the Regency. Finley looked very handsome with a Lord Byron hairstyle, not a gnarled old shoemaker but an attractive older man making him a credible rival to Walther. As Sachs was a real historical figure perhaps changing the setting was a bit of a liberty, but a more conventional production at Covent Garden a few months later seemed pale by comparison. That is an example of getting it right. Getting it wrong: On Wednesday I saw English National Opera in Chapentier’s Medea and although the critics liked the design concept it didn’t work for me; the setting was World War II with Creon dressed as Charles De Gaulle, Jason a British naval officer (think Jack Hawkins) and his love rival a dashing American airman, most of the action took place in a war cabinet operations room. It looked well enough, but black suited Medea, stripping to her underwear to summon the creatures of hell just seemed wrong somehow, as if two very different operas were colliding on stage. Tonight I’m off to a concert production of Lully’s Phaëton, so no distractions there and I’ll sit back and enjoy the music.

Funnily enough the only leading role I've seen him in was an heroic one: Spartacus.

Put like that, there isn't any real motive for the attack. Perhaps it's all a frame up.