Olga Neuwirth is the newest honorary member of the Wiener Konzerthaus society.

This volume celebrates the centennial of the first performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly which took place on February 17, 1904, at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

“Opera is being turned inside out: instead of watching a drama played out on stage, we’re attending to our own inner journey. I recommend you go along” wrote Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian about Rolf Hind “mediation opera” Lost In Thought.

December 3 marks the German premiere of Marco Momi’s Almost Close, for piano and transducers, performed by Malgorzata Walentynowicz at the contemporary music series ON - Neue Musik in Cologne; Momi’s quintet for piano, strings and electronics entitled UNRISEN premieres in Italy on December 22, featuring pianist Mariangela Vacatello and the Quartetto Prometeo at Bergamo’s Donizetti Theater.
UNRISEN made its world premiere in June 2016 at the MANI-FEST festival in Paris.

After the disastrous world premiere of Madama Butterfly at La Scala on February 17, 1904, Puccini made substantial revisions of the score. The revised version of the opera was staged in Brescia three months later, on May 28, where it was a huge hit. Puccini felt obliged to make radical interventions on the first version, which he had thought was well done enough, in order to achieve success in the theaters of his day. This “constraint” was mentioned in a 1920 letter to Giulio Ricordi, in which he expresses bitterness and fear at not seeing “his” Madame Butterfly, as it had been originally composed. In 1981 Ricordi commissioned musicologist Julian Smith to reconstruct the parts of Madama Butterfly that Puccini had “amputated”.

The statue of Giulio Ricordi (1840-1912) by sculptor Luigi Secchi, created in concomitance with the tenth anniversary of signor Giulio’s death, will be on display November 26 in front of the original location of the Ricordi store, which opened on February 25, 1844.

Ricordi Berlin has released a new edition of operas for children called “Lübecker Taschenoper” (Lübeck pocket operas).

Georg Friedrich Haas‘ trombone concerto was premiered at Donaueschinger Musiktage 2016 by soloist Mike Svoboda.

On November 30 in Bari, the Teatro Petruzzelli Orchestra presents the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Concerto per violino e orchestra, featuring soloist Francesco D’Orazio. John Axelrod conducts.

The one-act opera Julie by Philippe Boesmans opens at the Schauspielhaus Studio (Theater Magdeburg) this November 4, and runs through December 17. Book by Luc Bondy and Marie-Louise Bischofberger. Julie is based on August Strindberg’s play Miss Julie.