Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

Julie Andrews on losing her voice after an operation... Julie Andrews lost her voice after an operation.  Picture: PA By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London 0 After having vocal surgery to remove ‘nodules’, Julie Andrews was left with permanent damage that destroyed her four-octave soprano voice. Julie Andrews , the 84-year-old soprano and  musical theatre  legend, has opened up about the 1997 operation that caused her to lose her singing voice, saying: ‘I went into a depression’. “When I woke up from an operation to remove a cyst on my vocal cord, my singing voice was gone,” she told  AARP The Magazine  for their October/November 2019 issue. “I went into a depression. It felt like I’d lost my identity.” Andrews, who won an Academy Award for her starring role in  Mary Poppins  (1964), first noticed her voice was hoarse during a Broadway show in 1997. Shortly after, she had surgery to remove...

...  as audience member starts filming Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter calls out smartphone use in concert.  Picture: Getty By Rosie Pentreath, ClassicFM London 17K The smartphones that dominate our lives are becoming an increasing presence – and for many, a problem – at live music events. Does Anne-Sophie Mutter’s experience indicate that classical music is the latest frontier in our current ‘capture-the-moment’ madness? Violinist  Anne-Sophie Mutter  was in the middle of performing  Beethoven ’s  Violin Concerto  last night when the glare of a smartphone stopped her mid-movement. Mutter was performing the slow, middle movement of the concerto, when she suddenly stopped and confronted a member of the audience in the front row – because they had their phone out and were filming her performance. The violinist used the pause in her playing to ask the audience member to stop recording and, duri...

... into great paintings and it’s just wonderful Mr Bean.  Picture: Rodney Pike By Kyle Macdonald, ClassicFM London 39K Rowan Atkinson’s loveably hapless eccentric stars as the subject of the greatest works of art, from the Renaissance and beyond. Over the last few years,  artist and caricaturist Rodney Pike  has taken on a substantial project, involving the entire history of art. He has used all his skills in drawing and digital manipulation to painstakingly rework great paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th century. And you’ll be delighted to hear that he’s reimagined them to feature that star of small screen comedy, Mr Bean. Here’s a tour of the magnificence, starring many of the iconic facial expressions of  Rowan Atkinson’s  most famous creation. John Singer Sargent’s Madame X An aristocratic Bean from Rembrant More Rembrandt Rowan Atkinson and that Olympic ope...