Domingo dedicates 'Il Postino' shows to composer (AP)

PARIS – Celebrated tenor Placido Domingo on Tuesday dedicated upcoming Paris performances of "Il Postino" to the opera's late composer, Daniel Catan.

The Mexican composer died suddenly last April at age 62, and was found dead in bed in Austin, Texas. Domingo said with Catan's passing, the world has lost "an extraordinary man of the theater and I have lost a great friend."

Catan's death has turned rehearsals for "Il Postino" — which opens at Paris' Theatre du Chatelet on June 20 with a brief four performance run — into an emotional roller coaster.

"Every 15 minutes, someone starts crying because something reminds them of Daniel," said Domingo, who plays Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in the opera.

"Il Postino" opened in Los Angeles late last year and has also played in Vienna, but Domingo told reporters that Catan continued to tinker with the libretto up until his death.

"The opera is great, but Catan still wanted to improve on it and he was in the process of doing so when this great tragedy occurred," Domingo said at a news conference on Tuesday.

"Il Postino" is adapted from the award-winning 1994 movie by Michael Radford, itself an adaptation of the novel "Ardiente Paciencia" by Antonio Skarmeta.

Catan was well-known for "Florencia en el Amazonas," an opera he composed with a libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain written as a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

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Placido Domingo adds voice to FIFA reform committee (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – FIFA president Sepp Blatter has named opera legend Placido Domingo, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Dutch football icon Johan Cruyff to a "council of wisdom" to help solve FIFA's woes.

The 75-year-old global football supremo, elected unopposed to a fourth and final term as FIFA president last week, told CNN on Monday that he has assembled a solutions committee to deal with controversy involving his election and selection of World Cup hosts.

"These gentlemen are more or less advisors," Blatter told CNN. "They are not the experts but advisors and what they should be also is the kind of council of wisdom -- which my executive committee would not like because they think they are the council of wisdom."

FIFA needs all the wisdom it can get after a bribery scandal involving his only presidential rival candidate, Mohamed bin Hammam, and another executive committee member, Jack Warner. Both have been suspended while a probe is conducted.

"To rebuild the image of FIFA, that's No. 1," Blatter said of his priorities.

To that aim of credibility, Blatter named people whose links to football are far less strong than their fame in other areas.

Spanish-born 70-year-old tenor Domingo is best known for singing in concerts before four World Cups in a row starting in 1990 along with Jose Carreras and the late Luciano Pavarotti as part of "The Three Tenors".

Kissinger, 88, was an avid booster of the New York Cosmos during the 1970s after making his fame in America by serving in the government administration and also helped out in advising the International Olympic Committee on reforms after the Salt Lake City votes for bribes scandal.

He has yet to agree to join the advisory panel.

"Placido Domingo will be part. He is happy. He is proud that he is part," Blatter said. "Kissinger also. People say he's an old man but he's a wise man.

"Let me work with this committee of solutions," Blatter said. "And if this committee of solutions or the ethics committee have the impression that they should do something, then let them take the decisions."

A FIFA official will chair the committee of solutions, Blatter seeing no need for an independent group to provide outside oversight of FIFA's actions.

"The football family has asked me to solve the solution inside FIFA and not outside FIFA," Blatter said. "If we have to go and open our borders and say everyone can come in... we are a very organized institution with 208 associations, six continents.

"I've put already zero tolerance in the agenda."

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Zambello advises National Opera as Domingo departs (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Washington National Opera announced Wednesday that it has appointed Francesca Zambello as the company's artistic adviser as famed tenor Placido Domingo steps down after 15 years with the opera.

The appointment comes as the company merges with the Kennedy Center to provide stability after years of financial struggles. Zambello previously worked with Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser at London's Royal Opera House.

"I think that opera has the chance to attract people in ways that we don't always think about, quite honestly," she said in an interview. "I'm all about creating productions that are accessible to the audience, that are entertaining, that are storytelling."

Zambello is a respected director in both opera and musical theater. She is currently directing a new production of Wagner's "Ring" cycle for the San Francisco Opera. The production originated with the Washington National Opera, but it was unable to finish all four episodes because of financial troubles.

Kaiser and Zambello agreed they would like to stage a complete "Ring" cycle in Washington after the opera spent considerable time and money developing it as the "American Ring" in 2006, drawing on themes and settings from U.S. history to explore Wagner's epic of greed, ambition and betrayal.

After the "Ring" productions in June, Zambello will step down as artistic adviser of the San Francisco Opera to focus her efforts on Washington and as director of the Glimmerglass Opera, a summer festival in Cooperstown, N.Y.

The New York-based director will be part of a team that will direct the opera's programming as it transitions from Domingo, who joined the company as artistic director in 1996. Early in her career, Zambello worked under the late director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.

Kaiser said Zambello is the leading woman among opera directors. He declined to specify the term of her contract in Washington but said she will have an ongoing role. Naming an artistic adviser made sense while the company is in transition, Kaiser said.

"She's got a lot of vision in opera, and we think she's going to bring some really good programming ideas, casting ideas, ideas for the productions that should be used," he said.

Zambello also recently directed Broadway's "The Little Mermaid" as a stage adaptation of the Disney movie. It closed in 2009 before a national tour.

She said she wants to broaden the opera's programming to reach the widest possible audience, including tourists visiting Washington's cultural attractions. She also is eager to take operas beyond the grand Kennedy Center Opera House with productions in smaller theaters as well.

The 55-year-old Washington opera has always been "revered" under Martin Feinstein and Domingo, Zambello said, adding that she looks forward to ongoing collaborations with Domingo.

Much of the opera's resources are being used to pay off its debts before it merges with the Kennedy Center on July 1. Tax records from 2009 show the company carried a debt of about $11.6 million, and its endowment stood at $30.6 million. Its budget has been balanced in recent years after cuts in programming and staff.

Other operas have struggled through the recession. The New York City Opera just announced it is leaving its longtime home at Lincoln Center to cut costs. The Baltimore Opera closed its doors in 2009.

Change can help energize a theater, Zambello said.

"I think that this new arrangement will really, really help the company," she said, "in making it just explode more in the city's cultural scene."

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Online:

http://www.dc-opera.org

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Brett Zongker can be reached at http://twitter.com//DCArtBeat

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