Read on to discover some of classical music's more strange and unexpected cancellations and no-shows...
Tonight’s concert is cancelled’. It’s the dreaded notice that can spell the end of a much anticipated evening. Often, no reason is given beyond the fact that the artist is ‘indisposed’.
At least the guitarist Miloš Karadaglić had the grace to plead his fans’ forgiveness when he cancelled his concert at Bristol’s Colston Hall in October 2016. ‘It saddens me deeply to need to write these lines,’ he wrote. ‘Performing is all I live for. I would do anything to make the situation different, and am totally and utterly bereft by such news. I am unbending and adamant in my promise that I WILL be back on a stage near you.’ His problem was a long-standing thumb injury and, to be fair to musicians, aches and pains, as much as colds and sore throats, are often the reason they are forced to cancel at short notice.
Often, that is, but not always. Sometimes, totally unexpected events can cause cancellations. At other times, sheer bloody-mindedness on the part of the musicians themselves is to blame. Below, we pick our way through some of classical music’s strangest cancellations, from the opera singer terrified of being showered with knickers to the naked violinist who tried to strangle a pensioner...
1. Strange concert cancellations... triple disappointment
Even the greatest names suffer cancellations, especially when the forces of mammon come into play. Early in 1802, Beethoven was looking forward to performing his new Triple Concerto at a benefit concert his brother Carl was organising. But then, out of the blue, the director of the venue cancelled. In a letter to his brother’s publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, an angry Carl wrote, ‘My brother would have written to you but is not in the mood for anything because the theatre director Baron von Braun, who is clearly an ignorant and rude man, did not allow him the theatre for a benefit concert and gave it to other, utterly mediocre artists.’
2. Ashes to ashes
The Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Rossini’s William Tell in October 2016 had been going so well – right up until the moment a member of the audience walked up to the edge of the orchestra pit and, from a container concealed on his person, poured white powder into it. Fearing a chemical attack, the management evacuated the auditorium. In fact, they had nothing to fear. ‘An individual from out of town indicated that he was here to sprinkle the ashes of a friend, his mentor in opera, during the performance,’ said John Miller of the New York Police later.
3. Strange concert cancellations... No pay, no play
When it comes to money, performers themselves can, of course, be just as single-minded. With a gambling addiction to support, the violinist Niccolò Paganini couldn’t afford to waste time performing for the odd florin. He needed to make serious cash – and he did, in the first three months of 1830 stashing around 88,000 florins in the bank, making 3,000 florins per concert. All was going well until, on 26 April, he gave a concert in Frankfurt that attracted a small audience and netted him just 600 florins. In September, it happened again in Cassel. ‘It seems foreign artists are little regarded here,’ he said, and promptly cancelled further gigs.
4. Liszt of requirements
Today's image-conscious pop stars have nothing on Liszt. He thought nothing of cancelling a concert if he thought the hall too large for the audience he expected. At each new location, he would make a careful study of his audiences, sometimes swapping halls for private rooms so as always to play to a full house. He managed his image in the local press, ensuring editors and critics were on-side. If the stars weren’t aligned, no problem – he’d cancel. There’d always be a promoter or wealthy supporter willing to accept his demands.
5. Unexpected concert cancellations... Badly trained
As disappointed members of the audience trudged home from the concert hall in Albany, New York, one day in 1862, they could never have guessed the reason behind the pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s no-show. Smallpox, perhaps? An epidemic had just ravaged Pennsylvania, after all, and rumours it was heading for New York were rife. The truth was less dramatic: Gottschalk had missed his train. He’d been flirting with a mother and her daughter in the same railway carriage. When they alighted at some remote stop, he dutifully escorted them to the platform... and the train left without him.
6. Strictly off-limits
In most places, a symposium on Wagner would excite little comment. This, however, was not most places – it was Israel, where feelings about the anti-Semitic composer run high. Officials at Tel Aviv University had agreed to the conference in June 2012 on the understanding that his music would not be performed. When they heard the Israel Wagner Society, which organised it, had commissioned an orchestra to do just that, they pulled the plug. ‘You concealed this from us,’ university officials told organisers, who disputed their claim. ‘It is ludicrous and a lie,’ said Jonathan Livny, the society’s founder.
7. Strange concert cancellations... Knickers in a twist
Nothing fazes the straight-talking, clay-pigeon shooting, golf-playing opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Well, almost nothing. In 2005, the soprano pulled out of a series of concerts with pop singer John Farnham because she was terrified the audience would throw knickers at her. She’d seen them do that to Farnham on a DVD of one of his concerts and so cancelled the three performances that would have earned her £240,000. Te Kanawa told reporters of her concerns, which included Farnham’s habit of holding up jettisoned undergarments ‘as some kind of trophy’. The organisers sued but, at court in 2007, the judge dismissed the case against her.
8. Opening strike
The great and the good of New York had been looking forward to Carnegie Hall’s opening-night gala in 2013 – and then disaster struck. In a dispute with management about extending their influence to a new educational wing, the hall’s army of stagehands, members of the Local One union, went on strike. There was no choice but to cancel the concert and refund patrons’ money, putting a dent in Carnegie Hall’s finances. Accusing management of unfairness and to make their point, the strikers, who work 60 hours a week and earn $400,000 (£320,000) a year, brought an inflatable rat to the picket line.
9. Unexpected concert cancellations... Playing politics
Twitter has a lot to answer for, not least the cancellation in 2015 of a concert by pianist Valentina Lisitsa. Famous for her YouTube performances, the Ukraine-born artist became infamous when she tweeted her opposition to the country’s government. Rattled by her outbursts, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which was due to accompany her in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, cancelled the event.
‘Our priority must remain being a stage for the world’s great works of music, and not for opinions that some believe to be offensive,’ said Jeff Melanson, the orchestra’s president. Lisitsa denied posting anything illegal.
10. Going to pot
Arts sponsorship is difficult to attract at the best of times, but the Colorado Symphony Orchestra must have realised it was sailing close to the wind when, in 2014, it organised a series of concerts sponsored by the state’s legal marijuana industry. Called Classical Cannabis: The High Note Series, the concerts, billed as Bring Your Own Cannabis, were originally open to the public. However, after City of Denver officials threatened to prosecute the organisers, the CSO refunded tickets and made it a private fundraiser.
11. Strange concert cancellations... Me and my gull
For professional pianists with precious fingers to protect from injury, potential danger can lurk around every corner. Paul Lewis probably wasn’t expecting it to come from the sky, however. As Lewis was arriving for a rehearsal at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall in June 2015, he was astonished to find himself being swooped on by an aggressive seagull. Taking evasive action, he stumbled and fell on his right hand. The resulting sprained finger caused him to call off two concerts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, as doctors ordered him to recuperate. His place was taken by bird-proof virtuoso Finghin Collins.
12. Too much to bare
'Due to unforeseen circumstances, the above concert has been cancelled,’ read the notice on Wigmore Hall’s website one day in March 2015. However, behind this deadpan message was a story of, quite literally, naked terror. Two weeks, earlier, Stefan Arzberger, a violinist in the Leipzig Quartet, had been found wandering nude in the corridors of the Hudson hotel in New York, having attacked a 64-year-old guest in her room. Arzberger blamed his actions on a date rape drug given to him by a prostitute he had invited to his room. Just over a year later, he was acquitted by a court and allowed to return to Germany.
13. Unexpected concert cancellations... Bad Korea move
It’s designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, but America’s THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system can knock out classical concerts too. South Korean pianist Kun-Woo Paik was booked to play in China in March 2017 but his country’s decision to deploy the missile system caused tensions with Beijing. These resulted in his visa being delayed and the concert cancelled. Earlier in the year, South Korean opera singer Sumi Jo’s concerts suffered the same fate. ‘We never thought the classical music industry could be the target of retaliation,’ an industry source was quoted as saying.
14. Immovable Vlad
Pianist Vladimir Horowitz was no stranger to cancelling concerts. He was a highly-strung individual for whom things had to be just so: his water filtered, his own cook to prepare meals, his own Steinway for concerts usually performed at 4pm on Sundays when, he said, audiences were most relaxed, and his hotel rooms decorated like home. Even then, nerves and stage fright could get the better of him. Occasionally, assistants would be required to coax him on stage, not always successfully. As he once said, ‘Playing the piano is the easiest thing in the world. It is the moving that is the big deal.’
15. Strange concert cancellations... The wrong direction
The desire of some opera directors to shock their audience leads them into the realms of bad taste. Wagner’s Tannhäuser, for instance, is supposed to be an opera about a lovesick minstrel and a singing contest, but in a 2013 production by Rheinoper in Düsseldorf, it morphed into a story about the Holocaust – opera lovers expecting to see our hero win his lover’s hand in marriage instead saw Nazi thugs, Jews being gassed and a family awaiting execution. It was so upsetting that audience members sought medical help. As the production was duly cancelled, director Christopher Meyer said the purpose had been to ‘mourn, not mock’ the Holocaust victims.