from the NVC Arts/Warner catalog and from Paris -based Bel Air Media, as well as new programs from Iambic Productions. In addition to Romeo et Juliette, Iambic is creating Septuagenarian Encores, Peru's Pavarotti, Sydney's String King: programs for Online Classics and Digital Classics TV, including a con- cert series from London's Wigmore CLASSICAL MUSIC NEWS Hall that features such vocal artists as Emma Kirkby, Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen. Online Classics in June relaunched its Web site at FROM AROUND THE WORLD onlineclassics.com and introduced a pay -per-view service for high -speed Internet connections. Digital Classics Billboard correspondents offer a sample of noteworthy developments in classical music from key international markets TV has been available in the U.K. since July as a fully encrypted digital - 400,000 units. In Italy, 1,000 TV service after launching with the Hamburg -This summer's Bayreuth Festival has provid- sales of -"Has Peru pm- copies is considered an acceptable program Midsummer Classics from London ed a unique European showcase for American tenor Robert duced the next Pavarotti?" So asked result for a classical album." Royal Albert Hall. The channel's fall Dean Smith, who has pulled the hat trick of performing in a headline in the U.K.'s Guardian lineup of programs will include lead roles in three Wagner operas during a single season -as newspaper after a January recital -Star opera couple Pavarotti and Friends, a performance Siegmund in Die Walküre, as Walther von Stolzing in Die London here by Juan Diego Florez, the young Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus Meistersinger and the title role in Lohengrin. The performanc- Peruvian tenor who will release his Alagna perform the lead roles in a from this summer's Salzburg Festival, es coincided with the release in Germany by Arte Nova /BMG debut album in January via Decca new £1.5 million ($2.25 million) tel- Verdi's Rigoletto from Arena di of Wagner Portrait, which features Smith. Born in Kansas, the Records. "It would seem that the presentation Verona and a series of classical mas- singer studied at Pittsburg State University and at the Juilliard evision of Gounod's 21st century has found the first of its Romeo et Juliette, filmed in the U.K. ter classes. The channel now supplies School in New York before great tenors," raved Guardian critic this summer by Iambic Produc- classical programming through ITV pursuing his career in Tim Ashley about Florez's solo per- tions -one of three divisions of the Select, the digital service of one of Europe. He made his formance at St. John's Smith Square. rapidly growing media company Britain's leading commercial, terres- Bayreuth debut in 1997 Costa Pilavachi, president of the Digital Classics. Under CEO Chris trial broadcasters. It aims to expand and has since performed Decca Music Group in London Hunt, Digital its digital service into other Euro- at the Vienna State Opera, Classics also consists (which includes the Decca and of Online Classics, an Internet pean markets in the year ahead. the Munich State Opera, , AYRE\JrThER FESTSPIELE Phillips imprints), notes that Florez's broadcaster of classical repertoire, London's Royal Opera signing to Decca is "a very simple and Digital Classics TV, a digital -TV House -Covent Garden and the Teatro Real in Madrid, as well story but the way it should happen. channel in the U.K. A fourth divi- as at Carnegie Hall, where he sang on Beethoven's Missa Contributors to this report: Wolf- He was already known to our A &R sion, Digital Classics Distribution, is Solemnis earlier this year with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He people, so we had a couple of proj- due to be launched this autumn at gang Spahr in Hamburg, Mark Wor- is due to return to his home in October to perform in Die Meis- ects where he fit in nicely." Among the MIPcom television market in tersinger at the San Francisco Opera House. Dieter Oehms, den in Milan, Christie Eliezer in Syd- those were the set of Mozart's early Cannes. It will have the global TV- managing director of Arte Nova, describes Smith as "the most opera Mitridate released by Decca in distribution rights to programming ney and Thom Duffy in New York. important heroic tenor discovery of the past few decades, April 1999 and volume the second of capable of handling even the most demanding Wagner roles Rossini cantatas issued this past with ease." Launching Wagner Portrait Aug. 1 in Germany, Sydney-Although classical music accounts for only 1.5% May, both of which starred Cecilia Arte Nova backed the release with an extensive marketing of the Australian music market, the country has produced a Bartoli with Florez in a supporting campaign, including ads in all of the country's major classical line of internationally recognized guitarists, including John role. The son of a Peruvian pop magazines and posters in retail outlets. At Die Schallplatte Williams, Slava Grigoryan and Gareth Koch. Colours of Fire is singer, Florez trained under one of record store in the town of Bayreuth itself, owner Regina Koch's noteworthy current release, a two -CD set on the Art- that country's most famous tenors, Wentscher says the album has sold briskly, noting that "Robert works label (artworksmusic.com). The guitarist performs two Ernesto Palacio, and has followed in Dean Smith is the star of Bayreuth." hours of works from Bach and Vivaldi that he learned at the the light, lyric tradition of another Sydney Conservatorium of Music and during post -graduate great Peruvian tenor, Luigi Alva. has produced and released Ciccoli- things move slowly in the classical studies in Madrid and Vienna. "His diary began filling up with the ni's latest, titled Bis e Encores. Says market, and we released it ahead of But the album also features best possible engagements," Bettin, "He's a man who, in spite of time to get the specialty press talking Celtic influences popular songs Pilavachi notes of Florez's recent per- his 76 years, has a vitality that's about it. That's our main form of pro- and contemporary instrumentals formances on Rossini's La Generen- almost frightening. He's played with motion, along with ads in that type of that hint at a teen flirtation with tola and Verdi's Otello at London's everyone from Shostakovich and publication." Matalon admits that the Jimi Hendrix, as well as flamen- Royal Opera House -Covent Garden. Furtwängler to Zubin Mehta. He's classical market, like Italian music in co represented in seven dances Decca has enjoyed a buoyant sales had a glorious career, and we general, is going through a rough written by Koch. "Most albums year, thanks to the crossover success thought an album of his concert patch. "Basically, shops have been are a freeze frame of a certain of two British acts- female pop - encores would be fun; I don't think it saturated with titles in the past, and, point of your life," says the 38- instrumental outfit Bond and soccer - would make sense for a younger as record companies have tried to year -old Koch. "But this record arena tenor Russell Watson (whose pianist to release something like [cut] their output, sales have fallen reflects where I've been the past sophomore album is due this fall in this." Neapolitan by birth, Ciccolini off," he says. "We've put this album 20 years. It opens up my life the U.K. and early next year in the has spent much of his life in France, out at a catalog price of 13,000 lire after I turn 40 to face the chal- U.S.). Florez, meanwhile, recently and he is a recognized authority on ($6.50), about a third of the normal lenge of tapping the guitar for completed recording his debut album Gareth Kr,ch such French composers as Debussy price of 39,000 lire ($18.50). Indeed, more different expressions." of Rossini arias for release in Janu- and Satie, with a large catalog of the big classical sellers in Italy tend to Born in Milan, the son of the award -winning author Christo- ary, when he is due to make his EMI recordings. But his latest disc be either crossover artists like Andrea pher J. Koch (The Year of Living Dangerously, Out of Ireland), American debut in Rossini's The features concert- closing performanc- Bocelli or more traditional albums Gareth Koch learned flamenco guitar from gypsies as a 12- Barber of Seville at New York's Met- es of works by Schubert, Mozart, with either a cut-price or a special year -old living in southern Spain. He also plays piano and ropolitan Opera. Beethoven and Chopin, as well as distribution arrangement. For exam- learned clarinet at the Mozarteum in Salzburg as a teenager. 20th -century Italian composer Mario ple, Musicom, in league with La Koch teaches at the University of Newcastle and oversees a 76, Milan At age pianist Castelnuovo- Tedesco. Phoenix issued Scala, has released a set of Riccardo graduate and post -graduate flamenco studies program. Aldo Ciccolini is "an institution," the album earlier this summer, with Muti's recordings of the Beethoven "Gareth is unique," says Artworks managing director Andrew declares Giovanni Bettin, head of distribution in Italy by the Ducale symphonies. The set has been sold McKeich. "The sad thing is that, while he has his supporters in Phoenix Classics, small independ- a group. "The effective launch date for through newsstands, together with Australia, he is destined to make a larger impact abroad." ent label based in the northeastern an album is [normally] September," the daily newspaper, La Repubblica, Koch previously toured Europe in 1997 and returns to perform Montebelluno.