Inaugural opera awards in London

15 February 2013 Last updated at 16:47 GMT  Britain's Bryn Terfel is competing for best male singer at the awards in April Opera magazine is to have its first annual international awards, presented at a ceremony in London on 22 April.

The Operas, the brainchild of the long-running publication and businessman Harry Hyman, hope to raise awareness of opera as it struggles with budget cuts.

Opera magazine editor John Allison said: "Artists put their life and soul into their work but a lot of good performances.. are not recognised.

"Hopefully these awards will raise opera in everyone's conscience."

In 2011, the world famous festival Glyndebourne said it would put on fewer regional shows after seeing its arts council grant cut.

"Opera houses all over the world are in a lot of difficulty at the moment as everything is being cut and everyone is feeling the pinch," Mr Allison told the Reuters new agency.

"Some smaller houses in the United States have closed," he added.

'Wider audience'

The awards will celebrate winners in 23 categories, including best female singer, best male singer, best conductor, best opera company, and best chorus.

Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel is among those shortlisted for best male singer, alongside tenors Aleksandrs Antonenko, Piotr Beczala, Joseph Calleja, Jonas Kaufmann and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni.

Female singers in the running for the top award include Britain's Sarah Connolly, Joyce DiDonato, Evelyn Herlitzius, Catherine Naglestad, Nina Stemme, and Beatrice Uria-Monzon.

Two British conductors, Opera North's Richard Farnes and the Royal Opera House's Antonio Pappano will battle it out with Germany's Ingo Metzmacher and Christian Thielemann, and Italian Nicola Luisotti for the conductor trophy.

There will also be a lifetime achievement award and an award based on voting by readers of Opera magazine.

Awards for up-and-coming opera stars will include bursaries.

"It is important to give something back to help people's careers at a formative stage," said Mr Hyman, an opera fan.

"Opera kind of hides its light under a bushel. But we hope the awards will help bring opera to a wider audience."

Mr Allison said more than 1,500 nominations were received from 41 countries, ahead of the shortlist.

A panel of 10 opera experts, ranging from critics to singers, will decide the winners.

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Kanye announces two London shows

 Rappers Jay-Z (left) and Kanye on stage at Radio 1's Hackney weekend 2012 Kanye West will play two shows at London's Hammersmith Apollo later this month.

The first London gig and a Paris date were initially revealed on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show.

The Radio 1 DJ tweeted the news that Kanye was to play in London on 24 February and also another gig at Zenith de Paris on 25 February 2013.

An extra date at Hammersmith is now on sale (23 February) after the first night sold out.

Back in December, the rapper announced on stage that his girlfriend, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, is expecting their baby.

He told the crowd of more than 5,000 people at a gig at Atlantic City on 30 December, last year, by singing: "Now you having my baby."

23-24 February Hammersmith Apollo, London

25 February Zenith de Paris, Paris

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsbeat

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TS Eliot letter found in London

13 February 2013 Last updated at 10:44 GMT  Eliot had conflicting thoughts on whether his letters should be made public after his death A letter written by esteemed American poet TS Eliot has been discovered after being hidden for 40 years.

Eliot, famed for epic poem The Waste Land as well as writing the inspiration for Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, had written to his friend Jacob Isaacs.

The archives of Isaacs, an author and lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London in 1957, were being catalogued when the letter was unearthed.

In it Eliot queried the content of an essay he wrote on Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca, originally published in 1927, was considered a milestone in Eliot's development as a scholar of the Bard.

It examined how the popularity of the Greek writer's tragedies in Elizabethan England influenced Shakespeare's writing - and was due to be republished in 1957, prompting Eliot to contact his friend.

He asked Isaacs if he could "throw any light" on the identity of Webster, who was referred to in the essay, but Eliot was unable to remember.

The letter conveys further confusion on behalf of the writer: "Incidentally, I do not even remember whether I meant Sam Johnson or Ben Jonson. It is Jonson in my text, but is this a misprint? No one will ever know."

The letter was typed on Faber and Faber headed paper, indicating it was written at the publishing house where Eliot was employed as editor.

It was part of a collection donated to Queen Mary by Isaacs' wife upon his death in 1973.

Nobel

Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri in the USA, but later moved to the UK and settled in London.

He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948, and is probably best known for The Waste Land, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock and Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats - which was later became Lloyd Webber's musical, Cats.

The author had conflicting thoughts on whether he wanted the public to read his private letters.

In 1927, he said: "I don't like reading other people's private correspondence in print, and I do not want other people to read mine."

But six years later, he confessed an "ineradicable" desire for his letters to reach a wider audience.

"We want to confess ourselves in writing to a few friends, and we do not always want to feel that no one but those friends will ever read what we have written."

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