Operation Legova
According to sources close to the Thrupiece Philharmonic Orchestra, controversial and rarely “off message” [though frequently “off key” [Dorset Musical Times]] conductor Maestra Irina Legova is likely to remain on permanent compulsory compassionate mandatory furlough following yet another failed attempt to rehabilitate her in the eyes of the Great Heaving classical music loving public. After finally accepting that her appearances on the podium were inimical both to good order and good taste, it is understood that Executive Chair of the Orchestra’s Management and Advisory Board, Mrs Amanda J Threadbone, has privately bowed to pressure to ensure that Ms Legova never directs the orchestra again.
Critics of the nubile chef d'orchestre [who "looks good in white tie and tails and even better out of them" [Sydling St Nichiolas Sun]] have not been slow to point out that, during her tenure as Principle Conductor, audience attendance figure dropped like a stone from 98.4% of capacity [in 2017] to 12.9% in her third season. The inevitable outcome was her temporary - now permanent - suspension and the emergency injection of even more temporary "conductor for life" Maestro Såphpäar O'Hands - a move which resulted in a “small but not insignificant rally” stalled only by the inexplicable decision to programme an all Adinsell Threadbone Film Night - a strategy which the TPO had previously deployed [and failed to launch] at the height of Ms Legova’s “regime”.
Is it any surprise then to learn that the woman who can “unleash chaos with a swing of her baton” should have been spotted recently giving concerts to Russian troops parked on the borders of the Ukraine? Part of Операция Подстрекательство [Operation Incitement], Ms Legova - whose Dorset programming evidenced a distinct penchant for the works of the more astringent and previously undiscovered ["justly neglected"] women composers, [Justly Neglected Women Composers Monthly] of the post Soviet era [of whom there are a surprising and frankly dispiriting number] - was allegedly recruited by Moscow agents to fire up the troops prior to their deployment in the battle for the hearts and minds [aka assets and territories] of their Ukrainian neighbours. Whilst cultural overtures of this kind [soft power] are by no means unknown in international politics, professorthrupiece.com has learned that it is more likely that Ms Legova has been tasked with enraging the soldiers than soothing the fevered foreign brow. Certainly if her latest release - Goodnight Ukraine: Songs My KGB Minders Taught Me is anything to go by, those troops will be pretty incensed by the time they storm Kyiv.
Speaking yesterday, a former TPO audience member who last year unsuccessfully sued the orchestra for hearing damage and related psychological trauma after attending several concerts during Ms Legova’s tenure was clear just how effective the attractive [32-24-30] raven-haired temptress [surely maestro [Ed]] could be when it came to raising both the decibel levels and the anger of an assembled crowd. “By the end of some concerts the handful of remaining audience members were ready to lynch anyone who stood between them and the exit doors” she said.
In the meantime in a bold and frankly irresponsible experiment, presenter of Radio Dorset’s Friday Night Used to be Music Night - Dick Head - administered a 20mg mogadon cocktail to a carefully selected group of narcolepts before playing them Track 3 (Jenda Equalitova’s tone poem Время душа в тюрьме Черного дельфина [Shower Time at the Black Dolphin Prison] from Ms Legova’s latest album. The results have been described as “interesting”. Of the 20 participants, 18 were admitted to Herston General with life-threatening head injuries [the other two could not be properly restrained, are still on the loose somewhere and "should in no circumstances be approached by the public for at least 48 hours"]. Ten of those admitted remain in a critical condition and three have been referred for further psychiatric evaluation.
Ms Legova herself has been hard to track down and characteristically enigmatic. However, she did issue a brief statement through her Russian agency Duemova, Konnem & Rippemov: "Народы думают, что музыка — это все о любви. Иногда бывает так, иногда - полная противоположность. Сергей Прокофьев пишет великую русскую оперу «Война и мир». В России принято выступать только в первом тайме". [“The peoples they think music is all about love. Sometimes is so, sometimes is complete opposite. Serge Prokofiev is writing great Russian opera War and Peace. In Russia is tradition to perform only first half “.