Oct. 25, 2007, Sala Cecilia Meireles
I met the young gaucho composer Dimitri Cervo at the 2003 Bienal of Contemporary Music, where his works for solo flute and strings, Pattapiana [named for Pattapio Silva, a great Brazilian flutist who died tragically
young at the beginning of the last century] made quite an impression.
There’s still a hint of jest in the comparison, but it’s not without reason that Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally are mentioned now and then in opera circles as “the Strauss and Hofmannsthal of the 21st century.”
Incoming general director of Santa Fe Opera, Charles MacKay, has made clear he is “in the tradition -- I will not be an agent for radical change,” at the celebrated New Mexico summer opera festival, MacKay says.
Composer Frederick Carrilho was born in 1971 in the state of Sao Paulo, and has studied guitar and composition, most recently at UNICAMP in Campinas. His music has been heard at the recent biennial festivals of contemporary music in Rio, with the Profusão V – Toccata making a strong impression at the Bienal of 2007. We spoke in Portuguese.
October 23, 2007, Sala Cecilia Meireles, Rio de Janeiro
What makes the first visit to Guanajuato’s Teatro Juárez breathtaking is the suddenness of the encounter.
Oct. 25, 2007, Rio de Janeiro.
José Orlando Alves is a young composer, originally from Minas Gerais, but who spent many years in Rio de Janeiro, where he has been active for a decade with the composers’ collaborative, Preludio XXI.
In the long ago, when the best source of music reproduction in the home was a handsome piece of furniture, fitted with hidden audio components, and usually called radio-phonographs, my family had one — from Avery Fisher I believe — that had among its controls a switch labeled ‘presence.’
Uncut with Canada’s Mistress of the trouser-role: the multifaceted Kimberly Barber.
Glimmerglass Opera is in a watershed year. With the departure of Paul Kellogg, who had considerable success developing that annual festival, General and Artistic Director Michael Macleod has chosen to begin his tenure with a variation on the usual four-opera-season, namely a thematic collection of pieces based on the “Orpheus” legend. “Don’t look back” is the marketing catch phrase.
Almost thirty years ago a century old tradition ended with the last performance of I Maestri Cantatori.
Santa Fe Opera’s announcement August 10 that English-born impresario, Richard Gaddes, General Director of the company since 2001, will retire at the end of season 2008, took the local opera community by surprise.
The week just ended was certainly of historic moment in the world of North American opera companies.
Perhaps it is a sign that, at last, the countertenor voice has come of age in the hearts and minds of both audiences and the opera establishment.
Back in the early 1980’s two good ideas came to fruition: the much-needed new concert hall for Cardiff, capital city of Wales, and plans to hold within it the first “Singer of the World” competition.
Charleston, S.C. — For over 20 years it was two operas a season here at Spoleto USA, the all-arts festival brought to this cultural capital of the Old South by Gian Carlo Menotti in 1977.
It is every young opera singer’s dream.
On May 9th, when Santa Fe Opera finally announced that Alan Gilbert had left his post as Music Director of that company, a long-standing rumor was made official.
Robert Gierlach wishes he could rewrite “Anna Karenina,” the Tolstoi whopper turned into an opera by librettist Colin Graham and composer David Carlson. It’s not that Gierlach, who sings Vronsky in the world premiere of the work at Florida Grand Opera on April 28, has misgivings about the author’s artistry; he simply wishes that the story could have a happy ending.
by Miguel A. DeVirgilio Dario Volonté was born on September 1, 1963, in Buenos Aires, although his family came from a humble household some 250 miles north of the capital, Entre Rios. His musical vocation began late after having discovered...
by Miguel A. DeVirgilio
Dario Volonté was born on September 1, 1963, in Buenos Aires, although his family came from a humble household some 250 miles north of the capital, Entre Rios. His musical vocation began late after having discovered his facility for imitating the tenor voice at the age of 17, when he watched Plácido Domingo in Otello on television from Teatro Colón.
At the age of 18 he was sent to the Malvinas War to serve duty on the ill-fated warship General Belgrano, which was sunk by the British and of which Volonté was among the few survivors. Upon his return he joined a local church choir and met the baritone José Crea who tutored him for free. During the following twelve years he earnt his living as a moving van driver while studying music at nights.
A big break came in 1994 when he auditioned for the Teatro Avenida of Buenos Aires and was cast as a tenor in a zarzuela. Subsequent performances helped to launch a break in Europe; in Italy he joined a touring opera group from Bulgaria and sang in Ballo in Maschera and Il Trovatore in Belgium and Holland. Meanwhile, he was audtioned by several European theatres, and the Wexford Festival of Ireland contracted him for Riccardo Zandonai’s “I Cavalieri di Ekebu” in 1998, which he performed to considerable public and critical acclaim. In May of 1999 he was Mariano in Hector Panizza’s and Luigi Illica’s “Aurora.” November 1999 he stepped in as Edgardo in Lucia de Lammermoor opposite June Anderson, after the passing away of Alfredo Kraus.
Recent activities:
San Diego: Calaf
Cincinnati: Pollione
Berlin, Pittsburgh:Calaf
Buenos Aires Colon, Alla Scala Milano: Cavaradossi, Edgardo, Don Carlo
Regio di Parma: Manrico, Geneva Opera
Teatro Communale di Firenze: Des Grieux (Manon Lescaut)
Teatro Real Madrid: Don Carlo
San Carlo di Napoli: La Battaglia di Legnano