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Elsewhere

Englebert Humperdinck: Hansel und Gretel — BBC Prom 61

The annual visit of Glyndebourne Opera to the BBC Proms has become an eagerly awaited event.

BERTIN: La Esmeralda

La Esmeralda: Opéra in four acts.

Puccini’s Edgar at the Teatro Regio Torino

A world premiere of a new opera holds the promise of an exciting new addition to the fairly calcified collection of masterpieces that comprise the standard repertory.

Brahms: Lieder

Like her impressive recording of Lieder by Dvořák (Harmonia Mundi CD 901824), Bernarda Fink’s recording of a selection of Lieder by Brahms not only offers a fine representation of the music, but also demonstrate the singer’s command of this repertoire.

David McVicar’s Salome

This high-concept Salome takes place in Nazi Germany.The set has two levels: on top, Herod revels with the banqueters; below, we see a dingy basement, full of kitchen workers, relaxed soldiers, and the prostitutes who help them relax.

Aspen makes Corigliano’s Ghosts classic

When it debuted at the Met in 1991 John Corigliano’s overwrought and somewhat all-too comic Ghosts of Versailles was praised largely as a vehicle for the long-celebrated artistry of Teresa Stratas and Marilyn Horne.

Jean Sibelius: Kullervo, Op. 7.

Sibelius’s 1892 symphonic poem for soloists, chorus, and orchestra is in the tradition of the cantata-like symphonies of the nineteenth century, as found in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang or Mahler’s Second Symphony.

Glimmerglass Rarities Out-Score Hall of Famer

To frame it in nearby-Cooperstown sports metaphors, the enterprising Glimmerglass Opera scored two decisive ‘home runs,’ and a decent enough ‘single’ in its 2010 Festival season.

Robert Baksa — An Interview by Tom Moore

Robert Baksa is a name that is well-known to lovers of contemporary chamber music, with a hundred chamber works to his credit.

Lulu at Covent Garden

One of the leading lights of Berg’s Vienna was the architect Adolf Loos, the great crusader against ornament.

Un ballo in maschera at the Teatro Real

The greatest dramatic tenor and soprano roles have proven irresistible to Marcelo Alvarez, who started primarily as a lyric tenor, and Violeta Urmana, whose first career success came as a mezzo.

Sigismondo, La Cenerentola, Demetrio e Polibio at Pesaro

The fourteen year old Rossini composed his first opera Demetrio e Polibio in 1806 though it was not performed for another six years.

Tristan und Isolde, Bayreuth 2009

As the prelude plays, we see circles of fluorescent light moving slowly in uncertain black space. Are we seeing flights of flying saucers, as in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

Mozart and Rossini Finales at Grant Park, Chicago

During a recent concert at the Grant Park Music Festival, held on this occasion in the adjacent Harris Theater, members of the Ryan Opera Center of Lyric Opera of Chicago presented ensembles from four operas, two each by Mozart and by Rossini.

Schumann’s Genoveva

Robert Schumann’s only opera Genoveva (1850) is best known as a failure in its time and has since fallen into the list of succès d’estime, but with this new release, based on a production intended for television, conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt champions the work in his second recording of the score.

Tales of Hoffmann at Santa Fe

The performances of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann at Santa Fe Opera this summer are the based on Michael Kaye’s edition of the score.

Tristan in Seattle

Seattle, the city of software and Starbucks, is also a summer site for serious Wagnerites.

To Loxford with Love

There was a time when the works of Benjamin Britten, one of the 20th-Century’s supreme composers, were not welcome at Santa Fe Opera.

Marco Polo at Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam

Does this Tan Dun opera prove or disprove that for East and West, the twain shall never meet?

Michael Christie conducts Corigliano in Aspen

Michael Christie, now 34, was too young to see John Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles when it was new at the Metropolitan Opera in 1991.


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Commentary

Robert Baksa [Photo by Allen Schaefer]
24 Aug 2010

Robert Baksa — An Interview by Tom Moore

Robert Baksa is a name that is well-known to lovers of contemporary chamber music, with a hundred chamber works to his credit.  »

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