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27 Dec 2007
Although considered among Ravel’s finest works, Daphnis et Chloé may be known best through excerpts, particularly the second suite that the composer derived from his score. »
27 Dec 2007
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.” »
27 Dec 2007
Watching The Queen of Spades staged by a Russian company is often an unforgettable experience. »
26 Dec 2007
A 1979 recording originally released on LP in 1985, the CD reissue of this classic performance of Schoenberg’s 1913 cantata Gurrelieder as part of its series entitled Originals makes this fine account of this magnificent work available to another generation of listeners. »
18 Dec 2007
If Belfast in Northern Ireland isn’t a city that immediately springs to mind as a centre of musical excellence then it’s not for want of talent, initiative and professionalism within its cultural community. »
16 Dec 2007
After the triumph of his fifth opera, Ernani, Verdi could have gone on writing howling melodramas and made a mint. »
14 Dec 2007
You will wonder what designer Rosalie could have been thinking when she put Brunnhilde in trousers twice as wide at the waist as the soprano wearing them, with a nippled plastic bustier above. »
11 Dec 2007
Not long ago, English National Opera declared an intention to capitalise on its name and history by placing greater emphasis on English works. »
11 Dec 2007
Despite 19th-century Russia’s reputation as an Italian opera haven, Verdi’s late masterpiece Otello found acceptance there only with great difficulty, even though in its 1889 premiere the title role acquired a great local interpreter in the Mariinsky Theater primo uomo, Nikolai Figner. »
04 Dec 2007
Imagine a mild December night, with some three hundred people queueing for a concert ticket on Siena’s horseshoe-shaped Piazza del Campo. »
04 Dec 2007
Johanna Kinkel (1810-1858) was a talented contemporary of Fanny Hensel, and other fine musicians of the first half of the nineteenth century. Her legacy includes some fine Lieder, which are collected as An Imaginary Voyage through Europe in an arrangement that represents the various themes she explored in her music. »
04 Dec 2007
Peter Schickele, channeling P.D.Q. Bach, was wont to say, “Most classical scholars were
unaware Iphigenia was ever in Brooklyn … and I think the cantata, Iphigenia in Brooklyn, does for Iphigenia what the Vinland Map did for Leif Ericsson.” »
04 Dec 2007
The American Dream and the tragic vision of ancient Greece are miles and millennia apart; yet they merge seamlessly in William Bolcom’s “View from the Bridge,” on stage in November at the Washington National Opera. »
04 Dec 2007
Die Frau ohne Schatten is the story of a being of purely sensual spirit who defies the temptation to do evil, thereby demonstrating a moral soul and achieving humanity. »
28 Nov 2007
The little heard “Adelia, o la figlia dell’arciere” (Adelia, or the Archer’s Daughter) stands between Donizetti’s Parisian successes “La fille du regiment” and “La favorite” in the prolific composer’s oeuvre. »
28 Nov 2007
San Francisco Opera makes it possible for opera-lovers who have stuffed themselves with turkey on the fourth Thursday of November to indulge in a feast of opera on the following three days. »
27 Nov 2007
Although few composers have been so closely associated with a single work, Johann Pachelbel, whose canon for three violins has achieved canonical ubiquity, was a prolific composer with a number of vocal works to his credit. »
19 Nov 2007
Part of the fun of visiting the many companies that specialize in unearthing forgotten operas lies precisely in not knowing what you’re going to get. »
19 Nov 2007
The bel canto era, insofar as the contemporary public considers it at all, is usually thought of as the golden age of vocal beauty for its own sake. »
19 Nov 2007
Mozart made it easy for the Philistines. They see Don Giovanni thrown into the flaming jaws of Hell and hiss: “Two thousand women seduced and abandoned! “ »
18 Nov 2007
Released as part of Orfeo’s series entitled Festspiel Dokumente, this recording makes available on CD the concert performance at the Salzburg Festival of Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony by the Vienna Philharmonic that Hans Knappertsbusch conducted on 30 August 1949. »
18 Nov 2007
The first opera performance I consciously attended while being definitely hooked to the genre due to records, was Guillaume Tell more than 40 years ago. »
18 Nov 2007
Released in celebration of the recent Mozart year, Tutto Mozart! is a collection of nineteen arias, duets and other ensembles from the composer’s operas that feature the baritone Bryn Terfel. »
18 Nov 2007
Founded in Oxford in the early 1990’s, the ensemble Charivari Agréable looks to seventeenth-century composers with Oxford connections as the basis for their recent recording, “The Oxford Psalms.” »
18 Nov 2007
The Badisches Staatstheater seems to have borrowed with a vengeance the catch-phrase from John Waters’ recent “A Dirty Shame,” namely: “Let’s go sexin’!” I can’t recall ever seeing a “Don Giovanni”
with more lip-locks, grinding torsos, leg-wraps, and groping embraces. »
16 Nov 2007
Edita Gruberova’s North American fans, who can only hold onto dim hopes that someday the
European superstar will return to these shores, can always seek to sate their desire for her artistry by picking up the latest CD from Nightingale Classics. »
14 Nov 2007
"They are boys, and they sing, but don't call them choirboys. 'Libera' prefer to be called a vocal group — a real boy band, if you like." »
14 Nov 2007
Between the efforts of recording companies Naxos and Opera Rara, Rossini-philes have been living in a golden age. »
14 Nov 2007
Philips decided some time ago that it no longer needed to be the audio representative for two fine contemporary singers of Russian origin, mezzo Olga Borodina and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. »
14 Nov 2007
After the marketing gimmickry of Sally Potter’s production of Carmen, and a dance-based Poppea set at the bottom of the sea, it did not bode well when the advertising for ENO’s latest
production included an interactive dress-up doll circulated by email. »
14 Nov 2007
Attending the opera may not be the first thing you think of when visiting Istanbul, but opera is to be found (if less well advertised than the local Bach Festival) at the Ataturk Cultural Center on Taksim Square, the heart of modern Istanbul. »
14 Nov 2007
Welsh National Opera’s new opera “The Sacrifice”, composed by James MacMillan with libretto by Michael Symmons Roberts, and directed by Katie Mitchell, is an emotionally raw and compelling study of the nature of conflict, and how humans are changed by it. »
13 Nov 2007
Verdi, a born skeptic where the supernatural is concerned, did not seem to know quite what to do with the witches in Macbeth and was far too loyal to Shakespeare to reduce their role – he knew how closely the play was bound to them, famous for them. »
12 Nov 2007
Le Nozze di Figaro, in 1786, was the longest and most elaborate opera buffa ever composed and (though it is seldom given complete) is still the longest you are likely to see in the regular repertory. »
12 Nov 2007
As its name suggests, the selections on this wonderful new CD are all excerpted from five different versions of the tale of the beautiful enchantress “Armida.” »
11 Nov 2007
Recorded on 29 January 1978, this performance preserves a classic production of Beethoven’s Fidelio, which involved a gifted cast. »
11 Nov 2007
Although seriously ill, Beverly Sills and Luciano Pavarotti were still very much alive when general director Anthony Freud in his second year in this position planned the 53rd season of the Houston Grand Opera. »
11 Nov 2007
Since his appointment as general manager of Parma’s Teatro Regio in August 2005, Mauro Meli didn’t conceal his ambitious plans for growth. »
11 Nov 2007
A notice for organizers: it’s relatively easy to produce a vocal recital and sell out a large house
for two nights in a row. »
11 Nov 2007
It’s somewhat of a mystery why Puccini’s 1917 “La Rondine” is such a neglected, rarely-performed opera. »
31 Oct 2007
This book is in German, which may make it of limited interest to people who are not sufficiently familiar with the language. »
31 Oct 2007
The 17th Bienal of Contemporary Brazilian Music [XVII Bienal de Música Brasileira Contemporânea] began on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2007 at the Sala Cecilia Meireles, Rio's leading concert hall, with a lengthy program divided between six orchestral works, entrusted to the National Symphony Orchestra of the Universidade Federal Fluminense, based in Niteroi, RJ and three works for percussion, interpreted by the Dynamo Percussion Quartet. »
30 Oct 2007
When performances remain in the aural memory of the audience long after the final wave of applause, the event merits attention. »
30 Oct 2007
I recently made a special trip to Hamburg with one real goal in mind: to hear one of my most favorite young singers, bass Kyle Ketelsen in the Staatsoper’s new production of “Tales of Hoffmann.” »
29 Oct 2007
The two short films about the composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), The Early Years and Maturity & Silence comprise a video biography of Finnish artist. »
28 Oct 2007
For the final HD moviecast of the 2007-08 season, the Metropolitan Opera will present two stars in a production that has already earned rave reviews at Covent Garden: Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez starring in Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment. »
28 Oct 2007
Despite rumours to the contrary, English National Opera’s advertising material claims that this 12th revival of Nicholas Hytner’s popular production of ‘ The Magic Flute’ will be the last. Though it’s arguably better to get rid of a production in... »
28 Oct 2007
Someone once called Handel’s Italian cantata Apollo e Dafne a “proto-opera” and it’s easy to see why. »
28 Oct 2007
Among the signal operas of the twentieth century, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934) by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is a powerful transformation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, based on the 1865 short story by Nicolai Leskov. »
