Recently in Reviews
11 Apr 2007
“Linvitation au voyage” is an appropriate title for this collection of French song, which makes available a number of fine performances of both familiar and rare works. »
11 Apr 2007
With a label such as Gala, a purveyor of live recordings of various provenance, some adjustment to compromised sound quality can be expected. »
07 Apr 2007
The latest offering from the Baltimore Lyric Opera was Bedrich Smetana’s sparkling comedy Prodana Nevesta (“Bartered Bride”), a little gem of Czech Romantic nationalism that one does not see live very often these days. »
07 Apr 2007
This excellent disc brings together two ballet scores from the far ends of Leonard Bernstein’s compositional career. »
06 Apr 2007
Kurt Weill’s perennial appeal can be attributed to various factors, not the least of which is the genuine craft of his stage works. »
06 Apr 2007
Film music has become a sort of refuge for some music lovers turned off by the work of those serious music composers who have turned increasingly away from attempting an encounter with a broader public, retreating into an insular word of academic composition. »
04 Apr 2007
With some deliberation the Metropolitan Opera releases DVD versions of live television broadcasts from its heyday as a PBS mainstay. »
02 Apr 2007
Verdi's magnificent melodrama Il Trovatore may be the most masculine of his creations, but the production that San Diego Opera presented as the third opera of its 2007 season was a triumph for the ladies. »
30 Mar 2007
A classic Seinfeld episode revolved around a brush with the “third” of the Three Tenors - the one whom no one could quite put a name to. »
30 Mar 2007
Let’s face it, Handel’s “Poro, Re dell’Indie” (in English “Porus, King of India”) isn’t exactly a household name in any but the most dedicated baroque opera circles. »
28 Mar 2007
UC Opera now have a half-century’s reputation to live up to; they were responsible for the UK premieres of such works as Das Liebesverbot, The Maid of Orleans, Alzira, Oberto and the 1847 version of Macbeth. »
27 Mar 2007
Known almost iconically for his symphonies, Anton Bruckner devoted a great deal of his compositional output to vocal music, including choral works in both German and Latin. »
26 Mar 2007
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French instrumental music was closely identified with dance and dance suites. »
26 Mar 2007
Although milestones in the history of opéra-comique, Grétry’s operas are infrequently revived and rarely recorded. »
25 Mar 2007
With the trials and tribulations of a multicultural society currently at the forefront of the British media, Gavin Quinn’s production placed a light-hearted focus on the bizarreness of a group of foreigners being thrown together in an unfamiliar situation. »
25 Mar 2007
This 2005 production of the Mozart-Da Ponte masterpiece Don Giovanni makes for a frustrating experience. »
25 Mar 2007
London is fortunate to have played host to several productions of Tchaikovsky’s best-known opera in the last three years alone, most recently British Youth Opera’s heartbreakingly fresh account last September – so it was a risky decision on ETO’s part to stage yet another. »
21 Mar 2007
When Matilde di Shabran was premiered in Rome on Feb. 24, 1821, it was billed as a
“melodrama giocoso” (which is the equivalent of an opera semiseria), somewhere between an opera buffa and an opera seria in character. »
21 Mar 2007
Asked in an interview by Opera News on his opinion on updating, James Levine replied that it often intensified one or another aspect of the story but that in general it was not possible to update without distorting the story and the equilibrium in the whole opera. »
21 Mar 2007
Our modern sense of the eighteenth-century Lutheran cantata derives in large part from the works of J. S. Bach—works that have been foundational in the early music movement, works that have much shaped our understanding of Bach, and works that we now know in an impressive array of different recordings. »
21 Mar 2007
I am surely not the only one who doesn’t understand why this sparkling score is not performed
more often. »
21 Mar 2007
In setting the scene or furthering the action on stage, the opera chorus often provides some
memorable aural scenery in works by composers from Claudio Monteverdi to Arnold
Schoenberg, and this collection offers a representative selection of examples from both those
composers, and well as a number of others. Recorded on 14 January 2004, this concert of the
Stuttgart Staatsopernchor and Staatsorchester offered a program devoted to memorable choruses. »
21 Mar 2007
Based from concerts given on 22 August, 7 September, and 8 September 2005, this recording of
Mahler’s Sixth Symphony is the latest release of the Concertgebouw’s own RCO Live label. »
20 Mar 2007
Nice Opera, on the French Cote d’Azur, seemed a most suitable place for this early work by
Handel. »
20 Mar 2007
In their attempt to recreate a combination of musical styles typical of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Nürnberg, Schola Hungarica and its directors László Dobszay & Janka Szendrei have chosen selections from the Gänsebuch, described as the “only complete extant source for the pre-Reformation liturgy of the mass in Nürnberg.” [CD liner-notes, p. 3] »
20 Mar 2007
I never heard the 1966 live recording with Margherita Rinaldi and Paolo Montarsolo and I don’t
have a clue what the sound picture is like. »
19 Mar 2007
A near-capacity audience, expectant and enthusiastic, streamed into the Dorothy Chandler for an old-fashioned evening of operatic glamour, as Angela Gheorghiu, with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra in support, flew into town for a one night concert. »
19 Mar 2007
This year is Thomas Adés’ annus mirabilis. He’s the subject of a major, six-week retrospective at the Barbican, and, of course, will be a major presence at the Aldeburgh Festival. »
13 Mar 2007
Speaking to a trusted chorus-member friend after this performance, I was told that I had benefited from not having seen this production when new three months ago. »
13 Mar 2007
Just about halfway though his first season as music director of Los Angeles Opera, James Conlon has already made himself an endearing and appreciated figure. »
13 Mar 2007
Perhaps the gestation period for “Wakonda’s Dream,” premiered by Opera Omaha on March 7, was too long. »
13 Mar 2007
Two weeks before viewing these DVD’s, I attended a performance of the same opera at De Vlaamse Opera in a new production by Ivo van Hove; Flemish boss of the most important Amsterdam theatre company. »
08 Mar 2007
With the distance of time, is it allowable to feel affection for Herbert von Karajan, beyond any respect — grudging or otherwise — for his long, starry career? »
08 Mar 2007
Recorded between 18 and 29 June 1984 at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, this production of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nűrnberg makes a classic presentation of the opera available in a two-DVD set issued in 2006 by Deutsche Grammophon. »
08 Mar 2007
This concert was given on New Year’s eve in the year 2000, and the frail Claudio Abbado who
comes out to conduct makes for an alarming sight. »
08 Mar 2007
It was in the “Orwell year” 1984 that Götz Friedrich, general manager — Intendant — of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB) from 1983 until his death in 2000, staged the first half of Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” in the 1900-seat house on Berlin’s Bismarckstrasse. »
06 Mar 2007
It is well known that the Opera Orchestra of New York’s performances are required events for
opera aficionados to hear the the most exciting performances of the season. »
06 Mar 2007
Compared with Pamina and Tamino, Kumudha and her Prince, the central figures in “A Flowering Tree,” the John Adams and Peter Sellars collaboration given its American premiere on March 1 by the San Francisco Symphony, walk a rock-strewn road. »
28 Feb 2007
The death this month of director Stephen Pimlott could have cast a shadow over this revival of his 1993 production, but a hugely affectionate pre-show tribute by colleague Nicholas Hytner ensured that the performance only served to do great honour to the memory of a man who was clearly loved and cherished by many. »
28 Feb 2007
The booklet essay writer effuses passionately about this filmed Kalman operetta, Die Csárdásfürstin. Jürgen Otten gushes over the "immortal melodies," Anna Moffo's "precious jewel" of a voice, and Rene Kollo's "innate nobility." »
28 Feb 2007
The Rosenblatt Recital Series, which presents concerts around London from artists ranging from the well-known to the brand-new, last week showcased Nicole Cabell, the glamorous 29-year-old winner of the 2005 Cardiff Singer of the World competition. »
27 Feb 2007
Originally released by Deutsche Grammophon in 1976, this recording of selected songs by Sergei
Rachmaninov (1873-1943) and Mikhail Glinka (1804-57) make available some fine examples of
Russian art song to Western audiences. »
27 Feb 2007
Why should anyone buy a German language broadcast of a delicious French opéra-comique? »
27 Feb 2007
John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage continues to echo with the release of concert
recordings of this historic millennial tour. »
27 Feb 2007
As familiar Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser is, the opera benefits from solid performances that bring together fine singing, exquisite orchestral playing, and effective staging, and the Metropolitan Opera’s 1982 production conducted by James Levine gave audiences an exemplary performance that remains a touchstone for this work. »
27 Feb 2007
This wasn’t an “easy” program for dilettantes. »
26 Feb 2007
If there ever was a moment where architecture and music became passionately tied to one another, it would be when the polychoral music of the 16th century was tied to St. Mark’s
cathedral in Venice. »
22 Feb 2007
At the curtain call for the first night of WNO’s new production of the infrequently performed Khovanshchina director David Pountney wore a simple Russian shirt. »
