Manuel García as Otello
Professor directing premiere of lost “salon opera”
WFU students to perform 1831 salon opera by Spaniard
By Bob Workmon [Winston-Salem Journal, 3 Apr 05]
Not all operas are grand, full-blown theatrical events. There are many smaller, more intimate works, some called salon operas, meant to be performed, as the name implies, in intimate surroundings. Most of these smaller operas are far less well known than their super-size relations.
One of those intimate operas is Manuel Garcia’s L’isola disabitata (The Uninhabited Island), a work long forgotten until Teresa Radomski, a Wake Forest University music professor, began its recovery in 2003. Audiences can hear the fruits of her work Thursday and Friday in Brendle Recital Hall on the WFU campus. “As far as we can tell, this music hasn’t been heard since it was written in 1831,” Radomski said.
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Manuel Garcia (1775-1832): Chronicle of the Life of a Bel Canto Tenor at the Dawn of Romanticism