Month: September 2005

Glimmerglass Opera has been doing innovative and often remarkable work for a number of years. Thankfully, many of their productions have been shared with the New York City Opera and, thus, with a large opera-going public.

Based on a tongue-in-cheek poem by young Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Glinkaís second opera Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842) is an epic adventure tale, in which three rival Russian knights roam the land in search of a Kievan princess kidnapped by a sorcerer.

This newly re-mastered recording was originally released in 1954 by Columbia (Qcx 10111/12), later reprinted by EMI (C163-00981/2), and it includes, besides Giulieta Simionato in the title role, three other members of the original 1953 production at La Scala: tenor Cesare Valleti, and bass Mario Petri in their respective roles of Lindoro and Mustaf‡ and Conductor Carlo Maria Giulini.

Audiences accustomed to hearing the grandeur of Shostakovichís early symphonies may initially be disillusioned when listening to his Thirteenth Symphony for the first time.

With a career spanning the monarchies of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth I, Thomas Tallisís musical pragmatism became both a necessary and distinctive trait.

Among Gaetano Donizettiís compositions are just over a dozen one-act operas. Save for his one (Venice 1818), a genre that many twentieth-century historians considered respectable primarily because of contributions made to it by Gioachino Rossini, the Donizettiís other single-act works generally have been brushed aside as less important than the larger operas.