http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,11712,1589081,00.html
Year: 2005
Ariane et Barbe-bleue, State Theater, New York
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3f068298-39f3-11da-806e-00000e2511c8.html
OFFENBACH: Les FÈes du Rhin (Die Rheinnixen)
The genre of grand opera is not traditionally associated with Jacques Offenbachís posthumous reputation. Yet as demonstrated by the performances documented in the present recording and essays in the accompanying notes, a revision of our assessment of Offenbachís strengths is long overdue.
Puccini’s Familiar Tale, but Peering Into the Dark Future
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/arts/music/11tosc.html
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (Pique Dame), an opera in three acts.
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, composer. Modest Tchaikovsky and composer, librettists.
First performance: 19 December 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg.
HANDEL: Teseo
ìTeseoî is one of those ìmight have beenî Handel operas that for one reason or another has never quite made the big time in a high profile, major house performance during our current period of baroque revival. However, this is not something that worries the enterprising likes of the Lautten Compagney Berlin and its Music Director Wolfgang Katschner nor the countertenor-turned-stage director Axel Kohler: for them this rather rare oddity of Handelís genius is simply too good a chance to miss.
A Short Bernstein Opera on a Troubled Marriage
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/arts/music/10trou.html
MAHLER: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; F¸nf R¸ckert-Lieder
In recent years the few recordings of Mahlerís Lieder with piano accompaniment demonstrate the delicacy of the music in this format and its connections traditional Romantic Lieder. To such fine examples as those by Stephan Genz (on Hyperion) and Thomas E. Bauer (on Ars Musici), Konrad Jarnot is a fine addition.
The Operatic Pushkin
Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) is generally considered Russiaís greatest poet. According to Andrew Kahn, his contemporaries held him ìabove all the master of the lyric poem, verse that is famous for its formal perfection and its reticent lyric persona, and infamous for its resistance to translation.î [Alexander Pushkin, The Queen of Spades and Other Stories, trans. Alan Myers, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997]