At 73 minutes, this DVD of the typical gala affair ñ various soloists trot on, sing an aria, then trot off ñ canít be called generous, but it does have variety.
Month: January 2006
MASSENET: Werther
When you and I were young Maggie, there was only the fine Werther with Thill and Vallin and the Cetra recording with Tagliavini and his first wife, Pia Tassinari.
SCHEIDT: Ludi musici I, II, III & IV
I suspect that when we survey the musical landscape of the early seventeenth century, it is opera, monody, and madrigal that come most quickly and lastingly into view, and given the contemporaneous attention given to the relationship between music and word, it is unsurprising that this would be the case.
CACCINI: Nuove musiche
When Giulio Caccini entitled his landmark 1601/02 publication Le nuove musiche, he confidently laid claim both to the novelty of the emerging baroque style and his formidable role in bringing it to blossom.
GASPAROV: Five Operas and a Symphony
This new volume from Yale University Press is one of those rare and treasured phenomena in Russian music scholarship that illuminate their subject from a new angle ó that of cultural history. Indeed, Boris Gasparov’s expressed goal in Five Operas and a Symphony is nothing less than turning the table on poetry, philosophy, and literary criticism that have for so long ruled the field of Slavic research, and elucidating them from a musical point of view.
For the Young Faces of Opera, a Night to Show Off in Style
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/arts/music/13tuck.html
The New San Francisco Opera
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA [11 January 2006]: “The San Francisco Opera today unveiled a new visual identity for the Company, heralding the beginning of a new era under the leadership of David Gockley, who became the Companyís sixth general director on January 1, 2006. Elements of San Francisco Operaís new image include a new logo, a glamorous and sophisticated new look for the print materials, and a major redesign of the Companyís Web site.”
The Guardian on Dmitri Shostakovich
In from the cold