Alban Berg’s Wozzeck takes almost two hours to induce a sense of soul-crushing nausea and despondency. Kiri Sings Karl achieved that for your reviewer in a couple minutes, and then went on with terrifying, torturous efficiency for almost another hour.
Month: September 2007
VERDI: Otello
Director Willy Decker’s outstanding Traviata from Salzburg, with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, is one of the great contemporary opera DVDs.
Aspen premieres forgotten Cavalli work
A husky baritone in Speedos on a motor scooter and a buxom, purple-wigged Dame Edna drag clone ó the Aspen Opera Theater Companyís staging of Francesco Cavalliís 1667 ìEliogabaloî was off to a start that promised to equal the programís over-the-top staging of the composerís 1649 ìGiasoneî two summers ago. (AOTC director Edward Berkeley raised the curtain on that Baroque potboiler to a biker Amor on a Harley.)
STRAUSS: Elektra
Among the available videos of Richard Straussís Elektra, the recently released DVD of the live broadcast from 16 February 1980 stands out for capturing the exciting of an all-star international cast that included the famous Birgit Nilsson in the title role.
Street Scenes: Opera on a Brooklyn Sidewalk
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118894606447517416.html?mod=weekend_leisure_banner_left
Netherlands Opera ó New Wine in Old Bottles
The unmistakable fanfare that opens Monteverdiís seminal LíOrfeo rang out from the top of the crowded foyer of the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam last Friday night to signal not only the start of the opera, but also the opening night of their celebratory 2007 Monteverdi Cycle.
The Pleasures of Presence ó The Small Loudspeakers of Richard Sequerra
In the long ago, when the best source of music reproduction in the home was a handsome piece of furniture, fitted with hidden audio components, and usually called radio-phonographs, my family had one ó from Avery Fisher I believe ó that had among its controls a switch labeled ëpresence.í