La Scala di Seta, composed in Venice in 1812 (Rossini was 20; Tancredi and fame were a year off; Barbiere and immortality were four years down the road), shares the fortune of La Gazza Ladra: that is, until recently, the public knew the overture quite well but nothing else from the opera which, indeed, lacks the spectacular arias and hilarious ensembles that might have kept it on the boards.
Year: 2007
WEBER: Der Freischütz
Produced by Rolf Lieberman and directed for television by Joachim Hess, this 1968 studio recording of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz has much to recommend as a traditional production of the opera.
San Francisco underscores complexity of “Rosenkavalier”
Just whose opera is “Der Rosenkavalier” anyway? The title — to begin with the obvious — says it’s youthful Octavian, pinpointing his role as the bearer of the rose that is to seal the marriage contract of Ochs and child-like Sophie.
ROSSINI: Il Viaggio a Reims
Il Viaggio a Reims was a pièce d’occasion, part of the official tributes to Charles X of France on his coronation in 1825, but unlike most such creations – which tend to dreary platitudes of the Oscar speech variety – Viaggio has a cheeky personality and delicious music from Rossini at the top of his game, music he planned to recycle in subsequent operas – which he did.
STRAVINSKY: Histoire du soldat (Suite); Renard
As indicated in the copy on the CD, itself this is indeed a “unique collection of mostly short works” by Igor Stravinsky.
Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral
In charting the history of music in the West, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Paris loom large as a golden age of innovative polyphony, a golden age that is much the fruits of two composers, Leoninus and Perotinus.
HAYDN: Die Schˆpfung
Die Schˆpfung, Oratorium in drei Teilen
Music composed by Franz Joseph Haydn. Libretto by Gottfried van Swieten based on selections from the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Woody Allen “seduced” by Los Angeles Opera
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/22/AR2007062200335.html
Countertenor David DQ Lee: Winning Hearts and Minds at Cardiff Singer of the World
Perhaps it is a sign that, at last, the countertenor voice has come of age in the hearts and minds of both audiences and the opera establishment.