Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel is titled a M‰rchenspiel — a Fairytale: and as twentieth-century psychologists and psychoanalysts have been eager to inform us, lurking beneath those familiar saccharine stories of sleeping princesses, defeated tyrants, love fulfilled and harmony restored, lie the dark shadows of the human heart — passionate, violent, unpredictable and unredeemed.
Month: December 2008
ThaÔs: A Star Vehicle — In Overdrive
The Metropolitan Opera’s high-definition broadcast on radio and by satellite to movie theatres around the Nation, December 20 was Jules Massent’s 1894 star vehicle, ThaÔs — the sadly ironic tale of a 4th Century Egyptian courtesan who grows tired of the long hours and demanding nature of her work, and is thinking of a career change.
Silja Dons Rubber Breasts, Creepy Makeup as Child-Eating Witch
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aL2ss6BQDLZM&refer=muse#
Carl Orff, the composer who lived a monstrous lie
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5366154.ece
Cecilia Bartoli at the Barbican
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article5365573.ece
A ‘Messiah’ as Handel Might Have Heard It
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/arts/music/19phil.html?_r=1&ref=music
I mori di Valenza — Ponchielli’s Unfinished Opera
It almost seems as if every composer was entitled to have at least one unfinished work.
Keith Jameson — Comprimario Extraordinaire
Most opera-world publicity is accorded star singers, but we take another tack here to look at American tenor Keith Jameson who has made a specialty of character or comprimario parts, while at the same time building a solid reputation as sophisticated musician and actor, a performer who can seize the moment and elevate a role to first rank for the time he is on stage.
Bayerische Staatsoper Announces Program for 2009 Munich Opera Festival
The Bayerische Staatsoper announced its program of the 2009 Munich Opera Festival — the only festival of its kind in the world so rich in tradition, with roots reaching as far back as 1875.