Zaira, Tragedia lirica in two acts.
Month: August 2011
BBC Prom 58: Mendelssohn’s Elijah
Droughts, deserts, false gods, angels, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and a firestorm. Plenty of drama in the Bible. In BBC Prom 58, Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort and Players made a good case for period performance of Mendelssohn’s magnificent Elijah op 70.
Bayreuth’s Tannh‰user: Recycled Trash
Newsflash: Wartburg is a world-wide recycling company, at one with the universe, wherein everything and everyone exists in a perfectly sustainable environment.
Carlos Kleiber — Traces to Nowhere
Film biographies of great musicians notoriously exhibit a preference for talking heads nattering on over any music passages.
Orlando Paladino, Usher Hall, Edinburgh
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/78bcc222-d222-11e0-9137-00144feab49a.html#axzz1WXzEXs00
Don Giovanni, Salzburg
When discussing the evolution of opera as a genre, the towering figure of Richard Wagner cannot be ignored.
L’elisir d’amore, Miami
“The number of recordings testify to the continuing popularity of
Donizetti’s melodrama in two acts [L’elisir d’amore], which rivals Don Pasquale among his comic operas and is often rated the better on account of its superior libretto by Felice Romani.”
A Classic That Still Vexes as It Pleases
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/arts/music/porgy-and-bess-at-tanglewood-festival-review.html?_r=1&ref=music
BBC Prom 50
In 2008, the late Richard Hickox, founder and then music director of the City of London Sinfonia, commissioned a work from composer Colin Matthews to celebrate the orchestra’s 40th anniversary, which takes place this year.