Bochum’s Jahrhunderthalle, a massive, re-purposed industrial building, seemed an unlikely location to contain and frame the transcendent, unbounded spiritual journey of Wagner’s masterpiece Tristan und Isolde.
Year: 2011
New Injury Forces James Levine to Cancel Fall Performances
http://www.operatoday.com/documents/Levine_Met.pdf
Macbeth from Paris and Parma
Superstitions surround theatrical productions of Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy.
Salvatore Licitra, Operatic Tenor at Met, Is Dead at 43
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/arts/music/salvatore-licitra-tenor-at-the-met-dies-at-43-after-crash.html
Verdi’s Requiem Closes Grant Park Festival
In its final performances of the Summer 2011 season the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus along with guest soloists gave two performances of Verdi’s Requiem.
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.