http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/04/cologne_opera_t.php
Month: April 2012
Xu Zhong Tapped by Teatro Massimo Bellini
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/04/chinese_conduct.php
Chinese Conductor to Lead Italian Opera
The Chinese conductor and pianist Xu Zhong will be the new artistic director
of an Italian opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania.
Mishap at the Musikfreunde
Tenor Johan Botha had just started carving his steak when his phone rang. A
director of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde was on the line with an
emergency request.
The Dream of Gerontius, Barbican Hall
Edward Elgar was given a copy of Cardinal Newman’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ — a 900-line poem depicting the journey of an old man’s soul after death — as a wedding present in 1889.
OpÈra Comique’s Muted Auber
Paris’ OpÈra Comique has summoned forth a respectable (if spare) set design for Bluebeard’s Castle, but unfortunately the opera they were performing was Auber’s La Muette de Portici.
Alfredo Catalani — A new perspective on later Italian opera
Assumptions about later Italian opera are dominated by Puccini, but Alfredo Catalani, born in the same town and almost at the same time, was highly regarded by their contemporaries. Two new books on Catalani could change our perceptions.
Sandrine Piau, Wigmore Hall
Sandrine Paiu and Roger Vignoles teamed up for the latest concert in Vignoles’s “Perspectives” series at the Wigmore Hall, London.
Cologne Opera to Cancel Next Season?
On Tuesday evening, Cologne Opera’s director indicated he was planning to cancel the next season, 2012-2013.