It might seem churlish to complain about the BBC Proms coverage of Pierre
Boulez’s 90th anniversary. After all, there are a few performances
dotted around — although some seem rather oddly programmed, as if embarrassed
at the presence of new or newish music. (That could certainly not be claimed in
the present case.)
Month: July 2015
Proms Saturday MatinÈe 1
The Maid of Pskov (Pskovityanka) , St. Petersburg
I recently spent four days in St. Petersburg, timed to coincide with the
annual Stars of the White Nights Festival. Yet the most memorable singing I
heard was neither at the Mariinsky Theater nor any other performance hall. It
was in the small, nearly empty church built for the last Tsar, Nicholas II, at
Tsarskoye Selo.
Prom 11 — Grange Park Opera: Fiddler on the Roof
As I walked up Exhibition Road on my way to the Royal Albert Hall, I passed a busking tuba player whose fairground ditties were enlivened by bursts of flame which shot skyward from the bell of his instrument, to the amusement and bemusement of a rapidly gathering pavement audience.
Saul, Glyndebourne
A brilliant theatrical event, bringing Handel’s theatre of the mind to
life on stage
Roberta Invernizzi, Wigmore Hall
‘Here, thanks be to God, my opera is praised to the skies and there is nothing in it which does not please greatly.’ So wrote Antonio Vivaldi to Marchese Guido Bentivoglio d’Aragona in Ferrara in 1737.
Apotheosis Opera to Stage Tannh‰user
Apotheosis Opera is proud to announce their inaugural production
will be a fully-staged English translation of Richard Wagner’s early
masterpiece TANNHƒUSER on Friday, July 31, 2015, at 7pm and Sunday,
August 2, 2015, at 3pm at the theatre of El Museo del Barrio (1230 5th Avenue)
.
Montemezzi: L’amore dei tre Re
Asphyxiations, atrophy by poison, assassination: in Italo Montemezzi’s
L’amore dei tre Re (The Love of the Three Kings, 1913) foul deed
follows foul deed until the corpses are piled high.†
Prom 4: Andris Nelsons
The precision of attack in the opening to Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus Overture signalled thoroughgoing excellence in the contribution
of the CBSO to this concert.
BBC Proms: The Cardinall’s Musick
When he was skilfully negotiating the not inconsiderable complexities,
upheavals and strife of musical and religious life at the English royal court
during the Reformation, Thomas Tallis (c.1505-85) could hardly have imagined
that more than 450 years later people would be queuing round the block for the
opportunity spend their lunch-hour listening to the music that he composed in
service of his God and his monarch.
Stefano Mastrangelo — An Italian in Japan
I’m interviewing Stefano Mastrangelo in the immediate aftermath of his conducting La Traviata for the Chofu City Opera in Tokyo on 22 November 2014; he conveys an air at once of tiredness and exhilaration.