Akhnaten is the third in composer Philip Glass’s trilogy of operas about people who have made important contributions to society: Albert Einstein in science, Mahatma Gandhi in politics, and Akhnaten in religion. Glass’s three operas are: Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten.
Month: November 2016
Shakespeare in the Late Baroque – Bampton Classical Opera
Shakespeare re-imagined for the very Late Baroque, with Bampton Classical Opera at St John’s Smith Square. “Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare….the God of Our Idolatory”. So wrote David Garrick in his Ode to Shakespeare (1759) through which the actor and showman marketed Shakespeare to new audiences, fanning the flames of “Bardolatory”. All Europe was soon caught up in the frenzy.
Soldier Songs in San Diego
David Little composed his one-man opera, Soldier Songs, ten years ago and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas of New Haven, Connecticut, premiered it in 2011. At San Diego Opera, the fifty-five minute musical presentation and the “Talk Back” that followed it were part of the Shiley d?tour Series which is held in the company’s smaller venue, the historic Balboa Theatre.
Madama Butterfly in San Francisco
A Butterfly for the ages in a Butterfly marred by casting ineptness and lugubrious conducting.
Kiss Me, Kate: Welsh National Opera at the Birmingham Hippodrome
In 1964, 400 years after the birth of the Bard, the writer Anthony Burgess saw Cole Porter’s musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate, a romping variation on The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare’s comedy, Burgess said, had a ‘good playhouse reek about it’, adding ‘the Bard might be regarded as closer to Cole Porter and Broadway razzmatazz’ than to the scholars who were ‘picking him raw’.
Beat Furrer FAMA – Hˆrtheater reaches London
Beat Furrer’s FAMA came to London at last, with the London Sinfonietta. The piece was hailed as “a miracle” at its premiere at Donaueschingen in 2005 by Die Zeit: State of the Art New Music, recognized by mainstream media, which proves that there is a market for contemporary music lies with lively audiences
Franz Schreker : Die Gezeichneten (Les StigmatizÈs). Lyon
Franz Schreker Die Gezeichneten from the OpÈra de Lyon last year, now on arte.tv and Opera Platform. The translation, “The stigmatized”, doesn’t convey the impact of the original title, which is closer to”The Cursed”.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Semper Dowland, semper dolens (Always Dowland, always doleful) was the title chosen by John Dowland’s for one of his consort pieces and the motto that he took for himself. Twice rejected for the position of musician at the court of Queen Elizabeth, he is reputed to have been a difficult, embittered man. Melancholy songs were the fashion of the day, but Dowland clearly knew dark days of depression first hand.
Aida in San Francisco
An exquisite pit, a Busby Berkeley stage, ingenue performers. Populist opera in San Francisco — in November eleven performances of Aida (alternating with ten of Madama Butterfly).