Clonter’s Opera Gala in the breath-taking beautiful ball-room at the Lansdowne Club in Mayfair was a glamorously glittering smattering of opera – which made me want to run out to every opera in town.
Year: 2017
Étienne-Nicolas Méhul: Uthal
The opera world barely knows how to handle works that have significant amounts of spoken dialogue. Conductors and stage directors will often trim the dialogue to a bare minimum (Magic Flute), have it rendered as sung recitative (Carmen), or have it spoken in the vernacular though the sung numbers may often be performed in the original language (Die Fledermaus).
A New Anna Moffo?: The Debut Disc of Aida Garifullina
Here is the latest CD from a major label promoting a major new soprano. Aida Garifullina is utterly remarkable: a lyric soprano who also can handle coloratura with ease. Her tone has a constant shimmer, with a touch of quick, narrow vibrato even on short notes.
A New Die Walk¸re at Lyric Opera of Chicago
From the start of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s splendid, new production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walk¸re conflict and resolution are portrayed throughout with moving intensity. The central character Br¸nnhilde is sung by Christine Goerke and her father Wotan by Eric Owens.
As One a Haunting Success in San Diego
San Diego Opera has mined solid gold with its mesmerizing and affecting production of As One, a part of their innovative ‘Detour Series.’
OLF: Songs by Tchaikovsky, Anton Rubinstein, Rachmaninov and Georgy Sviridov
Compared to the oft-explored world of German lieder and French chansons, the songs of Russia are unfairly neglected in recordings and in the concert hall. The raw emotion and expansive lyricism present in much of this repertoire was clearly in evidence at the Holywell Music Room for the penultimate day of the celebrated Oxford Lieder Festival.
Stockhausen’s STIMMUNG and COSMIC PULSES at the Barbican.
This concert was an event on several levels – marking a decade since the death of Stockhausen, the fortieth anniversary (almost to the day) since Singcircle first performed STIMMUNG (at the Round House), and their final public performance of the piece. It was also a rare opportunity to hear (and see) Stockhausen’s last completed purely electronic work, COSMIC PULSES – an overwhelming visual and aural experience that anyone who was at this concert will long remember.
Bampton Classical Opera Young Singers’ Competition 2017 – Winner Announced
Bampton Classical Opera is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2017 Young Singers’ Competition is mezzo-soprano Emma Stannard and the runner-up is tenor Wagner Moreira. The winner of the accompanists’ prize, a new category this year, is Keval Shah.
Il sogno di Scipione: a new recording from Classical Opera
With this recording of Mozart’s 1771 opera, Il sogno di Scipione (Sicpio’s Dream), Classical Opera continue their progress through the adolescent composer’s precocious achievements and take another step towards the fulfilment of their complete Mozart opera series for Signum Classics.
Nico Muhly’s Marnie at ENO
Winston Graham’s 1961 novel Marnie was bold for its time. Its themes of sexual repression, psychological suspense and criminality set within the dark social fabric of contemporary Britain are but outlier themes of the anti-heroine’s own narrative of deceit, guilt, multiple identities and blackmail.