The Board of Wexford Festival Opera has announced Rosetta Cucchi as the new Artistic Director of the Festival. She will take up the six-year position when the current Artistic Director David Agler finishes his tenure after the 2019 Festival.
Month: January 2019
Opera as Life: Stefan Herheim’s The Queen of Spades at Covent Garden
‘I pitied Hermann so much that I suddenly began weeping copiously … [it] turned into a mild fit of hysteria of the most pleasant kind.’
Venus Unwrapped launches at Kings Place, with ‘Barbara Strozzi: Star of Venice’
‘Playing music is for a woman a vain and frivolous thing. And I would wish you to be the most serious and chaste woman alive. Beyond this, if you do not play well your playing will give you little pleasure and not a little embarrassment. … Therefore, set aside thoughts of this frivolity and work to be humble and good and wise and obedient. Don’t let yourself be carried away by these desires, indeed resist them with a strong will.’
Gottfried von Einem’s The Visit of the Old Lady Now on CD
Gottfried von Einem was one of the most prominent Austrian composers in the 1950s–70s, actively producing operas, ballets, orchestral, chamber, choral works, and song cycles.
Britten: Hymn to St Cecilia – RIAS Kammerchor
Benjamin Britten Choral Songs from RIAS Kammerchor, from Harmonia mundi, in their first recording with new Chief Conductor Justin Doyle, featuring the Hymn to St. Cecilia, A Hymn to the Virgin, the Choral Dances from Gloriana, the Five Flower Songs op 47 and Ad majorem Dei gloriam op 17.
Si vous vouliez un jour – William Christie: Airs SÈrieux et ‡ boire vol 2
“Si vous vouliez un jour…” Volume 2 of the series Airs SÈrieux et ‡ boire, with Sir William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, from Harmonia Mundi, following on from the highly acclaimed “Bien que l’amour” Volume 1. Recorded live at the Philharmonie de Paris in April 2016, this new release is as vivacious and enchanting as the first.
Burying the Dead: Ceruleo offer ‘Baroque at the Edge’
“Who are you? And what are you doing in my bedroom?”
‘Sound the trumpet’: countertenor duets at Wigmore Hall
This programme of seventeenth-century duets, odes and instrumental works was meticulously and finely delivered by countertenors Iestyn Davies and James Hall, with The King’s Consort, but despite the beauty of the singing and the sensitivity of the playing, somehow it didn’t quite prove as affecting as I had anticipated.
Pl·cido Domingo awarded Honorary Fellowship of the International Opera Awards
A patron of the International Opera Awards since their inception, legendary tenor Pl·cido Domingo will receive the first ever Honorary Fellowship of the Opera Awards Foundation at a fundraising evening on Monday 28 January at the Royal Society of Arts, London.