In an article in the Daily Telegraph, published just prior to this late-night Prom with The English Concert led by director Kristian Bezuidenhout from the harpsichord, countertenor Iestyn Davies tells…
Month: August 2023
Das Rheingold at Ravello Festival
The 150th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen will arrive in 2026. Perhaps the most intriguing commemorative initiative is an effort to reconstruct the precise playing, singing and staging…
The Greek Passion at the Salzburg Festival
Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů was a WWII refugee to the U.S. who returned to Europe (Switzerland) in his last years (d. 1959) where he turned Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis’ Christ…
Falstaff and Macbeth at the Salzburg Festival
Falstaff at the hands of old-guard avant-gardistes Christof Marthaler and Anna Viebrock. Set on a sound stage somewhere (certainly Hollywood) where Orson Wells is acting or directing his three Falstaff…
Parsifal at Bayreuth
There are intractable conventions at Bayreuth. There are no supertitles. Parsifal is done every year (though it was not during WWII due to ideological incompatibility). There is no applause after…
Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO introduce Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the Proms
“It’s the great masterpiece you’ve never heard.” So declared Sir Simon Rattle when he introduced Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the London Symphony Orchestra in 2015, in a…
VOCES8 and VOCES8 Scholars: The Milton Abbey Concert
The activities of the VOCES8 Foundation are as diverse as its values are singular: to promote music education for all. Alongside performances and recordings by VOCES8 and Apollo5, the Foundation’s…
Adelaide di Borgogna in Pesaro
Adelaide di Borgogna was the wife of Lothario, king of Italy, who was assassinated in the year 950 A.D. Rossini set the eponymous dramma per musica by one Giovanni Schmidt…
Aureliano in Palmira in Pesaro
The year is 1813, Rossini is 22 years old. He has had two huge successes in Venice — L’italiana in Algeri, his first big comedy (there were seven smaller ones…
Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald: a new recording on Resonus Classics
In March 1903, The Metropolitan Opera presented a double bill of Verdi’s II trovatore and Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald (The Forest). The latter was the first opera written by a…