For someone who was largely self-taught, Poulenc certainly knew how to get the attention of audiences and hold it. In many ways he was your preternatural French composer: elegant, yet…
Month: October 2024
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Rite of Spring: His Snegurotchka (The Snow Maiden)
Back in the dim and distant past there was climate change too. In the fairy tale that forms the narrative thread of Rimsky-Korsakov’s third and favourite opera, The Snow Maiden,…
Jumbotron at the Opera: Madama Butterfly at LA Opera
All three acts of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly take place in a tiny Japanese cottage on an isolated hill overlooking Nagasaki. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an American naval officer, has purchased…
Gordon’s Seeing Through: A Fascinating Life in Progress
One of contemporary opera’s most brilliant and prolific composers, the inestimable Ricky Ian Gordon, has not only laid bare his soul, but also richly chronicled the peaks and valleys of…