Surveying British chamber and instrumental music written between the 1890s and WWII, the Nash Ensemble’s Wigmore Hall residency series, Dreamers of Dreams, has illuminated the creativity and originality of British musical life during this period, revealing the shared and the idiosyncratic preoccupations of composers; the intertwined biographies of musicians; the influence of key individual performers on repertoire, style and idiom; the dialogue between old and new; and the prevailing shadows of war and irreversible change.
Author: Anne Ozorio
San Diego Opera new season 2013
The New Year 2013 is here and San Diego Opera will open its season at the
end of this month. The company will present four well known operas:
Gaetano Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment (La Fille du Regiment),
Camille Saint-SaÎns’ Samson and Delilah, Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Murder in
the Cathedral (Assassinio nella Cathedrale) and Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida
along with a Mariachi opera: Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, (To Cross the
Face of the Moon).
Sir Harrison Birtwistle The Minotaur ROH 2013
If, first time around, in 2008, The Minotaur offered the obvious excitement of the premiere, it was now noteworthy how quickly it had settled into repertory status. Not that it has yet been performed elsewhere than Covent Garden, though it should be as a matter of urgency, but that its 2013 outing proceeded with the apparent ease one might expect of, say, The Magic Flute or Carmen. That is surely testament both to the excellence of the performances we heard as well as to the stature of Birtwistle’s opera itself.
Hugo Wolf Songbooks, Wigmore Hall, Kirchschlager, Henschel, Drake
Julius Drake’s latest Hugo Wolf Songbooks recital at the Wigmore Hall featured Angelika Kirchschlager and Dietrich Henschel. These singers have very different voices indeed, so Drake’s programme made the most of the contrast.
In the Shadow of the OpÈra
Graham Johnson chose the title “In the Shadow of the OpÈra” for his recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, with Lucy Crowe and Christopher Maltman. Given the renaisaance in French opera, it’s good that we should be thinking of the nature of French song and its relationship to French opera and culture.
Courageous Winterreise : Florian Boesch, Wigmore Hall, London
Wintery weather in London for Florian Boesch’s Schubert Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall. But what bliss to hear an austere interpretation that challenged assumptions !
Meyerbeer Robert le Diable, Royal Opera House
Why was Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable an overwhelming success in its time ? The Royal Opera House production suggests why: it’s a cracking good show! Extreme singing, testing the limits of vocal endurance, and extreme drama. Robert le Diable is Faust, after all, not history, and here its spirit is captured by audacious but well-informed staging. Listen with an open mind and heart and imagine how audiences in Meyerbeer’s time might have imagined the madness and magic that is Robert le diable.
Bizet’s Carmen at ENO
Drawing on the dark viciousness and bitter malevolence of Prosper MÈrimÈe’s ethnographical novella, Calixto Bieito’s Carmen rejects any notion of flamboyant exoticism and alluring eroticism, and presents us instead with a sordid twilight zone of sexual violence and brutal malice.