Just when you imagine you’ve got the operatic time-line fixed in your mind
in a clean sweep of what goes where and when and how, you hear another work
from another forgotten corner of the repertory that upends one’s conclusions.
Author: Gary Hoffman
Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Trionfo dell’Onore
Handel’s Rodrigo by Operamission
Nothing inspires fable quite like defeat. The great riddle of Spanish
history is how the Christian Visigoths managed to lose the Iberian peninsula to
the Moors in one small battle in 711 and took eight hundred years to get it
back.
Tales from Ovid: Classical Opera
Since receiving some fairly mixed reviews of their production of Mozart’s
Zaide at the 2010 Buxton Festival, Ian Page’s Classical
Opera seem to have focused their attention on recordings and themed
concert performances of 18th-century riches and rarities,
Verdi’s Falstaff at Glyndebourne
Richard Jones’ 2009 production of Verdi’s Falstaff translates the action from the first Elizabethan age to the start of the second.
Gareth John, Wigmore Hall
Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
La bohËme at ENO
This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohËme was the first time I had caught the production.
Rolando VillazÛn: Verdi (International Opera Stars Series 2013)
It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando VillazÛn has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘VillazÛn: Verdi’ and ‘VillazÛn’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.
Ariane et Barbe-Bleue on Blu-Ray
Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, first heard in 1907, once seemed important. Arturo Toscanini conducted the Met premiere in 1911 with Farrar and later arranged some of its music for a 1947 recording with his NBC Symphony.