The live HD simulcast of Mozart’s final operatic effort, set in ancient Rome, reached friends, Romans and countrymen the world over
Author: Gary Hoffman
Rigoletto, Manitoba Opera
Manitoba Opera launched its celebratory, all-Verdi 40th anniversary season with the Italian master’s Rigoletto that still rattles the soul with its tale of revenge, murder, deceit and heart-wrenching pathos.
Britten’s Lachrymae at Wigmore Hall
The Nash Ensemble’s final contribution to the Wigmore Hall’s Britten centenary series, ‘Before Life and After’, presented works for soloists and strings.
Britten: The Canticles
‘Canticle’ is the term Britten used to denote an extended setting of a text of spiritual substance.
WNO proves a point with Handel’s Jeptha
They say that there’s nothing worse than a musically-obtuse staging of any opera to put a rookie opera-goer off a composer (or even opera itself) for life.
Vladimir Jurowski, LPO
Vladimir Jurowski said all the right things during a brief address at the opening of the concert. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony should not be regarded as the climax of the performance, but as the fifth movement in a single work, whose theme was human suffering and the strength of the human spirit, never quashed by the former.
Simon Boccanegra Opens Rome Opera 2012-13 Season
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2012/11/rome_opera_open.php
Madame Butterfly, LA Opera
A beautiful, blingless Butterfly. How else to describe the pleasures of four glorious voices singing Puccini’s heart breaking, passionate melodies without igniting romantic sparks?
Haydn and Strauss, LPO
Haydn’s settings of the Mass ought to be heard incessantly, in churches and in the concert hall.
Rome Opera Opens New Season
Yesterday, Conductor Riccardo Muti opened the Rome Opera, where he is “honorary conductor for life,” with a gala presentation of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra.