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Author: James Sohre
Domenico Sarro: Achille in Sciro
The birth and death dates of Domenico Sarro (1679 and 1744) are very close to those of his more illustrious contemporary, Antonio Vivaldi.
Mayr Rediscovered
Apparently Opera Rara “discovered” Giovanni Simone Mayr some years ago when it included several excerpts from his operas in their multi-volume series, “A Hundred Years of Italian Opera.”
Tippett: A Child of Our Time
Although an ineffable aura of the 1960s emanates from Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child of Our Time, its composition came at the start of WWII in Europe.
Luciano Pavarotti: The EMI Recordings
A Decca recording artist for most of his career, Luciano Pavarotti did do a very few items with EMI, probably as part of those “artist-swapping” arrangements recording labels sometime arrange.
Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Los Angeles Opera
There is some slim irony to an opera company pursuing the complicated business of staging Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the current economy — it entails the very sort of dubious compromises that get Wotan and crew into such hot water (if one assumes the cataclysmic fire at the end of Gˆtterd‰mmerung heated the Rhine).
Siegfried Wagner: Rainulf und Adelasia
A medieval tale of ill-starred love, in three very long acts, with questions of loyalty to a king and one title character urging another to drink from a cup of poison…
Leh·r’s Die Lustige Witwe from Semperoper Dresden
JÈrÙme Savary, director of this December 2007 Semperoper Dresden production of Leh·r’s Die Lustige Witwe, expresses a view in the booklet essay that many others will probably share: “What I like most of all about The Merry Widow is its music, which is literally bursting with colours, gyrating movements and sensuality…”
Massenet’s Don Quichotte at San Diego Opera
Ferrucio Furlanetto apparently loves the temperate climes of San Diego in California’s equivalent of late winter.
Kurt Weill’s Der Kuhhandel at Volks Oper Wien
The Kurt Weill-composed operetta Arms and the Cow premiered in 1935 under the title A Kingdom for a Cow, according to Erwin Berger’s booklet essay for this DVD of a 2007 VolksOper Vien staging of David Pountney’s production.