Not only did Verdi’s Requiem make its debut, rather remarkably, in the church of San Marco in Milan but the performance was as a liturgical one; Verdi’s intentions were quite firmly to provide a memorial mass for the Italian patriot, Manzoni.
Category: Reviews
The Sopranos — Dissecting opera’s fervent fans
I was feeling cowed by Herr Engels. The four of us had retired from the Stravinsky performance to a Billy Wilder-themed bar in Berlin, the least horrible late-night option in the high end mediocrity of Potsdamer Platz.
Mignon and Saul at Buxton Opera Festival
Buxton, like Wexford, makes a point of offering its clientele the opportunity to sample works that are unjustly neglected by the major houses, and for his final festival as director, Andrew Greenwood served up a typical feast of operatic rarities reflecting the increasingly ambitious approach which has characterised his musical stewardship.
Havergal Brian’s “Gothic” Symphony
The BBC Proms has given Havergal Brian’s Symphony no. 1 the best and most
extensive exposure the composer has ever enjoyed.
Guillaume Tell, BBC Proms
Operatic fashions are fickle and, more to the point, often plain wrong. We all have our grievance lists of works that are ‘scandalously neglected’.
First Night of the 2011 BBC Proms
The First Night of the Proms seems to be edging back, if a little hesitantly, from the strange, unsatisfying ‘tasting menu’ approach adopted for a few years.
Seven Angels, London
Luke Bedford’s first opera, Seven Angels, had its London premiere at the Linbury Studio Theatre, London.
Rinaldo at Glyndebourne
Handel’s Rinaldo at the Glyndebourne Festival is a triumph in musical terms. Don’t miss it when it appears at the BBC Proms this summer in concert performance, because some of the singing is very good indeed.
Grant Park Music Festival, Chicago Commemorates Gustav Mahler
To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s death Carlos
Kalmar and the Grant Park Orchestra gave in early July two performances of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde featuring the vocal soloists Alexandra Petersamer and Christian Elsner.
La rondine, Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park’s unique selling point has always been a devotion to the more obscure works of Puccini and his Italian contemporaries.