If, dear reader, a desire has ever swept over you (a desire such as a pregnant woman’s craving for vanilla ice cream with pickles) to hear music reminiscent of both Messiah and the Fingal’s Cave overture, CPO is just the musical ice cream parlor/deli for you.
Category: Reviews
Verdi: La battaglia di Legnano
The true opera fan devotes almost as much time, if not more, to the “what might have been” careers as to those of the superstars.
Richard Strauss: Elektra
Archival radio recordings of complete operas seldom have ideal sound, but the audio is usually sharper than that of a live performance while still carrying a comparable dramatic immediacy.
Mahler: Symphony no. 1
Among the important recent cycles of Mahler’s symphonies is the one underway by Valery Gergiev with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Fidelio from Glyndebourne and Medici Arts
Beethoven’s Fidelio is actually several works combined — a rescue opera in the grand style of the French revolution, a sentimental comedy focusing on mistaken identity, and a tragÈdie bourgeoise involving a husband, a wife, and their efforts to re-unite despite the actions of a relentless and implacable foe.
Danielle de Niese: The Mozart Album
After thoroughly enjoying Daneille de Niese’s recording Handel Arias, I jumped at the chance to review her new recording, The Mozart Album. Her Handel interpretation was full of coloratura, clarity and virtuosity, along with an organic fusion of music serving drama. So I was eager to hear her perform Mozart.
Franco Corelli: The Tenor as Hero
This 4-CD set gathers together solo recital material and extracts from complete opera sets that Franco Corelli recorded between 1959 and 1968, the prime of his career.
Mahler and Ligeti at the Proms?
On the surface, the theme of this Prom seemed to be Sci Fi movies at the Proms. Both Ligeti’s AtmosphËres and Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra became huge hits when Stanley Kubrick used them in 2001 : A Space Odyssey. So how did Mahler’s *Kindertotenlieder* fit in ?
Christof Loy speaks about the new Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Opera House, London.
“Opera has so much to give” says Christof Loy, whose new production of Tristan und Isoldeopens at the Royal Opera House on 29th September. This opera is so familiar that everyone assumes they know it. But Loy’s approach involves going straight back to the score, and to the inherent drama in the music. “I don’t like superficial distractions”.