In 1831, when Vincenzo Bellini composed this pastorale full of characters who never express any but sincere emotions (with the exception of Lisa, the calculating flirt), he certainly intended them, and their feelings, and therefore their story, to be taken seriously – or he would not have given them such seriously lovely music.
Category: Reviews
Il Trovatore at the MET
For nearly a decade after its premiere, in 1853, Il Trovatore was the most popular opera, perhaps the most popular stage work on the planet — even more than Rigoletto or Ernani, and far more than Traviata, which had its premiere the following autumn.
Franz Schubert: The Conspirators (Die Verschworenen)
Schubert was desperate to be an opera composer — or so one might surmise from the many (at least 18) attempts he made to make a name for himself as a man of the theatre.
Katya Kabanova/The Magic Flute — English Touring Opera, Hackney Empire Theatre
English Touring Opera is 30 years old this year, and has never been more adventurous.
Songs by Samuel Barber
Among the impressive contributions to the American song literature of the twentieth century are works by Samuel Barber (1910-81), whose efforts in this genre reflect his own musical training as a singer, as well as the influence of his aunt, Louise Homer, whose professional relationships put her nephew in contact with other vocalists of the day.
TELEMANN: Brockes-Passion
Heinrich Brockes’s famous poetic setting of the Passion, Der f¸r die S¸nden der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus (1712), was one of the most significant devotional texts of its day in Germany.
Don Giovanni — Victorian Opera
Each Australia state maintains its own opera company. The dominant company is Opera Australia, a permanent ensemble based at the Sydney Opera House but which originated in the Melbourne based National Theatre Opera Company in the 1940s.
LA “Ring” up and running
LOS ANGELES: On February 21 the capacity audience in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was overwhelmed by the staging of Das Rheingold that launched the Los Angeles Opera’s new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. So was Wagner.
Haydn’s L’Isola Disabitata by Gotham Chamber Opera
Had a misunderstanding with your truelove lately? Tough job straightening things out?
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano
This DVD contains the contents of four televised recitals of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, with no way of telling from the information provided whether the recitals are presented complete or not.