Film Music Classics on Naxos: Herrmann and Perry

There may be no name more famous in the world of film music than that of Bernard Herrmann. William Perry, however, is a name unlikely to set off many bells.

Mozart, Rossini and Verdi at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Of these three productions staged for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the beautifully dressed Entf¸hrung and refined Tancredi present the company as a theater for tasteful, stylish productions, just a tad on the dull side.

Prom 70 ó St FranÁois d’Assise

Even a concert performance of Messiaen’s St FranÁois d’Assise could hardly fail to be an event.

ìGreat Performancesî remembers Pavarotti ó What remains is the voice.

Luciano Pavoritti died on September 6, 2007. The all-too-ample figure and the fables associated with him are already retreating from memory.

Cecilia Bartoli at the Musikverein Wien

Every time an artist walks onto the performance stage, he or she attempts to give the performance of their lives, focusing on everything they have learned prior to, and giving of themselves in an unprecedented way.

Prom 68 ó Russian Fairy Tales from Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky

Kashchey is a gnarled old ogre who imprisons a beautiful young princess in his gloomy underworld. It’s classic psychodrama. Kashchey has supernatural powers, so how can the Princess be saved ?

WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde

I’ve rarely seen a performance of Tristan und Isolde where I was quite so conscious of the singers’ teeth.

The Coronation of Poppea

The startup of a new opera company is always cause for cheering; it is getting harder and harder (that is, more and more expensive) to do, especially in New York.

Prom 64 ó Rattle conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in Messiaen’s Turang‚lÏla-symphonie

Because Turang‚lÏla is such a panorama, taking in Hollywood, Hindus and Peruvians, Wagner and Gurrelieder, it’s easy to assume it’s all surface Technicolor.

Opera from the Greek

Perhaps it will be enough to tell you that I wasnít halfway through this book before I searched the web for a copy of Professor Ewansís study of Wagner and Aeschylusís Oresteia, and ordered it forthwith: It has to be good.