Opera companies should practice historic preservation, keeping certain productions forever in the repertory because of their quality and aesthetic value.
Category: Reviews
Nono’s Prometeo at Royal Festival Hall
Prometeo is so radically different that itís almost incomprehensible heard from preconceived assumptions of what music ìoughtî to be.
On Venetian Opera: a new edition of Monteverdi’s Ritorno, and Eleanor Selfridge-Field on Time and Opera in Venice.
Claudio Monteverdi. Il Ritorno díUlisse in patria. Edited by Rinaldo Alessandrini. Urtext. Kassel: B‰renreiter, 2007. BA 8791. A vocal score is available as 8791a.
John Brown lives again in Kansas City
John Brown might have been aímouldering in his grave since he was hanged in 1859, but he was resurrected ó in body and spirit ó on May 3, when the Lyric Opera of Kansas City staged the world premiere of Kirke Mechemís John Brown.
Fort Worth Opera Festival features ìAngels in Americaî
In 2007 it was an experiment; now itís a new summer festival firmly rooted in fertile Texas turf with a bright view of its second season and of the more distant future as well.
Spoleto USA revives opera, hall
Operas do not often get a second chance. A new work is premiered and ó if itís a co-commission ó it moves on to another company or two.
Die Entf¸hrung aus dem Serail
Die Entf¸hrung aus dem Serail is too light to be a grand opera, but it makes rather grander demands of its singers than operetta could possibly bear.
Karajan: The Music, the Legend.
At the centenary of the birth of the conductor Herbert von Karajan various commemorations are occurring, an among them is the concise CD and DVD release by Deutsche Grammophon, with both discs bound into a booklet that includes a short prose tribute to the man illustrated with some well-chosen photographs from various parts of his career.
Punch & Judy at ENO
English National Opera’s production of Harrison Birtwistle’s ‘Punch and Judy’ is the company’s second collaboration with the Young Vic Theatre — following the premiere of Neuwirth’s ‘Lost Highway’ a few weeks earlier — and remarkably, also the second London production of this early Birtwistle work within a month, the previous one having been at the Linbury Studio Theatre, a collaboration between Music Theatre Wales and the Royal Opera.
Canadaís Brueggergosman makes the most of Mozart
When Torontoís Opera Atelier asked her to sing Elettra in Mozartís Idomeneo Measha Brueggergosman hesitated.