Watching The Queen of Spades staged by a Russian company is often an unforgettable experience.
Category: Reviews
SCHOENBERG: Gurrelieder
A 1979 recording originally released on LP in 1985, the CD reissue of this classic performance of Schoenbergís 1913 cantata Gurrelieder as part of its series entitled Originals makes this fine account of this magnificent work available to another generation of listeners.
Belfast welcomes a first-rate Messiah
If Belfast in Northern Ireland isnít a city that immediately springs to mind as a centre of musical excellence then itís not for want of talent, initiative and professionalism within its cultural community.
OONY Performs Verdi’s I Due Foscari
After the triumph of his fifth opera, Ernani, Verdi could have gone on writing howling melodramas and made a mint.
WAGNER: Gˆtterd‰mmerung
You will wonder what designer Rosalie could have been thinking when she put Brunnhilde in trousers twice as wide at the waist as the soprano wearing them, with a nippled plastic bustier above.
The Turn of the Screw at ENO
Not long ago, English National Opera declared an intention to capitalise on its name and history by placing greater emphasis on English works.
Otello ó Kirov Opera
Despite 19th-century Russiaís reputation as an Italian opera haven, Verdiís late masterpiece Otello found acceptance there only with great difficulty, even though in its 1889 premiere the title role acquired a great local interpreter in the Mariinsky Theater primo uomo, Nikolai Figner.
Beyond The Media Avatar
Imagine a mild December night, with some three hundred people queueing for a concert ticket on Siena’s horseshoe-shaped Piazza del Campo.
KINKEL: An Imaginary Voyage through Europe. 32 Songs
Johanna Kinkel (1810-1858) was a talented contemporary of Fanny Hensel, and other fine musicians of the first half of the nineteenth century. Her legacy includes some fine Lieder, which are collected as An Imaginary Voyage through Europe in an arrangement that represents the various themes she explored in her music.
Houston puts final touches on new Heggie opera
Thereís still a hint of jest in the comparison, but itís not without reason that Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally are mentioned now and then in opera circles as ìthe Strauss and Hofmannsthal of the 21st century.î