Do you remember a moment when a piece, new to you, so engaged you that you immediately wanted to know more. . .or all about it?
Category: Reviews
Jan Neckers on Recently Reissued Historicals
I doubt many admirers of Leontyne Price will be tempted to buy this issue.
La Nilsson: My Life in Opera
Birgit Nilsson probably never heard of “the Protestant work ethic,” but she didn’t need to know it.
MAZZOCCHI: Madrigali e Dialoghi
The Roman composer Mazzocchi is one of those figures known only to musicologists, and it is a pity, for this disc contains first-rate music.
Biondi’s Labors Won, or Unearthing The Lost Vivaldi
An expedition against the famed warring women, the Amazons, ranking as Hercules’ ninth labor out the canonic twelve, provided the subject for the libretto by Antonio Salvi (not Giacomo Francesco Bussani, as hitherto misattributed) that Vivaldi set to music in 1723 as his own sixteenth operatic labor.
Opera at the BBC Proms 2007
Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s guest appearance is an annual fixture at the Proms, and this year the work of choice was Verdi’s Macbeth, in a semi-staged performance on July 24th based on Richard Jones’s new production for this year’s Festival.
San Francisco stages triumphant Tannhäuser
At this point in his career David Gockley has no need to prove himself. He did that with awesome success as general director of Houston Grand Opera for 33 years, during which he made that company a front runner both on the American and international opera scenes.
GIORDANO: Fedora
Mirella Freni’s 1993 triumph in the lead of Umberto Giordani’s Fedora at La Scala has made it to DVD. In his booklet essay, Werner Pfister (translated by Stewart Spencer) admits the opera “does not enjoy the best of reputations.”
ìDein ist mein ganzes Herzî
Okay, okay, I freely admit this up front: I am not inordinately fond of operetta. Just thought you should know. All the more remarkable then that I found myself listening to this new recording several times over.
STRAUSS : Elektra
Whatever you do, don’t give this DVD as a gift to people you don’t want to alienate.