At 73 minutes, this DVD of the typical gala affair ñ various soloists trot on, sing an aria, then trot off ñ canít be called generous, but it does have variety.
Category: Reviews
MASSENET: Werther
When you and I were young Maggie, there was only the fine Werther with Thill and Vallin and the Cetra recording with Tagliavini and his first wife, Pia Tassinari.
SCHEIDT: Ludi musici I, II, III & IV
I suspect that when we survey the musical landscape of the early seventeenth century, it is opera, monody, and madrigal that come most quickly and lastingly into view, and given the contemporaneous attention given to the relationship between music and word, it is unsurprising that this would be the case.
CACCINI: Nuove musiche
When Giulio Caccini entitled his landmark 1601/02 publication Le nuove musiche, he confidently laid claim both to the novelty of the emerging baroque style and his formidable role in bringing it to blossom.
GASPAROV: Five Operas and a Symphony
This new volume from Yale University Press is one of those rare and treasured phenomena in Russian music scholarship that illuminate their subject from a new angle ó that of cultural history. Indeed, Boris Gasparov’s expressed goal in Five Operas and a Symphony is nothing less than turning the table on poetry, philosophy, and literary criticism that have for so long ruled the field of Slavic research, and elucidating them from a musical point of view.
VERDI: Macbeth
This Macbeth, originally conceived by Phyllida Lloyd for a co-production of the Paris OpÈra and Covent Garden, is an excellent example of what nowadays is to be seen on most opera stages in Europe (and probably the States as well).
BELLINI: I Puritani
Through Rossini’s influence Bellini and his rival Donizetti were each invited to compose an opera for the ThÈ‚tre des Italiens in Paris. Bellini who, paranoid and delusional, thought he was the object of a sinister plan headed by Rossini to benefit Donizetti, went out of his way to ingratiate himself with the “Great Master” long before Donizetti’s arrival in the French capital. After a year of idle life in Paris, where he survived off the kindness of his hosts and friends, the Sicilian composer set to work on what would regretfully become his last opera: I Puritani di Scozia.
RenÈe Fleming and the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall ó Two Reviews
On 8 January 2006, the Met Orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall with James Levine, RenÈe Fleming and Julien Robbins.
CILEA: LíArlesiana
For a work that is known as a one-aria-opera, four official (this one included) recordings is not a bad record. And of course most opera-lovers have not only ìE la solita storiaî in their many tenor recitals but know the baritone aria ìCome due tizziî and the mezzoís ìEsser madre Ë un infernoî as well.
Operatunity Winners ó Denise Leigh and Jane Gilchrist
When asked if I had any interest in reviewing the discs of ìthe Operatunity finalists,î I admit I was so ignorant of what Operatunity was that I had to make a quick web search to find out.