Who is the most annoying character in opera? Preziosilla from Verdi’s Forza del Destino drives some to distraction, while others wish the conspirators in Ballo would assassinate Oscar in act one.
Category: Reviews
ENNA: Lille pige med svovlstikkerne
ZEMLINSKY: Die Seejungfrau
Walt Disney has colored our perception of fairy tales, turning them, whatever their source, into egalitarian morality plays:
Frederica von Stade sings Mozart and Rossini arias
Frederica von Stade was just about 30 years old in 1975, when she recorded these Mozart and Rossini arias with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Edo de Waart.
ìPoppeaî – Heartless in L.A.
After the successful premiËre of Monteverdiís ìLíIncoronazione di Poppeaî (Saturday, November 25th) at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, General Director Placido Domingo spoke warmly and cogently about this early Italian masterpiece, about its free-flowing music and the perfect relevance of the text to todayís world with all its greed, ambition and self-seeking.
Houston ìrescuesî Hansel and Gretel
HOUSTON — “Hansel and Gretel” has taken a beating in recent seasons, as over-zealous directors — aping the excesses of Eurotrash Regieoper — have made Humperdink’s largely innocent retelling of the Grimms’ tale the victim of hyper-active imaginations.
Sweet was the Song
I doubt that this recital disc, recorded in 2004, could have been intended as a memorial to Arne Dorumsgaard, who died in March of 2006, but the composer’s centrality to the program, and the poetic themes of death, sleep, and mortality that recur in the Elizabethan texts, enable such an interpretation.
CHARPENTIER: Le Malade Imaginaire
On the 10th February 1673, only a few months after their first collaboration, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as MoliËre (1622-1673), and Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) presented at the Palais Royal’s theater Le Malade Imaginaire, a comÈdie ballet (a comedy with incidental music in the form of interludes built around a secondary plot).
All the Ends of the Earth: Contemporary & Medieval Vocal Music
There is an often compelling relationship between early and contemporary music. The relationship grows out of many different things.
CHARPENTIER: AndromËde; Ballet de Polyeucte
Conceived by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) to serve as musical interludes for a revival at the Jesuit college of Harcourt in 1680 of Pierre Corneille’s play, Polyeucte Martyr (originally written in 1642), the ballet Le combat de l’amour divin was composed for string orchestra with trumpets, kettledrums and continuo.
Songs of Amy Beach
I can remember a time when Amy Beach was primarily known as a favorite among performers (largely female) whose mission was to present the work of neglected women composers.