Watching this DVD, your reviewer suddenly recalled a brief exchange from the film Reversal of Fortune, when the Ron Silver/Alan Dershowitz character says to the Jeremy Irons/Claus von Bulow one, ìYou are a very strange man, ì and Irons, in the moment that may have won him the Academy Award, replies with eerie blandness, ìYou have no idea.î
Category: Reviews
Thomas Hampson in Recital
Monday evening, November 21, 2005, I was fortunate enough to attend a benefit recital given by Thomas Hampson in the Fox Theater in Spokane, Washington.
GINASTERA: Musica de camera y Canciones
Orfeo has joined the ranks of CD companies adding artwork to the inner casing beneath the disc. For this recording of Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), a series of photographs of gauchos riding horses on the pampas receives a modified Andy Warhol treatment.
VERDI: La Traviata
Eight long and dark years later, La Fenice rose, once again, from the ashes following a devastating fire which destroyed the theater in 1996. For the ìformalî re-opening of the refurbished Venetian landmark, its management wisely chose Verdiís original score for his 1853 opera for La Fenice: La Traviataóanother survivor that rose from the ashes.
Lamento ó Arias, Cantatas and Scenes by the Bach Family
Dorothea Schroder, as translated by Stewart Spencer, begins her booklet essay for Magdalena Kozenaís recent CD by quoting a review of an earlier disc of the mezzo: ìÖKozena is simply marvelous.î Brazen record company self-promotion?
RAMEAU: Les Indes galantes
Jean-Philippe Rameau is usually remembered today (when he is remembered at all) as an important musical theorist. This limited reputation is unfortunate, because Rameau was a masterful composer known for his sumptuous melodies and colorful harmonies.
Verdi’s Macbeth — The Critical Edition
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a weighty play, and Verdi’s Macbeth seems to be a weighty opera: the three volumes of this edition (two of the full score, plus a smaller Critical Commentary containing the critical notes and a description of the sources) weigh 16.6 pounds. It is remarkable to think that this is the first full score of either the 1847 original or the 1865 revised Macbeth ever published.
Verdi Songs
Iím told that, if an auditioning singerís repertoire includes a Verdi piece, the auditors will very likely choose to hear it, because singing Verdi well requires the full catalogue of skills: musical exactness, dynamic range, breath control, sensitive phrasing, the ability to provide a variety of colors in the voice, and, if possible, a large enough personality to truly fill out whichever character is being portrayed.
DELIBES: LakmÈ
I have to admit it: this is the first time I ever listened to the complete version of this early Decca-issue of 1952 (though some sources say it was recorded one year earlier).
KRENEK: Lieder
While I was listening to this recording of Krenekís song cycles Durch die Nacht (op. 67) and Ges‰nge des sp‰ten Jahres (op. 71), I started to think about art and memory.