The first thing I noticed in the liner notes was the bold print claiming Cimarosa was born in 1797 and died in 1848, which correspond exactly with Donizettiís lifespan.
Category: Reviews
Old Music In a New Home ó WNO stages a brand new production of Monteverdi’s “Ulysses”
In his introduction to the Welsh National Opera’s celebratory 60th anniversary season programme Carlo Rizzi, their Music Director, declares that “we are bringing the best of Wales to the rest of the world ó and the best of the world to Wales”.
150 Years of Opera in Chicago
This is a very attractive book, which, in addition to the expected text, has many striking photos, a list of the operas performed in Chicago, indicating all the seasons in which each work was given, and a season by season chronology, limited to professional companies.
ASHLEY: Perfect Lives; Celestial Excursions; Foreign Experiences
Robert Ashley has the uncanny ability to sprinkle diamonds amidst great swaths of apparently trivial and quotidian detritus–diamonds that trigger the nervous system in an intensely stimulating fashion.
BEETHOVEN: Overtures
BRUCKNER: Symphony no. 4
The later G¸nter Wand was a remarkable interpreter of Bruckner’s music, as is demonstrated in this live recording from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Joshua Bell’s Good Taste
Sony Records occasionally still sends the odd CD to reviewers hoping they will give it notice.
VERDI: La Traviata
Callas fans better skip this review, as they wonít like the tone, the words, or whatever slights real or imagined they may perceive.
MAHLER: Symphony no. 7
At the expense of stating a truism, the music of Gustav Mahler, like that of other composers, is best experienced live in the concert hall.
PUCCINI: La Fanciulla del West
This Fanciulla is such a wonderful issue because, for once, none of the three protagonists ever recorded their role commercially, so that one is spared the many doublings often met in live recordings.
MAHLER: Symphony no. 8
During the last few years Antoni Wit has recorded Mahler’s symphonies one by one, such that he is building a fine cycle for the Naxos label.