Category: Performances

BartÛk’s only opera, a masterpiece to rank with other sole works in
the genre such as Fidelio and PellÈas et MÈlisande, was
chosen for the climax of the Philharmonia’s year-long series,
‘Infernal Dance: Inside the World of BÈla BartÛk’.

Wexford Festival Opera made a boldly calculated choice sixty years ago when it eschewed bread-and-butter titles, and instead raided the dusty closet where forgotten pieces by some famous (and mostly non-) composers were (at best) consigned to history.

There are some literary texts which, by dint of their intense compression of
incident, their creators’ firm control of structure, and the precision of
linguistic nuance, do not naturally seem to lend themselves to operatic
treatment.

Daring dramas which probe dark psychological depths; music that embodies
visceral emotional conflicts, and stirs heated, often contradictory, passions;
the text and score shaped into radical musico-dramatic structures, employing
shockingly inventive harmonic language and orchestral timbres.

How is one to write a Romantic opera?

According to legend, when composing Don Giovanni, Mozart completed
the overture last. It was written the night before the opera’s premiere, while his wife Constanze, a fervent taskmaster, plied him with food and drink to make sure he stayed awake.