George Benjamin is the leading British composer of his generation. Into the Little Hill premiered in 2006, has been acclaimed a masterpiece.
Category: Performances
Hoffmann Takes A Hit In Santa Fe
Despite its length and pretentions to being serious opera, Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, dating from the 1880s, remains a leaky vessel adrift on a sea of self-fulfilling prophesies of doom.
Angela Meade’s Norma at Caramoor
Bellini’s Norma was composed in 1831 and, in the era of such
singing actresses as Giuditta Pasta, Maria Malibran, Giuseppina Strepponi,
Giulia Grisi and ThÈrËse Tietjens (famous Normas all), soon came to be known as
the bel canto vehicle par excellence, the summit of vocal achievement.
Simon Boccanegra at the Proms
Proms audiences have a tendency to be overly enthusiastic in showing their
appreciation, with an arsenal of rituals and traditions at the ready to show
their praise and adulation for their idols.
Opera’s Brigadoon — OTSL’s 2010 Season of the Sublime
At the beginning of every summer, an oasis of music and theater appears like
magic in the suburbs of St. Louis.
Meistersinger at the Proms
The BBC Proms brought the Welsh National Opera’s hit Die Meistersinger von N¸rnberg to the Royal Albert Hall and to the world, via international broadcast.
Mahler’s 8th at Royal Albert Hall
A performance of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony could only ever be relatively underwhelming; even a car crash of a performance would impress in some sense, indeed most likely in quite a few.
Darkness Visible: Dowland and beyond
This was a recital of concentrated intensity — a remarkable dialogue between texts, timbres and idioms, across ages and among performers.
Star Power in Z¸rich’s Rosenkavalier
The annual Z¸rcher Festspiel banked on a heavy hitter to generate excitement for its revival of Der Rosenkavalier.