Though all big opera is called grand opera, French grand opera itself is a very specific genre. It is an ephemeral style not at all easy to bring to life. For example . . .
Tag: Milenski
Benjamin, DerniËre Nuit in Lyon
That’s Walter Benjamin of the Frankfort School [philosophers in the interwar period (WW’s I and II) who were at home neither with capitalism, fascism or communism].
L’Aiglon in Marseille
Napoleon I (Bonaparte) was known as the Aigle (eagle), his son by Marie Louise (of the Hapsburgs) later became called the Aiglon (eaglet). At birth he was dubbed the King of Rome by his father. Unofficially and very briefly he was Napoleon II. Exiled in Austria he was officially titled the Duke of Reichstadt and the Prince of Parma.
Gˆtterd‰mmerung in Palermo
There are not many opera productions that you would cross oceans to see. Graham
Vick’s Gˆtterd‰mmerung in Sicily however compelled such a voyage.
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in Lyon
This nasty little opera evening in Lyon lived up to the opera’s initial reputation as pure pornophony. This is the erotic Shostakovich of the D minor cello sonata, it is the sarcastic and complicated Shostakovich of The Nose . . .
Fall of the House of Usher in San Francisco
It was a single title but a double bill and there was far more happening than Gordon Getty and Claude Debussy. Starting with Edgar Allen Poe.
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg in San Francisco
Falstaff and Die Meistersinger are among the pinnacles if not the pinnacles of nineteenth century opera. Both operas are atypical of the composer and both operas are based on a Shakespeare play.
Tannhauser und der S‰ngerkrieg auf Wartburg
Ossia Tannhauser and James Levine with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Lucia di Lammermoor in San Francisco
First it was Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva who cancelled in Zurich (no longer in her voice), then it was . . .