(A)nything (B)ut (C)armen
Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
Ambroise Thomas
12 pieces since 2010.
12
pieces
17
years
Psyché’d up
It would be difficult to find a better description for Ambroise Thomas’s newly-recovered Psyché, recently heard in a new recording from Palazzetto Bru Zane, than the one uttered by her suitors: “Charmante Psyché!”
All the fine young cannibals
Offenbach‘s Robinson Crusoé is salvaged from obscurity.
Georges has Georges
A double bill of rare Bizet works in Paris is not something any of us needs to do more than once
One that was a woman
Earlier this month the opera world was stunned to learn of the death of Belgian soprano Jodie Devos who died of breast cancer at just 35, and Chris’s Cache remembers her with a broadcast from last November of Devos as Ophélie in Hamlet, her only US appearance.
Sweet prince
South African Jacques Imbrailo’s high-lying baritone did much to highlight the lyrical possibilities of the title role of Hamlet, originally conceived for a tenor.
Thousands cheer
Although Gustav Mahler never wrote an opera, his colossal Eighth Symphony “The Symphony of a Thousand” may give us some glimpses of what a Mahler opera might have sounded like
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new Dane
C-major has made available the first DVD/Blu-ray of Franco Faccio’s Amleto.
From Hell
In March 1973, OONY’s second season featured Francesca da Rimini starring Raina Kabaivanska, Plácido Domingo and Matteo Manuguerra.
The year in Yohalem
My memory is fading but the events I recall most vividly of the last season seem largely to have been concert performances.
Sweet prince
The rediscovery of Franco Faccio’s Amleto, a curious score that last week, via Baltimore Concert Opera, received its first performances since 1871, reminds us just how tough an act Giuseppe Verdi was to follow.
“They certainly spared every expense!”
I have to confess that I overheard that line during the intermission of the Met’s new production of Amboise Thomas’s seldom-performed Hamlet based on Shakespeare’s oft-performed play. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).