American Bach brings out the operatic side of Bach in a program featuring sparkling vocal talents.
Christopher Corwin on three stylish sopranos delighting audiences live in New York and on recording in a trio of new releases.
On Tuesday night, in the commodious concert hall of the Morgan Library, the Boston Early Music Festival forces brought Georg Philipp Telemann’s Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho to New York.
They used to say of the island of Crete that it produces more history than can be consumed locally.
On this day in 1922 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company debut of Catalani’s Loreley.
On Saturday at Alice Tully Hall, Julliard 415, the school’s top-flight period-instrument ensemble, was joined by students from the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts and Juilliard Drama for a rare semi-staging of King Arthur.
Since my previous CD round-up review the onslaught of solo recital disks of 18th century (and sometimes also 17th) vocal music has continued unabated.
Trove Thursday celebrates early St. Cecilia’s Day—November 22—with a 1976 performance of Licino Refice’s Cecilia starring Renata Scotto as the patron saint of music and musicians.
What is opera for if not to commemorate a national epic tragedy and triumph?
An unusually provocative program by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Bernard Labadie with soloists Lydia Teuscher and Benno Schachtner made my “return” Thursday evening an illuminating and rewarding experience at Zankel Hall.
The “Red Priest” of Venice once made reference to his “94 operas” in a letter to his patron.
A beautiful concert of 18th century sacred music arrived at Weill Recital Hall performed by the soulful Polish Wunderkind Jakub Jósef Orlinski.
Four fine Handel-centric concerts from the Morgan Library to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center proved a bracing antidote to pervasive Messiah-mania.
Niccolò Jommelli, forgotten now, was quite well known in Italy and southern Germany in his day.
A rollicking performance of his delightful comic opera Der geduldige Sokrates featuring a fine cast and the magnificent Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by René Jacobs.
A brilliant production of La Juive like that of Peter Konwitschny generalizes the message that mindless hate does not pay and the mindless mob is always the enemy of civilization.
An unstaged performance of Juditha Triumphans by five soloists and the Venice Baroque Orchestra under Andrea Marcon.
Washingtonians enjoyed a happy reunion this past Sunday with David Daniels.
Fans of divas who sing 19th and 20th century opera may find themselves searching in vain for CDs to buy with this season’s gift cards, since their idols so rarely put out solo recitals these days.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s only opera for Rome was written to an existing libretto by the great Pietro Metastasio, L’Olimpiade, which had already been set by Vivaldi the year previously.
“I’ve lived with mendacity!—Why can’t you live with it? Hell, you got to live with it, there’s nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?”
Not only cursed to bear a name nearly identical to that of one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, Leonardo Vinci also had the misfortune to die just three months after the premiere of his greatest opera, reportedly murdered with a cup of poisoned chocolate at the age of 36.
The chicken or the egg?
Of all the Olympics-related products created to honor the upcoming summer games in London, surely one of the oddest must be a brand new pasticcio just released on a two-CD set
by Naïve—L’Olimpiade.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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