Pierre Monteux was a great opera conductor
Pierre Monteux‘s career defies time.
Camille Saint-Saëns
23 pieces since 2010.
23
pieces
17
years
Holding out for a hero
Clémence de Grandval’s Mazeppa gets the superhero treatment in Dortmund.
Bach to Bach
An invigorating double bill at the San Francisco Symphony challenges how Bach “should” be performed.
Once I was a schlepper, now I’m Miss Mazeppa
John Danaher on the world-premiere recording of Clémence de Grandval‘s wild and worthy Mazeppa, the latest release from the operatic archaeologists at Palazzetto Bru Zane.
Sing out strong
Pride weekend events at San Francisco Opera and Festival Opera are fabulous starts to the Bay Area summer
Not an asset to the abbey
Francesco Filidei’s new opera The Name of the Rose struggles to bridge the past and the present in Milan
Venetian blinding
West Bay Opera’s Otello punches well above its weight
Fractured féerie tales
Félix Fourdrain‘s “féerie” Les Contes de Perrault by the Frivolités Parisiennes is as fun for adults as it is for children
Flower maiden
Erin Morley closed Vocal Arts DC’s season on May 13th with a recital in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, partnered by pianist Gerald Martin Moore.
Dagonistic pluralism
To bring a well-known story to the stage, many methods are available.
Letting their hair down
After the break the ladies stepped up their game so much that it elevated the night into legendary status: definitely one for the books!
Cradle song
While seasonally-awkward streams of Messiah abound, Trove Thursday turns instead to Berlioz’s exquisite L’Enfance du Christ from francophone forces including Stéphanie d’ Oustrac, Bernard Richter, Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Nicolas Testé (for once, sans sa femme).
The mélodie lingers on
Everything’s coming up mélodie! As the pandemic rages on and new lockdowns have thrown large-scale performances into disarray, record labels have been releasing new albums of French art song by the bucketload.
Bloody Mary, Hold the Pepper
Come ye addicts of melody! After long eclipse, Bel Canto shines again!
Shorn yesterday
For opening night 2018, the Met offered the creaky but appealing biblical epic Samson et Dalila, presumably as a vehicle for Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna.
Every day a little death
Neumeier adapted the story close to home, making Orpheus a choreographer and his wife a star ballerina.
Woman on the verge of a repertoire breakthrough
Revive is a manifesto of sorts, declaring Elina Garanca’s intentions for the new direction in her career.
Biblical sense
Shirley Verrett remains one of my all-time favorite artists, and I am pleased to introduce her to my Mixcloud site in one of her parade roles: the femme fatale in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
Partial eclipse
We must be doubly grateful that The English Concert’s recent Theodora was so quickly followed by the American Classical Orchestra’s fine Samson on Tuesday evening at Alice Tully Hall.
Divas merrily on high
Cecilia Bartoli and Joyce DiDonato are not the only ladies who have recorded recitals this year featuring music from the 17th and 18th centuries.
L’infelice Aragonese
Camille Saint-Saëns was such a brilliant, facile musician that pals like Wagner and Liszt felt a distinct schadenfreude when he suffered composer’s block.
Canon ball
New York Festival of Song’s Manning the Canon: Songs of Gay Life is a delightfully lighthearted, deeply personal, and colorful recital made of equal parts sex, camp, melancholy, and tenderness. Steven Blier‘s wide-ranging program consists of five sets of songs, each meant to evoke, as per his program notes, “a quintessential moment of a gay […]