Bowled over
I never thought I’d see the day when Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten would battle it out for musical superiority but that’s exactly what happened in Los Angeles this year.
Giuseppe Verdi
209 pieces since 2008.
209
pieces
19
years
He is big
Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera, is exuberantly inventive, bubbling and roiling with ideas the 79-year-old composer was too impatient to develop.
Diabolical variations
Whenever I encounter Eric Owens, he’s plotting to conquer the universe.
In memoriam Mike Richter
Serious opera fan and internet pioneer Mike Richter died earlier this week.
And to top it all off, the volcano erupts
the strip on my first and, so far at least, only visit to Las Vegas a few years ago, I noticed what to me was a most unexpected sight and startled my companions by pointing out the window and shouting “Auber!”
Yet here’s a canard
The part of Lady Macbeth is different from any other role Verdi wrote because the composer insisted that the interpreter must have a harsh, ugly voice.
Autumn leaves
It may have taken most of Verdi’s canon to do it, but the “Tutto Verdi” collection finally manages to do justice to Verdi in his last two operas.
Eschorcher
Giuseppe and I have always had a complicated relationship.
One for the vault
Of all of Verdi’s operas. Aida is the one I find least interesting dramatically.
Run of the “Miller”
The Tutto Verdi series from the Teatro Regio Parma may be said to relate to the great Giuseppe Verdi’s oeuvre as the burning of the library at Alexandria did to classical literature.
The new world
Name a Verdi opera, based on a play by Voltaire, described in the immortal words of the composer as “Questo e proprio brutto.”
Dream team
Director Daniel Moshel (not pictured) who created the YouTube sensation MeTube, sat down recently—and virtually—to chat with La Cieca (also not pictured.)
One Day more
There’s that old joke; What’s the difference between opera and sex? Punchline; you can have good sex.
Odd numbers
All of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi contain music that is worth hearing and can be rewarding in good performances.
Captivating in Babylon
Verdi’s first operatic masterpiece is well served by this DVD
of a performance from the Teatro Regio di Parma.
First steps
There’s something charming and almost irresistible about early Verdi opera. I always equate it to seeing a grade school test from Albert Einstein.
Who let the Doge out?
Once again, we’re back with the Parmigiani at the Teatro Regio and their Tutto Verdi project marking the upcoming bicentennial of the great maestro’s birth.
The man in the ironic mask
The realization of the opera Un ballo in maschera by Verdi and the librettist Antonio Somma is almost as famous as the opera itself.
The man behind the mask
Recently your doyenne engaged in an email-based interview with David Alden, director of the Met’s new production of Un ballo in maschera, opening on Thursday.
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.
Tales of an evil queen
Beethoven expressed it best when he reportedly threw Rossini shade: “Any other other style than opera buffa would do violence to your nature.”
Renaissance: fair
On this Gay Pride weekend, I remember my late friend Robert Chesley, activist and playwright (Stray Dog Story), who had also been an elementary schoolteacher.
Fairy-lit
It was dear Oscar Wilde, wasn’t it, who devised that early mot du jour “Good writers borrow; great writers steal”…
Mayr, fair lady
Giovanni Simone Mayr was one of the most important musical figures of his day, a man Rossini referred to as the “father of Italian opera” whom Napoleon personally lobbied to come work in Paris. Though he wrote nearly 70 operas and taught Donizetti and Bellini, the Bavarian-born composer had the misfortune of hitting his peak […]
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
