Sing out strong
Pride weekend events at San Francisco Opera and Festival Opera are fabulous starts to the Bay Area summer
Ruggero Leoncavallo
18 pieces since 2008.
18
pieces
19
years
Married to the mob
Contrasting approaches to Regie duke it out in Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci and Rusalka in Munich
This summer I’m reading Scènes de la vie de Bohème
Man, I tried so hard to get this commissioned as a radio drama, because I want everyone to know what a ride this book is.
By Armerjacquino
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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
Random acts
Trove Thursday adds two short works—Goyescas and L’enfant et les sortilèges—to Christian’s expansive recent survey of Bernard Haitink’s opera legacy.
Atlantis in Atlanta
“Once upon a time / Lived a foolish king. / Mocking Death, his crime, / Pure chaos he bring.”
A boy’s best friend
At the opening of the Scottish Opera’s 2017 production of Turnage’s opera Greek, I was very sorry I’d missed Anna Nicole.
A starred day’s night
Anna Netrebko sang throughout with a palpable sense of joy and ease in vocal production, never a hint of strain or any moment forced.
Double exposure
San Francisco Opera opened their 2018-19 Season Friday with a double bill of Italian verismo operas, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, which made a welcome return to War Memorial Opera House after 15 years.
The piccolo on the hearth
Riccardo Zandoni’s Il Grillo del Focolare is an opera after all.
Eternal, feminine
For her first CD in six years, Angela Gheorghiu has chosen Italian repertoire.
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.
Something that’s grim, something that’s Greek
Leoncavallo’s Edipo Re.
Humans of old Madrid
Bare Opera, the feisty little company that gave Debussy’s exquisite L’Enfant Prodigue in Chelsea last spring, is now operating in chic, rundown Bushwick where so many original enterprises sprout.
Three-way
An ambitious and Wagner-smitten Ruggero Leoncavallo wrote his rarely heard opera I Medici (Historical Action in Four Acts) as the beginning of what he planned as “an epic poem in the form of a historical trilogy.” Taking his lead from the Ring, Leoncavallo called his planned trilogy Crepesculum, an homage to the Italian translation of […]
chi mai?
This month Deutsche Grammophon will scrape the bottom of the barrel and present a new recording of Leoncavallo’s genre-bending “symphonic poem for tenor and orchestra” La Nuit de Mai, studded with stars Plácido Domingo and Lang Lang. Dark horse Alberto Veronesi conducts — indeed, the same Muti-maned steed who was recently announced to succeed Eve Queler […]
Cherry picking
“Voglio essere giudicato per la musica e nient’altro che per la musica.” “I want to be judged for my music and nothing but my music.” This phrase, which Mascagni himself wrote to his publisher Sonzogno, is the key to understanding the very essence and existence of L’amico Fritz (1891). Cavalleria rusticana, Mascagni’s first performed opera, […]
oracular
Edipo Re (Leoncavallo) Creon – Keith Lewis Oedipus – Alan Titus Jocasta – Yvonne Naef Messenger – Roland Bracht Shepherd – Johannes Chum Teiresias – Cheyne Davidson Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Dennis Russell Davies. 1998.