The operatic offerings of Boston Early Music Festival — Keiser‘s Octavia and Telemann‘s Pimpinone and Ino — are delectable discoveries
Those of us in New York City who relish 17th century Italian vocal music were offered an enticing banquet over the past few weeks.
For those who relish 17th and 18th century vocal music, the annual visits to the Morgan Library by the singers and instrumentalists of the Boston Early Music Festival invariably guarantee delight
Over the past week New York City was blessed by two appealing 17th century presentations: John Blow’s Venus and Adonis from Opera Lafayette and La Storia di Orfeo courtesy of the Boston Early Music Festival.
In the triumphant American premiere of Orlando Generoso at the Boston Early Music Festival last week, the hippogriff was among the many stars of the show.
Today the good guy finally gets his chance with San Giovanni Battista by Alessandro Stradella featuring Christophe Dumaux as John the Baptist.
As the first of the 2018 opera productions last Saturday, the Merola Opera Program chose Mozart’s rarely-performed early serenata, Il re pastore.
I had my head in my hands groaning in disbelief instead of joining in the general applause around me.
On Saturday Juilliard 415 welcomed the sterling 10-member Belgian group Vox Luminis for a striking program of “Handel in Rome.”
New York fans of 17th century Italian vocal music should be rejoicing this month.
An opera revolving around chastity vows, adultery, slut-shaming, lesbianism, transvestism and much more!
Who needs sets and costumes anyway?
For one week every two years since 1981 the eyes—and ears—of those interested in period performance turn to the Boston Early Music Festival, particularly to its opera centerpiece, but that organization doesn’t rest on its laurels in between festivals.
Handel’s first surviving musical composition is Almira, the opera he wrote in a hurry when shake-ups at the Hamburg opera house, where the 19-year-old had been playing in the violin section, left a planned production unfinished.
Giulio Cesare at the Met proved an evening that added up to much more than the sum of its uneven parts.
Every year New York City opera-lovers eagerly anticipate the autumn because it means that summer is finally over and we can get back to serious opera-going, and this September promises “The Battle of the A’s.”
Despite baby-steps over the years, America’s musical scene, especially opera, remains decidedly un-HIP. (HIP: “historically-informed performance,” also called “period performance.”) While European opera houses turn increasingly to “original instrument” orchestras and specialist singers for seventeenth and eighteenth century works, this rarely occurs in the US.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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