Marek Janowski’s second recorded Ring cycle began on an off note, with a Rheingold that was fleet and lucid but failed to impress in the important musical moments.
The 19th century could not cope with Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti (Thus Do They All, or The School for Lovers) with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte and music by Mozart, first presented in Vienna in 1790.
Strange as it is to encounter two such disparate works presented with the identical production concept, it’s odder still that the opera you’d think would be the slam dunk is anything but.
There is a mighty appetite among both old Wagnerians and new ones to see a Ring that follows—if not too slavishly—the scenic requests of the libretto.
The 1965 season was a time of big changes at the Vienna State Opera.
Seventeenth century opera remains the true connoisseur’s delight partly because it’s so rarely done.
Anna Netrebko‘ s new CD of Verdi arias seems to be a bold, defiant, “in your face” statement about the direction she is taking with her career.
Thérèse is a compact work consisting of two short acts and clocks in just under seventy minutes.
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!”
After the success of its Don Giovanni in 2011, Lincoln Center invited Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra to return for the Mostly Mozart Festival premiere (!) of the first of Mozart-da Ponte’s three masterpieces Le Nozze di Figaro late Sunday afternoon at the Rose Theater.
I was led through a small labyrinth of white curtains, sheer like veils, to a row of seven chairs jutting in between the stage risers.
Leslie Uyeda’s When the Sun Comes Out is being premiered by Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival as “Canada’s first Lesbian opera” at the Roundhouse Community Center in Yaletown. I caught the second performance; there is one more tomorrow night.
I’ve long been a fan of Kenneth Branagh, even though this fandom feels a bit like being a camel in the desert.
After Heart of a Soldier, The Perfect American, The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene, et al., the premiere of Theodore Morrison’s Oscar in Santa Fe last Saturday came as a welcome relief.
Sergey Taneyev, pupil of Tchaikovsky and teacher of Scriabin and Rachmaninov, composed just one opera, Oresteia, premiered in 1895 when he was 39.
The behavioral phenomenon of limerence has been described as “an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
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.
It is quite unusual to stage a new indoor production in the middle of summer in Italy when so many outdoor venues are open, but general manager of La Scala Stéphane Lissner – who will leave next year – decided to close the first half of this Verdi-Wagner year with a beloved hit of il cigno di Busseto.
Giuseppe and I have always had a complicated relationship.
I’m happy to report that Rigoletto from the 30 DVD Tutto Verdi set from the Teatro Regio di Parma is a blockbuster
.
Between Fidelio and Der Freischutz there was “Romantische Oper,” a type of musical drama descended from medieval mystery plays in which ghosts, gnomes and other “invisibles” get entangled in the lives of unsuspecting people.
If you’re a hard-core opera buff who finds the Met’s flashy sets and costumes distracting, have I got a show for you!
Everything about Aleksandra Kurzak’s new disc
is a variation on the term “fioritura.”
Of all of Verdi’s operas. Aida is the one I find least interesting dramatically.
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