The Importance of Being Earnest , Gerald Barry’s fifth opera, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Barbican, and was first performed in concert, Thomas Adès conducting the London premiere.
‘Beauty is the one form of spirituality that we experience through the senses.’ In Thomas Mann’s, Death in Venice, Plato’s axiom stirs the hopes of the aging, intellectually stale poet, Gustav von Aschenbach, that he may rekindle his creativity.
What better way for Masonic brothers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emmanuel Shikaneder to disseminate Masonic virtues, than through the most popular musical entertainment of their age, a happy ending folktale that features a dragon, enchanting flutes and bells, mixed-up parentage, and a beautiful young princess in distress?
There is a sense in which it all began in London, Puccini having been seized in 1900 with the idea of an opera on this subject after watching David Belasco’s play here.
The tenor that the audience most wanted to hear, Plácido Domingo, opened the vocal program with “Junto al puente de la peña” (Next to the rock bridge) from La Canción del Olvido (The song of Oblivion) by José Serrano. He sounded rested and his voice soared majestically over the orchestra.
Tucked away somewhere in the San Francisco Opera warehouse was an old John Cox production of Così fan tutte from Monte Carlo. Well, not that old by current standards at San Francisco Opera.
Rossini's Maometto Secondo is a major coup for Garsington Opera at Wormsley, confirming its status as the leading specialist Rossini house in Britain. Maometto Secondo is a masterpiece, yet rarely performed because it's formidably difficult to sing. It's a saga with some of the most intense music Rossini ever wrote, expressing a drama so powerful that one can understand why early audiences needed "happy endings" to water down its impact
I suppose it was inevitable that, in this Britten Centenary year, the 66th Aldeburgh Festival would open with Peter Grimes.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Garsington Opera at Wormsley isn’t Mozart as you’d expect but it’s true to the spirit of Mozart who loved witty, madcap japes.
What a pity! On a glorious — well, by recent English standards — summer’s day, there can be few more beautiful English countryside settings than Glyndebourne, with the added bonus, as alas much of the audience appears to understand it, of an opera house attached.
Described by one critic as “cosmically gifted”, during her tragically short career, American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson amazed and delighted audiences with the spellbinding beauty of her singing and the astonishing honesty of her performances.
Since its first performance at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo during Venice’s 1643 Carnevale, Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea has been one of the most important milestones in the genesis of modern opera despite its 250 years of unmerited obscurity.
“I wrote it almost without noticing.” So Verdi declared when reminded of his eighth — and perhaps least frequently performed, opera, Alzira. One might say that, since he composed the work, no-one else has much noticed either.
Just when you thought the protagonist was Hoffmann! Who, rather what stole the show?
When is verismo verily veristic? Or what is a virginal girl dressed in communion white doing in the two murderous acts of the Los Angeles Opera’s current production of Tosca? And why does she sing the shepherd's song?
Though 2013 is the bicentennial of the births of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, the releases of Cecilia Bartoli’s recording of Bellini’s Norma on DECCA, a new studio recording of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro from Opera Rara, and this première recording of Saverio Mercadante’s forgotten I due Figaro, suggest that this is the start of a summer of bel canto.
Wagner’s Lohengrin is not an unfamiliar visitor to the UK thanks, in the main, to Elijah Moshinsky’s perennial production at Covent Garden.
Philip Glass's The Perfect American at the ENO in London is a visual treat, but the libretto is mind-numbingly anodyne.
Recording Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is for a record label equivalent to a climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest: it is the zenith from which a label surveys its position among its rivals and appreciates an achievement that can define its reputation for a generation.
Few people who love opera in general and bel canto in particular have never heard the comment made by Lilli Lehmann, veteran of the inaugural Ring at Bayreuth in 1876, that singing all three of Wagner’s Brünnhildes—in Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, respectively, all of which she sang to great acclaim—pales in comparison with singing the title rôle in Bellini’s Norma.
A yellow banner in the lower right hand corner of the slip case cover (identical to that of the jewel box and booklet) proclaims this CD as the "first world recording" of Gaetano Donizetti's Alahor in Granata.
In today's market, a second will not be soon arriving, but not to worry. On the debit side, although the opera's score presents itself as the sturdy dramatic work of a talented craftsman, it lacks those glittering moments of genius that secured Lucia di Lammermoor a place in the core repertory, or even those flashes of inspiration that inspire occasional revivals of La Favorite or the "three queen" operas. To the recording's credit, however, a more enthusiastic or professional performance than this is hard to imagine.
Two excellent booklet essays detail the complex history of the opera's composition and the even more labyrinthine ongoings of the libretto, which passeth all understanding. Granada under Muslim rule provides the setting for betrayal, revenge, passion, and joy, all exhibited at the zenith of the range of human emotion. It is enough that there are plentiful opportunities for choral, ensemble, and solo vocal display. The Orchestra of the city of Granada may not be of world-renown, but they exhibit more than enough skill for Donizetti's score, and the seasoned leadership of Josep Pons supports the singers at every step.
When it came time to find singers, the opera really found luck on its side. The excellent Simone Alaimo has the title role, a baritone lead, and it perfectly suits this accomplished bel canto artist. As his sister, soprano Patricia Pace has a bright, dancing vocal timbre that sometimes falls a bit shy of the note, evoking a plaintive air (and a slight reminiscence of the great Edita Gruberova).
But the discoveries of this recording are two young singers, even younger in 1998, the time of the recording. Vivica Genaux now brings her quick, light mezzo to many of the world's best opera houses. Here she finds herself, if not for the first time (and far from the last) in pants. Her quickness and delineation have a heroic quality which make the cross-dressing entirely fitting. Juan Diego Florez now stars in the top opera houses, and here he is in his-mid-twenties. The tangy, sharp tone is unmistakable, as is his control and skill in fast, high music. Genaux and Florez have a long duet near the end of act one that alone makes this set a desirable acquisition for fans of contemporary singers.
So Alahor in Granata, after falling into many decades of obscurity, finds itself resurrected, and the living proof comes in a handsome recording in fine sound. Bel canto lovers and Donizetti worshipers, rejoice.
Chris Mullins