01 May 2013
It would seem a logical step for the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey to take on
the role of the Composer in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. »
29 Apr 2013
“Aim for excellence”, says Douglas Boyd, new Artistic Director of Garsington Opera at Wormsley, “and the audience will follow you”. »
23 Apr 2013
When I spoke with Zandra Rhodes, she was in her large San Diego workspace, which she described as having walls decorated with her own huge black and white drawings. »
05 Mar 2013
Palm Beach audiences are famous for their glamour, but in recent years a special star has sparkled amid the jewels, sequins, feathers and furs (whatever the weather). »
03 Mar 2013
When the soprano Jessica Pratt first arrived in Italy, she had yet to learn the language or sing in a staged opera. »
02 Mar 2013
On Wednesday evening, February 20, Los Angeles Opera gave a press conference at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion featuring Music Director James Conlon. »
13 Feb 2013
It is another “What Could Have Been” moment. The debut of Brokeback
Mountain by Charles Wuorinen is part of Madridʼs Teatro Real coming
season. »
11 Feb 2013
Plans for July’s Aix-en-Provence Festival were announced and opera is, of course, at the center of the program with a particularly noteworthy Richard Strauss production. »
06 Feb 2013
Amsterdam enjoys a rare visit from Moscow’s Stanislavski Opera at the landmark Koninklijk Carre Theater, for three performances of Tchaikovski’s Eugene Onegin and a Sunday morning opera concert, on February 1st-3rd. »
01 Jan 2013
A new festival hall has been inaugurated in the small town of Erl in the Tyrolean mountains. »
28 Nov 2012
Yesterday, Conductor Riccardo Muti opened the Rome Opera, where he is “honorary conductor for life,” with a gala presentation of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. »
10 Nov 2012
When tenor Michael Spyres takes the stage at Carnegie Hall on December 5th, he will be in heady company. »
15 Oct 2012
One of the most noteworthy and controversial productions in recent memory
arrived in Belgium with hurricane force as Director Terry Gilliam’s inaugural
opera, an inspired interpretation of Hector Berlioz’s Le Damnation de
Faust, blasted into Ghent, followed by a run in Antwerp. »
09 Oct 2012
Florian Boesch is singing Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin at the Oxford Lieder Festival on Sunday 14th October. This won’t be routine. Radically challenging conventional interpretation, Boesch says “I don’t believe it ends in suicide” »
05 Oct 2012
Exciting developments at Glyndebourne ! Many new initiatives which could transform Glyndebourne from a summer festival to a truly international, year-round opera experience. »
28 Sep 2012
The recently released numbers for the past season at Barcelona’s opera Liceu gives some hope for the future. »
12 Sep 2012
A record 278,978 people attended events of the 2012 edition of the famed Salzburg Festival in Austria, the largest number since its founding 92 years ago. »
13 Aug 2012
Just after things were settling after the scandal of baritone Evgeny Nitikin supposed swastika tattoo at the Bayreuth Festival, another one seems likely to take its place. »
08 Aug 2012
Three quarters of the way through this discussion, a question that inhabits the mind of anyone putting any thought to the subject — but no one dare ask — was rhetoricised, “what is opera?” »
30 Jul 2012
The Glyndebourne Festival highlight this year could be the Ravel double bill - L’heure espagnole and L'enfant et les sortilèges. Laurent Pelly directs. Anyone who saw his brilliant Humperdinck Hansel und Gretel at Glyndebourne in 2008 will know what to expect - a staging of great imagination and verve, true to the spirit of the composer. »
18 Jul 2012
Effective July 30, Cassidy E. Fitzpatrick will be the new artistic administrator of Florida Grand Opera. a position open since the dismissal of Kelly Anderson last year. »
07 Jul 2012
A change of leadership has been announced today by Bratislava’s Slovak National Theatre. In the opera division, famed tenor Peter Dvorsky, the current artistic director, is to be replaced on August 1st by the Austrian conductor Friedrich Haider.
»
04 Jul 2012
Bayreuth’s opera house has been awarded the honor of UNESCO World Heritage status. If you think that means Wagner’s festival house in the same city, with its excellent acoustics and uncomfortable seats, you will be mistaken. »
04 Jul 2012
In his second season, intendant Dominique Meyer has chalked up increases both in tickets sold and earnings at the Vienna State Opera. »
03 Jul 2012
The fall-out from the very public display of anger on both sides continues in Cologne. Uwe Erich Laufenberg, 51, director of the city’s opera, one of the leading operas in Germany, was fired with immediate effect on June 22. »
26 Jun 2012
Nicolas Bachler, intendant of the Bavarian State Opera, has had his contract extended through August 2018. »
09 Jun 2012
Amidst crucial, ongoing financial concerns about future funding for opera
and ballet throughout Germany’s highly populous North Rhein-Westphalia
region, a diverse gathering at the Duisburg Theatre verified sincere grassroots
support for Deutsche Oper Am Rhein and the current partnership with nearby
Dusseldorf. »
31 May 2012
The re-opening of Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden has been set back for another year. »
30 May 2012
The Lyric Opera of Chicago announced their financial figures in their annual report and “balanced its budget” for the 2011-2012 season, according to general director Anthony Freud. »
30 May 2012
Conflicts like this usually remain inside opera house walls. The three Viennese daily newspapers carried headlines reporting that Oscar-winning director William Friedkin called the intendant of the Theater an der Wien a “liar.”
»
26 May 2012
Director David Freeman tells why this is an event worth experiencing in the Olympic year. »
09 May 2012
Casting changes continue at the Bayreuth Festival, now only three months
away. »
02 May 2012
This year’s Kathleen Ferrier Awards final was both a competition and a
celebration, marking as it did the centenary anniversary of the great singer’s birth. »
26 Apr 2012
Christopher Koelsch has been tapped Wednesday as the new president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Opera. Koelsch, 41, was the opera’s chief financial officer and will take the new post September 15. »
24 Apr 2012
Ignacio Garcia-Belenguer, 45, has been named as the new general manager of Madrid’s opera, Teatro Real. »
24 Apr 2012
The director of the Cologne Opera, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, has confirmed at the
press conference this afternoon that he will leave his post at the end of the
coming season. His contract runs until 2016. »
23 Apr 2012
Soprano Angela Denoke announced on Wednesday that she would not be appearing as Brünnhilde, one of the critically important roles, at the 2013 Bayreuth Festival Ring Cycle. »
18 Apr 2012
On Tuesday evening, Cologne Opera’s director indicated he was planning to cancel the next season, 2012-2013. »
17 Apr 2012
The Chinese conductor and pianist Xu Zhong will be the new artistic director
of an Italian opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania. »
17 Apr 2012
Tenor Johan Botha had just started carving his steak when his phone rang. A
director of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde was on the line with an
emergency request. »
12 Apr 2012
The Royal Opera House started doing opera and ballet broadcasts before many other houses, and is now expanding its schedule. On April 17th, Verdi’s Rigoletto is being streamed live in over 600 cinemas in 21 countries.
»
31 Mar 2012
Irish composer Gerald Barry’s opera The Importance of Being Earnest
premieres at the Barbican, London on April 26th. It is a joint commission between the Barbican and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
»
24 Mar 2012
“Opera is an emotional fitness centre”, says Kasper Holten, new Director of Opera, announcing the Royal Opera House 2012-13 season which mixes daring with prudence. »
19 Mar 2012
A major part of the rejuvenation of opera in the 21st century is the cultivation of young singers. »
09 Mar 2012
Los Angeles is often identified as “tinsel town,” a cultural wasteland. The city has long been considered as artistically irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially with the arrival of the Los Angeles Opera in 1984. »
29 Feb 2012
Barcelona’s opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, has reversed course and restored cuts in the current season made earlier this month. »
27 Feb 2012
One of the main performing arts venues for opera, ballet and modern dance is
Le Palais Garnier in Paris. »
26 Feb 2012
New Orleans native Bryan Hymel is singing the role of The Prince in Antonin Dvořák's Rusalka at the Royal Opera House, London. »
21 Feb 2012
Last night’s French classical music awards show, the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2012, awarded the “Best Composer of the Year” honors to Philippe Manoury, 59, for his opera, “La Nuit de Gutenberg” (“The Night of Gutenberg”). »
21 Feb 2012
French soprano star Natalie Dessay has announced that she is taking a sabbatical from opera during 2015. She is unhappy with her current work at the Paris Opera, a production of Massenet’s opera “Manon,” and had conflicts with the stage director, French filmmaker Coline Serreau. »
20 Feb 2012
Inaugurated in 1995, the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition is a triennial competition, held in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, which takes place over a week in January. »
17 Feb 2012
Critics. Can you get along without us? It is possible to reflect on this when the production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale is shown on television tonight. »
15 Feb 2012
Carmela Remigio is a Mozart specialist, having created Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, The Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Susana, Ilia, Ellettra, Vitellia, Pamina and Fiordigli. She speaks to Mark Berry about her latest Donna Anna at the Royal Opera House. »
13 Feb 2012
It might have reminded some in the audience of the finale of Wagner’s
“Götterdämmerung.” Saturday evening, during the finale of that same composer’s “Das Rheingold” at the Staatstheater in the German city of Darmstadt when a large section of the scene fell and shattered on stage. »
10 Feb 2012
Who says Italian opera is in the doldrums? Contrary to all the recent budget bad news from the country that invented the form, the dramatic new 150 million Euro ($200 million) opera house in Florence projects another view. »
09 Feb 2012
In today’s edition of the Viennese newspaper, “Die Presse” a reviewer gushes over Roberto Alagna’s recital yesterday evening at the Vienna State Opera.
»
08 Feb 2012
February 8, 2012. Los Angeles born conductor Lawrence Foster, the music director of the orchestra and the Opéra National in the French city of Montpellier from September 2009 to the end of this season, has signed on for a similar post with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille starting September 1 of this year. »
07 Feb 2012
February 7, 2012. Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, the popular music director of the San Francisco Opera, has been appointed to the same position at the historic Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. »
04 Feb 2012
February 4, 2012. A few days before the opening of the production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the Houston Grand Opera, tenor David Lomeli, playing Alfredo, took ill. »
04 Feb 2012
February 4, 2012. With a budget of $71 million dollars, the San Francisco Opera announced a deficit for the FY 2011 year. But the numbers, in the Opera’s press release, contain some good news to offset the negative bottom line. »
03 Feb 2012
To the dismay of New York opera fans, the original Metropolitan Opera House,
located at Broadway and 39th Street, was to be torn down and replaced by a new hall
a mere 30 blocks away. »
02 Feb 2012
Confronting a financial shortfall, the Gran Theatro del Liceo in Barcelona has announced a reduction in performances this season with two scheduled operas
cancelled. »
02 Feb 2012
In an interview, Katharina Wagner, 33, granddaughter of the composer and co-director of the Richard Wagner Bayreuth Festival, spoke of the declining state of the legendary Festival House on the “Green Hill” at Bayreuth. »
01 Feb 2012
A Swiss soprano and an Australian baritone shared the 20,000 Euro Emmerich Smola Prize awarded on Monday. »
31 Jan 2012
The seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award, carrying with it a $50,000 prize, was awarded to American soprano Angela Meade. »
31 Jan 2012
Jan. 31, 2012. The recent announcement of the extension of the contract for
Dominique Meyer, the General Director of the Vienna State Opera was a firm
endorsement of his leadership by the Austrian government. Meyer, 57, the first
French person to hold the office, will continue now through August 31, 2020. »
25 Jan 2012
Lise Lindstrom, who made a notable splash in the opera world (debuts at La Scala and at the Met) with her portrayals of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, has recently undertaken the still more demanding role of Salome. »
30 Dec 2011
I spoke with Vivica Genaux in December 2011, when she stopped in New York at
the end of one of her concert tours. »
28 Dec 2011
When we think of the ‘English oratorio’, the composer whose name
most readily comes to mind is George Frideric Handel, the ‘adopted’
Englishman who in the first half of the eighteenth-century both anticipated and dictated English musical and theatrical taste. »
27 Nov 2011
Piotr Beczala, the Polish lyric tenor, stars in the current La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, London. »
12 Oct 2011
In just ten years, the Oxford Lieder Festival has become Britain’s most important Lieder festival, with an international following. »
05 Oct 2011
It is with great sadness to report that Wes Blomster has passed on. »
03 Oct 2011
The haughty beauties that are the ancient colleges of Cambridge were definitely feeling the heat this past weekend, and not even the cooling streams of the Cam and its tributaries could assuage the heat of an Indian summer in the Fens of Eastern England. »
12 Jul 2011
Remember when opera was all the rage? Remember when you could walk across to any town and experience a whole different opera scene, a different opera house, different orchestras and singers? »
12 Jul 2011
In Gounod’s Faust at the Royal Opera House in October 2011,
Zhengzhong Zhou is alternating with Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the part of
Valentin. Alternating, not covering or substituting. Since Zhou is very young,
it’s quite a challenge. »
30 Jun 2011
Luca Pisaroni is one of one the more exciting young bass-baritones of his
generation. In July 2011, he sings Argante in the first ever Handel Rinaldo at
the Glyndebourne Festival. »
27 Jun 2011
Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s Madama Butterfly is such a classic that it is being filmed for the second time at the Royal Opera House, London. »
22 Jun 2011
Will Crutchfield made his name as a writer and musicologist in the mid-1980s, becoming the youngest music critic in the history of The New York Times. »
17 Jun 2011
Divas make headlines, but character singers are fundamental to the British opera tradition. “Character singing,” says Jeremy White, one of the stalwarts of the Royal Opera House, “is much more than just voice.” »
16 Jun 2011
Since her first significant and highly acclaimed debut as a guest artist with the Netherlands Opera in 1992, in the taxing role of the Nurse in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, American mezzo-soprano Jane Henschel has triumphed in opera houses across the world, marvelling international audiences with her musical versatility, vocal strength and striking stage presence. »
14 Jun 2011
John Fulljames has been appointed Associate Director for Opera at the Royal Opera House. »
10 Jun 2011
There has been much eager anticipation for Luke Bedford’s opera Seven Angels. »
31 May 2011
“Germanico del sig. Hendl”. Since 1929 the printed catalogue of
the Conservatorio Cherubini in Florence (section “Opere teatrali”,
p. 143) has contained a Handel title not mentioned in any other sources. »
22 May 2011
Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska certainly knows how to make the most
of every opportunity. »
20 May 2011
Hildegard Behrens died in August of 2009. Considered one of the great
Wagnerian sopranos of her day, many tributes were pubished acclaiming her
virtues and accomplishments on and off stage. Previously unknown information,
however, has come to light concerning her personal life that spans from before the flowering of her career and thereafter. This is an informal account of events by Charles Pratt as told to Shirley Hessel. »
22 Apr 2011
To enter into David DiChiera’s space as he talks opera shop is to risk
being pulled into his world, rapt by a tractor beam emitting a constant flow of
music theater load. »
13 Apr 2011
The new brochure of the 2011-2012 season at Paris’ Opéra-Comique has
only arrived in the past few days and has already caused a stir in two
countries. »
10 Apr 2011
“A tale of corruption, passion and poisoning”, as the Royal Opera House, London, describes its first-ever production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, with Paata Burchuladze, highly experienced in this repertoire. »
01 Apr 2011
“All the world’s a stage” and for Morris Robinson the
translation was literal. From the football field to the grand opera he managed
to make few stage set changes along the way. »
20 Feb 2011
For geography buffs the Rappahannock is a river that flows from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to Chesapeake Bay. »
01 Feb 2011
In an episode of the series West Wing, political strategist Josh Lyman (played by Bradley Whitford) visits his friend and speech writer Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) in New York City before heading to New Hampshire for a promising candidate’s campaign speech. »
31 Jan 2011
Elizabeth Futral has established herself as one of the major coloratura sopranos in the world today. With her stunning vocalism and vast dramatic range, she has embraced a diverse repertoire that includes Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Glass, and Previn. »
31 Jan 2011
British soprano, Elisabeth Meister, is a rare combination of pragmatism, serious intent, personal warmth and infectious energy. »
31 Dec 2010
Composer and pianist Andrea Clearfield is a fundamental presence on the
contemporary music scene in Philadelphia, with a long collaboration with the
Relâche Ensemble to her credit, as well as a monthly salon in her home (with
close to 25 years of concerts) that brings together artists from various
disciplines, not only music. »
09 Dec 2010
December 9, 2010 CHICAGO – The Board of Directors of Lyric Opera of
Chicago announced today that soprano RENÉE FLEMING has been named Creative
Consultant, a first in this company’s history. »
06 Dec 2010
Rodney Waschka is a professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where his multifarious activities are fundamental to the presence of contemporary music in the state. »
18 Nov 2010
Swedish composer Stellan Sagvik is a protean figure with a large and diverse body of work ranging from works for solo flute (most recently written for his wife, Kinga Práda), to chamber music — five string quartets, with another on the way, and symphonies, operas and choral music. »
07 Nov 2010
A completely new production of Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur is coming to the Royal Opera House, London. »
03 Nov 2010
The small but perfectly formed Grosvenor Chapel in London’s exclusive Mayfair was the venue last Monday night for a programme of Handel vocal and instrumental music of considerable quality — if minimal quantity. »
03 Nov 2010
Composer Marcela Pavia was born and raised in Rosario, Argentina, and comes from a family of Italian immigrants. »
13 Oct 2010
I was sixteen and knew nothing about opera, had just seen my first
Traviata at the City Opera (Patricia Brooks, Placido Domingo), was
entranced by the melodies — especially the Brindisi and
“Sempre libera” — and wanted more. »
10 Oct 2010
The Oxford Lieder Festival is small, but is extremely important. It's quite an achievement, extremely well organized and comprehensive, a model for intelligently-presented festivals of any kind. »
24 Sep 2010
Composer Pierre Jalbert (b.1967), of French Canadian ancestry, was born and raised in northern New England, and studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked with George Crumb. »
13 Sep 2010
This season Santa Fe Opera offered new productions that ranged from standard
repertoire (Madame Butterfly and The Magic Flute) to a world
premiere (Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream) with The Tales
of Hoffmann and Albert Herring falling somewhere amidst. »
13 Sep 2010
Bruce Adolphe, born and raised in the New York area, a student of
composition at Juilliard in the sixties and seventies, has an impressive body
of work commissioned by artists known on every continent, and was chosen by the
Music Library Association to write a piece for brass (Triskelion)
marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Association, premiered by the American
Brass Quintet at the national meeting in Indianapolis in February, 1991. »
12 Sep 2010
As one of the most sought after composers of the young generation, Mohammed
Fairouz has many commissions and a substantial body of work, and maintains a
busy performance schedule. »
09 Sep 2010
Jacques Imbrailo sings Dr Malatesta in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House, London »
24 Aug 2010
Robert Baksa is a name that is well-known to lovers of contemporary chamber music, with a hundred chamber works to his credit. »
07 Jul 2010
“You want to frame the voice in such a way that it shines.”— Daniel Catán »
01 Jul 2010
Baritone Austin Kness, an Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera recently spoke with Opera Today critic Michael Milenski. »
28 Jun 2010
Jay Reise is one of the senior musical figures in Philadelphia, serving on
the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania since 1980. »
19 Jun 2010
On 7 June 2010, I spoke with Christine Brewer who was enjoying a relatively
free week at her home near St. Louis, Missouri, after long months of air travel
between concerts, recitals and operatic performances. »
17 Jun 2010
Opera stars are made as well as born. The Royal Opera House Jette Parker Young Artists Programme shapes the stars of the future. »
07 Jun 2010
‘Focussed and pure of tone’, ‘beautifully steady’,
‘pure clarity and note perfection’ — just some of the
accolades bestowed on the Lithuanian mezzo soprano Jurgita Adamonytė for
her recent performances of Mozart. »
04 Jun 2010
Aris Argiris makes his debut at Covent Garden as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen. But this is unusually high-profile because it's a first, being filmed in 3D. »
03 Jun 2010
Olja Jelaska (b. 1967) is an important figure in the younger generation of
composers from Croatia. »
01 Jun 2010
Juan Trigos, composer and conductor, was born and raised in Mexico City,
where his father, also Juan Trigos, is a noted playwright and novelist. »
18 May 2010
Composer Robert Maggio is professor of composition at West Chester
University (in suburban Philadelphia). »
17 May 2010
According to her web site, Elena Ruehr has been called a “composer to
watch” by Opera News, and her music has been described as
“stunning...beautifully lighted by [a] canny instinct for knowing when
and how to vary key, timbre, and harmony” by The Boston Globe. »
03 May 2010
You don’t have to be Asian to sing Madama Butterfly, but if you’ve got a top soprano from that part of the world, it adds another dimension of reality to Puccini’s tear-drenched verismo. »
24 Apr 2010
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland
— College Park is presenting Shadowboxer, an opera based on the
life of Joe Louis, with music composed by Frank Proto to a libretto by John
Chenault. »
22 Apr 2010
Composer Stephen Jaffe is the Mary and James H. Semans Professor of Music
Composition at Duke University. We spoke in his office there in Durham NC on
June 25, 2007. »
22 Apr 2010
Micaela Carosi, the Verdi specialist, has created Aida many times, so she’s closely attuned to the role. The new production, at the Royal Opera House, London, though, is different. “It’s like singing Aida for the first time”, she says, her eyes sparkling. »
20 Apr 2010
Osmo Tapio Räihälä is a Finnish composer of contemporary music, and was the founder of Uusinta, a collaborative group of composers and musicians. »
10 Apr 2010
Composer Lance Hulme studied composition at the University of Minnesota,
Yale University, and the Eastman School of Music, and returned to the United
States recently, where he lives presently in Greensboro, North Carolina, after
two decades in Mitteleuropa, where he founded and directed the contemporary
music ensemble Ensemble Surprise. »
10 Apr 2010
Anna Weesner is an American composer who grew up in rocky New Hampshire, and
now teaches in historic Philadelphia. »
10 Apr 2010
Composer and pianist Timothy Andres is in his mid-twenties, with an impressive catalog of works to his credit, many of which can be heard at his website. »
03 Mar 2010
Composer Sophia Serghi is presently professor of music at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she has taught since 1998, with two years away in 2000-2002. »
28 Feb 2010
Kurt Streit is singing Bazajet in all performances of Handel’s Tamerlano at the Royal Opera House, London. Placido Domingo, who was to have sung five of the seven performances, pulled out suddenly due to illness. »
10 Feb 2010
Composer Gabriela Ortiz studied composition in Mexico City with Mario
Lavista at the National Conservatory of Music, at the Guildhall School with
Robert Saxton, and at the University of London with Simon Emmerson. »
25 Jan 2010
Kerry Andrew is a young British composer who seems to have her finger in an astounding number of pies, from modern sacred choral music to alt-folk, and including vocal chamber ensemble music and jazz. We talked via Skype on Jan. 12, 2010. »
18 Jan 2010
The thing you need in order to start an arts organization, even more than a
great deal of money, is a whirlwind – an individual with unstoppable
energy who can put it all together and keep it working through thin times and
thick. »
13 Jan 2010
AUSTIN, Texas — A major collection of Italian opera libretti is now
accessible through an online database at the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities
research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin. »
08 Jan 2010
American violinist Hilary Hahn has entered her fourth decade, having turned
thirty last year, and for her eleventh disc she takes on a collaborative role,
as obbligatist in a program of Bach cantata arias with soprano Christine
Schäfer and baritone Matthias Goerne, accompanied by the Münchener
Kammerorchester under the direction of Alexander Liebreich. »
07 Jan 2010
Composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon is presently on the faculty of the Eastman
School of Music in Rochester, New York. He grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico,
where he and colleague Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez played in a rock and roll band
together. »
25 Dec 2009
Composer William Price was born in Missouri (1971) and raised in Alabama, where he is presently professor of music theory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. »
17 Dec 2009
John Fitz Rogers is presently an associate professor of composition at the University of South Carolina School of Music. »
04 Nov 2009
Rio de Janeiro, which has had a string of winning luck in recent days — not only will it host the 2014 World Cup of soccer, but also the 2016 Olympic Games — continues a laudable and venerable tradition in the arts — the Biannual Festival of Contemporary Brazilian Music, now in its 18th edition. »
26 Oct 2009
An Interview with Ileana Perez-VelazquezBy Tom Moore
»
11 Oct 2009
In the autumn, Oxford is especially beautiful. The ancient colleges are swathed in scarlet vines, and the mellow evening light creates great atmosphere. For those who love art song, though, the best reason for visiting Oxford at this time of year is the Oxford Lieder Festival, which starts October 16th 2009. »
06 Oct 2009
This wasn't an ordinary concert but something very special. The Wigmore Hall was honouring Imogen Cooper on her 60th birthday. She is greatly loved here, both as soloist and as partner in song recitals. The atmosphere was electric. The house was packed, with many famous pianists and singers in the audience. It was a historic occasion, but it felt like a party among friends. »
06 Sep 2009
“Opera has so much to give” says Christof Loy, whose new production of Tristan und Isoldeopens at the Royal Opera House on 29th September. This opera is so familiar that everyone assumes they know it. But Loy’s approach involves going straight back to the score, and to the inherent drama in the music. “I don’t like superficial distractions". »
04 Sep 2009
The distinguished jury (including sopranos Dames Margaret Price and Anne Evans, and baritones Thomas Allen and Wolfgang Holzmair) has now whittled down the original 148 entrants (from 41 different countries) to 34 (including 6 from the US) and according to the Chairman and Wigmore Hall Director John Gilhooly, ‘There’s a terrific buzz about this year - it always takes about ten years for a competition to build, so we are now really at our peak, and I think I can promise you some exciting singing.’ »
11 Aug 2009
SEATTLE - Underscoring its role as America’s leader in the world of Wagner, the Seattle Opera will stage an entirely new production of Tristan und Isolde in 2010. »
15 Jul 2009
Marcello Giordani, at present singing a generally highly praised Cavaradossi at the Royal Opera House in London, is the leading exponent of the great Italian and French tenor roles at the Metropolitan Opera, and the man whom James Levine describes as ‘my favorite tenor.’ This prominence has been arrived at after a steady rise to fame: he will celebrate the 25th year of his career in the 2010-11 season. »
29 Jun 2009
“Everything in opera comes from Italy”, says Dalibor Jenis, who sings Renato in the current Royal Opera House Un ballo in maschera. “Italian is the language of music, my second mother language” »
15 Jun 2009
Young Czech bass Jan Martiník last night (FRI) won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize 2009 final at St David’s Hall, Cardiff. »
15 Jun 2009
Beautiful Russian soprano Ekaterina Shcherbachenko last night won the world’s greatest operatic competition BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. »
12 Jun 2009
The five talented singers to compete in the final of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, which is organised by BBC Cymru Wales, have been named. »
10 Jun 2009
Cardiff: 10 June 2009 — Ukrainian counter-tenor Yuriy Mynenko, aged 30, last night (TUES) won the third concert in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. »
10 Jun 2009
Cardiff: 9 June 2009 — The five artists were today (WED) named to take part in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize final at St David’s Hall, Cardiff on Friday (June 12). »
09 Jun 2009
Cardiff: 9 June 2009 — Russian soprano Ekaterina Shcherbachenko last night (MON) won the second concert round in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. »
09 Jun 2009
In April 2010, the Royal Opera House, London, will stage a new production of Hans Werner Henze's opera Elegy for Young Lovers. Henze is perhaps the greatest living German opera composer, hugely important in Europe, so this new production is eagerly awaited. »
09 Jun 2009
Cardiff: 8 June 2009 — Japanese soprano Eri Nakamura last night (SUN) won the opening concert round in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. »
25 May 2009
You want to see Opera as the Italians do it? Go to Beijing, Tokyo, Savonlinna and Wiesbaden »
24 May 2009
There’s a buzz about the new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, spreading by word of mouth from those who’ve heard it being prepared. Berg’s opera hasn’t been heard at Covent Garden for 30 years, though there was an acclaimed production at Glyndebourne in 1996 with Christine Schäfer as Lulu. »
20 May 2009
With just one month to go before facing the judges in the world’s most prestigious singing competition what could be better than some advice from past competitor and opera super star Bryn Terfel? »
18 May 2009
Currently, Anthony Michaels- Moore is singing Belcore in L’Elisir d’amore at the Royal Opera Hose, London. »
12 May 2009
In a convent in the lovely Tuscan country side, near Lucca (Giacomo Puccini’s birthplace) there is the Mount Graal. »
29 Apr 2009
Youn made his Bayreuth debut in 1996, only six years after coming to Europe. He sang the Nightwatchman in Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg. »
26 Apr 2009
Paolo Antonio Rolli (Rome, 13 June 1687 — Todi, 20 March 1765) arguably ranks among the top-three Italian librettists of the 18th century, next to Metastasio and — later — Da Ponte. »
19 Apr 2009
“From the womb of Night and Death was spawned a race that dwells in Nibelheim (Nebelheim), i.e. in gloomy subterranean clefts and caverns: Nibelungen are they called; with restless nimbleness they burrow through the bowels of the earth, like worms in a dead body; they smelt and smith hard metals. »
07 Apr 2009
London: Sue Loder reviews Alessandro and the Handel Singing Final »
22 Mar 2009
Although born in New York City, Maria Callas (1923-1977) received her musical education in Greece and started her career in Italy. »
12 Mar 2009
American? Well, yes, that’s what it says on one of his passports, but the other is British and he and his family reside in the UK and have done since 1995. »
08 Mar 2009
By the close of the first act of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in its current production at Lyric Opera of Chicago the audience has been given a strong impression of the multi-faceted characters bound up in the musical drama unfolding on stage. »
26 Jan 2009
Erich Korngold’s Die tote Stadt comes to the Royal Opera House in January 2009. It’s the first time this production has been seen in London : it is the famed Willy Decker production from Salzburg in 2004 which did so much to restore Korngold’s status.
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14 Jan 2009
“Mary Lewis, the golden haired soprano” — does that name mean much to today’s lovers of singing and good music? »
11 Jan 2009
The following are recordings of major works by Giacomo Puccini. Click the link to access. »
22 Dec 2008
The Bayerische Staatsoper announced its program of the 2009 Munich Opera Festival — the only festival of its kind in the world so rich in tradition, with roots reaching as far back as 1875. »
17 Dec 2008
Most opera-world publicity is accorded star singers, but we take another tack here to look at American tenor Keith Jameson who has made a specialty of character or comprimario parts, while at the same time building a solid reputation as sophisticated musician and actor, a performer who can seize the moment and elevate a role to first rank for the time he is on stage. »
23 Nov 2008
The transition in Giacomo Puccini’s mature period from one autonomous phase to another (although the two are connected by subtle links) is a fact that has been accepted by operatic scholars. »
17 Nov 2008
Following a recent visit to Germany, Wes Blomster surveys the vibrant opera scene in Berlin and Magdeburg. »
04 Nov 2008
“Opera directing is very different to theatre directing”, says Charles Edwards, director of Elektra at the Royal Opera House this season. “It has to be the music that motivates you”. For this production, he works with Mark Elder, “an extraordinarily theatrically-minded conductor who sees theatre in everything he hears”. »
23 Oct 2008
Writer Frank Cadenhead discusses Wuthering Heights, the nearly-finished new operatic endeavor by composer Frédéric Chaslin. Cadenhead recently traveled to Valenica, Spain, where Chaslin and librettist Paula Heil Fisher are hard at work on the piece. »
21 Oct 2008
An interview with Scott Lindroth by Tom Moore »
03 Oct 2008
Back in the 19th century it was not smoke, but hair that got in one’s eyes. »
03 Oct 2008
A virtuoso saxophonist, performing internationally, Mark Engebretson is also a composer whose recent works often take place at the interface between the live performer and the computer. »
03 Oct 2008
Composer Alejandro Rutty is newly-arrived in North Carolina, where he teaches at UNC Greensboro. »
19 Sep 2008
The United States premiere of Pergolesi’s Home Service will be presented by The Chamber Opera of Memphis in cooperation with the University of Memphis Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music on Thursday, October 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Harris Concert Hall (3775 Central Ave.). »
18 Sep 2008
For the first time in its 169 year history, the Saxonian State Opera — home to world premiere performances of most Richard Strauss and several Wagner operas — has appointed a woman as its General Director. »
17 Sep 2008
The remarkable Lawrence Brownlee has proven himself to be one of the most prominent bel canto tenors on the international scene. »
14 Sep 2008
The 2008-09 season of radiant mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux promises to add further luster to her credentials as one of the world’s leading interpreters of music of the Baroque and bel canto periods. »
08 Sep 2008
Luciano Pavoritti died on September 6, 2007. The all-too-ample figure and the fables associated with him are already retreating from memory. »
19 Aug 2008
A soprano originally from South Africa and a tenor from Sweden sang their way to top honors in the 2008 International Wagner Competition staged by the Seattle Opera on August 16 in Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, the company's handsome home. »
06 Jul 2008
London’s musical life shuts down for eight weeks while the Proms reign supreme, and no wonder ! »
02 Jun 2008
Among the tributes that came to the legendary Producer, Designer and Director Franco Zeffirelli, in the remaining days of this past March, a little gem of a celebration was held at the Lincoln Triangle Barnes and Noble bookstore, on the evening of March 28th. »
28 May 2008
By Tom MooreComposer Allen Anderson will be familiar to aficionados of contemporary
music through various works released on CRI, or those in the Research
Triangle through his presence in the new music scene here in North Carolina,
where he has taught at UNC since 1996. »
27 May 2008
Two excellent books on opera have come to hand, providing many hours of entertaining reading. I combine notice of them with a few thoughts about composer Paul Moravec’s CDs, and his forthcoming opera premiere at Santa Fe Opera in 2009. »
09 May 2008
When Toronto’s Opera Atelier asked her to sing Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo Measha Brueggergosman hesitated. »
09 May 2008
In 2007 it was an experiment; now it’s a new summer festival firmly rooted in fertile Texas turf with a bright view of its second season and of the more distant future as well. »
09 May 2008
Operas do not often get a second chance. A new work is premiered and — if it’s a co-commission — it moves on to another company or two. »
21 Apr 2008
It is, you might say, the little opera that can. True, if it’s size of the budget, the price of tickets and the number of seats that concerns you, the Komische Oper is clearly the third of Berlin’s opera houses. »
17 Feb 2008
“Quand je vous aimerais? Ma fois, je ne sais pas?” are Carmen’s first words of seduction. »
13 Jan 2008
Oct. 25, 2007, Sala Cecilia MeirelesI met the young gaucho composer Dimitri Cervo at the 2003 Bienal of Contemporary Music, where his works for solo flute and strings, Pattapiana [named for Pattapio Silva, a great Brazilian flutist who died tragically
young at the beginning of the last century] made quite an impression. »
27 Dec 2007
There’s still a hint of jest in the comparison, but it’s not without reason that Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally are mentioned now and then in opera circles as “the Strauss and Hofmannsthal of the 21st century.” »
27 Dec 2007
Incoming general director of Santa Fe Opera, Charles MacKay, has made clear he is “in the tradition -- I will not be an agent for radical change,” at the celebrated New Mexico summer opera festival, MacKay says. »
26 Dec 2007
Composer Frederick Carrilho was born in 1971 in the state of Sao Paulo, and has studied guitar and composition, most recently at UNICAMP in Campinas. His music has been heard at the recent biennial festivals of contemporary music in Rio, with the Profusão V – Toccata making a strong impression at the Bienal of 2007. We spoke in Portuguese. »
28 Nov 2007
October 23, 2007, Sala Cecilia Meireles, Rio de Janeiro »
28 Nov 2007
What makes the first visit to Guanajuato’s Teatro Juárez breathtaking is the suddenness of the encounter. »
19 Nov 2007
Oct. 25, 2007, Rio de Janeiro. »
11 Nov 2007
José Orlando Alves is a young composer, originally from Minas Gerais, but who spent many years in Rio de Janeiro, where he has been active for a decade with the composers’ collaborative, Preludio XXI. »
02 Sep 2007
In the long ago, when the best source of music reproduction in the home was a handsome piece of furniture, fitted with hidden audio components, and usually called radio-phonographs, my family had one — from Avery Fisher I believe — that had among its controls a switch labeled ‘presence.’ »
28 Aug 2007
Uncut with Canada’s Mistress of the trouser-role: the multifaceted Kimberly Barber. »
27 Aug 2007
Glimmerglass Opera is in a watershed year. With the departure of Paul Kellogg, who had considerable success developing that annual festival, General and Artistic Director Michael Macleod has chosen to begin his tenure with a variation on the usual four-opera-season, namely a thematic collection
of pieces based on the “Orpheus” legend. “Don’t look
back” is the marketing catch phrase. »
27 Aug 2007
Almost thirty years ago a century old tradition ended with the last performance of I Maestri Cantatori. »
20 Aug 2007
Santa Fe Opera’s announcement August 10 that English-born impresario, Richard Gaddes, General Director of the company since 2001, will retire at the end of season 2008, took the local opera community by surprise. »
16 Aug 2007
The week just ended was certainly of historic moment in the world of North American opera companies. »
24 Jun 2007
Perhaps it is a sign that, at last, the countertenor voice has come of age in the hearts and minds of both audiences and the opera establishment. »
17 Jun 2007
Back in the early 1980’s two good ideas came to fruition: the much-needed new concert hall for Cardiff, capital city of Wales, and plans to hold within it the first “Singer of the World” competition. »
25 May 2007
Charleston, S.C. — For over 20 years it was two operas a season here at Spoleto USA, the all-arts
festival brought to this cultural capital of the Old South by Gian Carlo Menotti in 1977. »
20 May 2007
It is every young opera singer’s dream. »
10 May 2007
On May 9th, when Santa Fe Opera finally announced that Alan Gilbert had left his post as Music
Director of that company, a long-standing rumor was made official. »
25 Apr 2007
Robert Gierlach wishes he could rewrite “Anna Karenina,” the Tolstoi whopper turned into an opera by librettist Colin Graham and composer David Carlson. It’s not that Gierlach, who sings Vronsky in the world premiere of the work at Florida Grand Opera on April 28, has misgivings
about the author’s artistry; he simply wishes that the story could have a happy ending. »
09 Apr 2007
Here are two views of Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto (HWV 17), a drama in three acts, performed at The Met on 6 April. »
07 Apr 2007
Based on reading the New York Times’ account of Met opera soprano Ruth Ann Swenson’s distemper with her home company in New York, published Thursday 5 April over the byline of Daniel J. Wakin, it is hard to find either motivation or reasonable expectation of reward for any of the participants in this travesty – reporter, newspaper, opera manager Peter Gelb (who comes off best), or, least of all, the distraught diva. »
08 Mar 2007
To his work as music director of the Los Angeles Opera James Conlon brings two commitments that some in music would find incompatible. »
22 Feb 2007
Record number of singers auditioned
Three countries competing for first time
New sponsorship and increased prize money »
14 Feb 2007
Singing competitions are a mixed blessing. »
08 Feb 2007
Two Mozart operas — “Magic Flute” and “Abduction from the Serail” — head the list of works to be performed by the Houston Grand Opera in its 2007- 08 season that opens with Verdi’s “Masked Ball” on October 19. »
15 Nov 2006
The worldwide search is on for opera’s rising stars to compete for the coveted title BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2007 and a £15,000 prize. »
07 Nov 2006
The Academy of Vocal Arts, based in the hub of Philadelphia, has one of the richest traditions of training and nurturing operatic singers. »
16 Oct 2006
Curtis, America’s top fully funded conservatory, is on the move as one of the nation’s leading opera preparatory programs. »
08 Oct 2006
Mary-Lou Vetere-Borghoff interviews Soprano Jennifer O’Loughlin of the Vienna Volksoper »
08 Oct 2006
Introduction: Philip Gossett is one of those rarities in academia: a scholar of the first order and a consummate teacher. »
01 Oct 2006
The character configuration in Vivaldi’s Tito Manlio is unusual because of its musical pairing of the prima donna Servilia with the seconda donna Vitellia not just once, but twice in the second act of the opera. »
01 Oct 2006
Tito Manlio, Vivaldi’s second opera in Mantua for the 1718/19 season, is fraught with political and familial tensions.1 »
12 Sep 2006
What a difference a year makes. Music lovers who rely on their memories to find the right places to hear music in Paris could be for a surprise if they do not check beforehand what France has now to offer. »
01 Sep 2006
The curious phenomenon of British tenor manqué, Ian Bostridge, continues to astound, as his concert and even operatic dates, primarily in Europe, mount; his recordings increase, and his appeal to a certain section of the classical audience (they would likely call themselves, “cognoscenti”) endures. I have to wonder why? »
23 Jun 2006
Nestling artistically in a bowl, carefully arranged and lit to suit the camera early in the programme, the testicles seemed to glow softly with their hidden history, their inherent potential and, now, their very lack of future. »
08 May 2006
With its mismatched couples and absurd plot, Cosi Fan Tutte is thought of as Mozart's 'frivolous' opera. »
07 May 2006
The scene is an urban wasteland at night. A young man is having sex with a woman in the back of a car while his sidekick keeps watch. An older man appears, hell-bent on attacking his daughter’s seducer. »
20 Apr 2006
A new opera from the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. »
09 Apr 2006
She'll always have ParisSexual icon, dark temptress or a smutty comedienne? Helen of Troy has fascinated writers and composers for centuries. »
07 Apr 2006
The Royal Opera House is publicly funded - so why does it charge more than £100 per seat, asks Rosie Millard »
03 Apr 2006
I met with Iestyn Davies at 1330 hours precisely, on the steps of the Hippodrome theatre, Bristol, England, where he was singing the role of Hamor in Welsh National Opera’s riveting production of Handel’s “Jephtha”. »
20 Mar 2006
Ian Bostridge sings Benjamin Britten. »
20 Mar 2006
Rupert Christiansen laments the lost art of the castrato »
28 Feb 2006
He's a terrible old rogue - but to opera composers, he's irresistible. Tim Ashley on the deathless appeal of Falstaff »
16 Feb 2006
Conservatism is once more on the rise in the orchestral world but the starchy old Met, under new boss Peter Gelb, is trying to buck the trend. »
16 Feb 2006
First she was forced to sing mezzo roles. Then she was invited to be president of Lithuania. Violeta Urmana tells Tim Ashley why she prefers life as a soprano »
10 Feb 2006
According to Charles K. Moss, "Robert Schumann was one of the driving forces of the young Romantic movement in Germany. And like many in his generation, Schumann did not seem destined to become a composer, let alone one who would be so influential in the development of a new style. But music became all-important to Schumann, and he displayed multiple talents as a performer, composer, and literary exponent of Romanticism, championing new composers and their works and influencing the musical tastes of a generation." This year marks the 150th anniversary of Schumann's death. »
08 Feb 2006
Dmitry Shostakovich survived Stalin's rule by the skin of his teeth. But is his music really the Soviet propaganda that many people claim? »
30 Jan 2006
Secrets of a Beethoven manuscript. »
17 Jan 2006
It must not have been an easy life, being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Perhaps even more so after the fact when scholars began to do their research and “wanna bes” began their intimations and psychoanalyzing. In the more seventy-five years of Mozart scholarship and its coming of age, one must ask: How much more is there to learn, to research? »
14 Jan 2006
In from the cold »
13 Jan 2006
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA [11 January 2006]: "The San Francisco Opera today unveiled a new visual identity for the Company, heralding the beginning of a new era under the leadership of David Gockley, who became the Company’s sixth general director on January 1, 2006. Elements of San Francisco Opera’s new image include a new logo, a glamorous and sophisticated new look for the print materials, and a major redesign of the Company’s Web site." »
12 Jan 2006
Birgit Nilsson died on 25 December 2005 at age 87. Her death was announced on 11 January 2006. Here are three tributes to this great soprano. »
09 Jan 2006
Scientists reveal results of tests on skull unearthed by Viennese gravedigger »
07 Jan 2006
How to stage a revolutionBeaumarchais, the dramatist behind The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, was more than a mere playwright - he shaped the 18th century. »
07 Jan 2006
The phoenixA poet, priest and womaniser, who ended his days as a grocer, he also wrote the words to some of the greatest operas. On the eve of Mozart's 250th anniversary, Anthony Holden looks at the colourful life of his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte »
01 Jan 2006
With the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth just weeks away, the source of his brilliance is being disputed. Alice O'Keeffe reports »
20 Dec 2005
Franz Lehár was not the first to think of Goethe as an opera or operetta hero. There was the precedent of Giacomo Meyerbeer himself who in his old age wrote theatre music for a piece called La Jeunesse de Goethe. The piece was never performed. »
11 Dec 2005
The following are the nominees for the Grammy award in selected categories pertaining to classical vocal music. »
10 Dec 2005
Giulio Cesare in Egitto was the fifth of the full-length operas composed by Handel for London’s Royal Academy of Music, the opera company founded in 1719 by a group of noblemen with the objective of staging Italian opera seria. »
08 Dec 2005
Giulia Grisi must be, by whatever standard is applied, regarded as one of the greatest and most important soprano singers who ever graced the operatic stage, »
15 Nov 2005
Classical performing organizations are feeling a little antsy nowadays, all except for the ones that are flat-out running scared. »
11 Nov 2005
For those who are subscribers to FeedBlitz, please take notice that changes have been made to the settings to correct certain errors. Subscribers to Opera Today (All Articles) will receive articles but no news headlines. Subscribers who want both articles... »
01 Nov 2005
Puccini's Turandot is an opera to whose sinister charms I was long immune. I'm not sure what happened in recent years to make me love it. »
29 Oct 2005
The city-funded Théâtre du Châtelet, an operatic David to Paris Opera’s Goliath, managed to make the biggest artistic splash of the new season. Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, which opened October 21, following Das Rheingold by two days, was generally well cast, surely conducted and, as staged by Robert Wilson, brimming with theatrical interest. The two final operas will follow in November/December with two complete cycles offered in April. »
27 Oct 2005
No opera history is complete without mentioning that Auber’s La Muette de Portici caused Belgium’s revolution against Holland in 1830. As a historian I know there are three falsehoods in that one small sentence. »
23 Oct 2005
A few years ago, I had the rare experience of attending a performance of Tosca in a small farm community where opera was a fairly new commodity. After the second act ended, with Scarpia's corpse lying center stage, I happened to overhear a young, wide-eyed woman say to her companion, "I knew she was upset, but I didn't think she'd KILL him!" »
17 Oct 2005
New York City Opera opened in February, 1944, at the height of the battles of Anzio and Truk. If skeptics thought it frivolous to start an opera company in the middle of a world war, Fiorello LaGuardia straightened them out: the music-loving Mayor believed that opera was essential to city life, and he wanted lower- and middle-class New Yorkers to have it at affordable prices, without pretension. »
10 Oct 2005
Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837) is generally considered Russia’s greatest poet. According to Andrew Kahn, his contemporaries held him “above all the master of the lyric poem, verse that is famous for its formal perfection and its reticent lyric persona, and infamous for its resistance to translation.” [Alexander Pushkin, The Queen of Spades and Other Stories, trans. Alan Myers, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997] »
05 Oct 2005
The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost stands as one of the great works of French literature. It first appeared in 1731 as an appendix to the series, Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality. It was later revised in 1753 for independent publication under the title Les Aventures du chevalier Des Grieux et Manon Lescaut with illustrations by Pasquier and Gravelot. »
29 Sep 2005
By Russell Platt [The Nation, 3 October 2005] Classical music in America, we are frequently told, is in its death throes: its orchestras bled dry by expensive guest soloists and greedy musicians unions, its media presence shrinking, its prestige diminished,... »
24 Sep 2005
The EMI label’s new version of “Tristan und Isolde,” starring Plácido Domingo, has received weirdly apocalyptic advance publicity: it has been described as the final large-scale opera recording in history. »
22 Sep 2005
Sheridan Morley, impressed with Michael Grandage's staging of Schiller's Don Carlos last February, turned to a fellow critic at the Gielgud Theatre and asked if they had known that it was such a terrific piece, adding jocularly that somebody ought to make an opera of it. »
16 Sep 2005
As the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth approaches, Proms director Nicholas Kenyon offers a personal guide to enjoying his work »
15 Sep 2005
The bittersweet life of Harold Arlen.
The composer Harold Arlen, a dapper man whose songs brought something both dashing and deep to the Republic, liked to tell a story about the time he danced with Marilyn Monroe. »
15 Sep 2005
Paul Kellogg, General and Artistic Director of City Opera, today announced that he will retire from the Company in June, 2007 at the end of the 2006-2007 season, his 12th with the company. »
14 Sep 2005
The life of an opera singer is not for the faint-hearted. It’s one of dizzying highs and lows, a crazy roundabout of heart-warming praise and soul-piercing criticism. No-one gets off lightly — even the best in the world — and to survive just a decade of this madness is an achievement in itself. I’ve been following the progress of American star countertenor David Daniels for a while now, so when I was asked to write a ten year retrospective on his career it seemed to me that, with a lot written already about that career, the “how” would be more interesting to discuss than the “what” or “when”. And the viewpoint that would give the most insight into how this exceptional singer came to be where he was would be: his own. »
08 Sep 2005
Metropolitan Opera General Manager Joseph Volpe announced today that Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder™, will be the corporate sponsor for the Metropolitan Opera Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts which will celebrate their 75th anniversary this season. The twenty-one radio broadcasts will run from December 17 of this year to May 6, 2006, and will be heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, which comprises over 300 stations in the United States and reaches eleven million people in forty-two countries around the globe. The Annenberg Foundation and the Vincent A. Stabile Foundation will continue to provide generous support for this season’s broadcasts as part of their long-term commitments to the future of this program.
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23 Aug 2005
For an opera company that boasts a $30-million endowment, and has scheduled funding efforts expected to bring that largesse to $50-million by 2007, its fiftieth anniversary of summer opera performances, plus $10-million more for capital improvements, the question comes up: Santa Fe Opera can afford top quality, but are they providing it? The answer seems to be, sometimes. »
11 Aug 2005
Today at the University of Melbourne, an excerpt from Vivaldi's newly discovered choral setting of Psalm 110 ("Dixit Dominus") received its modern premiere, marking an historic occasion not only for musicologists but for the field in general. »
11 Jul 2005
Barely a month ago, Rotterdam and the music world generally celebrated the first performance of Vivaldi’s Motezuma since those held in Venice in 1733. Musicologist Steffen Voss reconstructed the opera’s score in large part from a manuscript he found while examining documents recently returned to the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin by the government of Ukraine. Kees Vlaardingerbroeck, the artistic director of Rotterdam’s De Doelen, declared, “This is the most important Vivaldi discovery in 75 years.” »
09 Jul 2005
You see a lot of plays when you’re a drama critic, and you don’t always get to pick them. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most of us have a way of sinking deeper into the velvet-lined ruts of our own well-established tastes when left exclusively to our own devices. To be a working drama critic, on the other hand, is to engage with what’s out there, good and bad alike. Just because I expect to be exasperated by a show, or bored silly, doesn’t mean I can afford to pass it by. Besides, I’ve been a critic long enough to know that only a fool writes his review on the way to the show. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been surprised at the theater – both ways. »
01 Jul 2005
In 1817, Franz Schubert set these words of the poet Franz von Schober to music in his song “An die Musik”:
O gracious Art, in how many gray hours
When life’s fierce orbit encompassed me,
Hast thou kindled my heart to warm love,
Hast charmed me into a better world.
Oft has a sigh, issuing from thy harp,
A sweet, blest chord of thine,
Thrown open the heaven of better times;
O gracious Art, for that I thank thee!
Schubert’s song may well be the most beautiful thank-you note anyone has ever written, but it’s also something else. It’s a credo, a statement of faith in the wondrous powers of music, and by its very nature an affirmation of those powers. We may view it as a statement of expectations as well. The poet thanks Music for what it has done for him, but there is nothing in his words that would make us think that Music’s powers are exhausted, and indeed the noble, exalted character of Schubert’s music would lead us to believe that Music’s powers are, if anything, eternal, and eternally dependable. »
30 Jun 2005
When great music is silenced by law, who is truly wrong? Such is the nasty issue arising repeatedly in the low-stakes classical recording industry. So ephemeral is music that passionate minorities who appreciate it can't believe their luck when lesser-known... »
02 Jun 2005
Ninety-nine years ago, John Philip Sousa predicted that recordings would lead to the demise of music. »
21 May 2005
On Sept. 29, 1855, the Brooklyn Daily Times ran an unsigned and startlingly exuberant review of a thoroughly obscure book of poetry. The anonymous critic quivered with admiration for the poet, as well as the verse. “Of pure American breed, of reckless health, his body perfect, free from taint top to toe,” he wrote. »
18 May 2005
La ópera propiamente dicha nació seria, muy seria. Al fin y al cabo, a finales del siglo XVI, los selectos miembros de la aristocrática Camerata dei Bardi, en Florencia, imaginaban estar recreando nada más y nada menos que la tragedia griega. Pero, de forma paralela, y en el mismo contexto cultural, el madrigal dramático italiano estaba alcanzando su madurez con obras abiertamente cómicas. »
16 Apr 2005
In the popular imagination, the art critic seems a commanding figure, making and breaking careers at will, but one hard look at today’s contemporary art system reveals this notion to be delusional.“When I entered the art world, famous critics had an aura of power”, recalls ArtBasel director Samuel Keller. “Now they’re more like philosophers—respected, but not as powerful as collectors, dealers or curators. Nobody fears critics any more, which is a real danger sign for the profession.” »
12 Apr 2005
Michael Maniaci has a fight on his hands. In the world of baroque opera he’s a young singer who seems to have it all: he’s intelligent, immensely talented, well-trained, committed and surprisingly wise for his 29 years. On top of that he’s already been successful in the USA winning prestigious competitions, and recently gaining significant roles at such proving grounds as Glimmerglass, New York City Opera and Santa Fe. »
10 Apr 2005
THERE are moments in “Die Walküre,” Wagner’s most humane opera, that never fail to dissolve me, even though I know they are coming. One occurs fairly early in the first act. »
07 Apr 2005
C’est l’événement lyrique de l’année à Paris. L’oeuvre, d’abord : le Tristan et Isolde de Wagner, véritable opéra impossible, monument visionnaire où tout est tourné vers l’intériorité, a toujours fasciné. La distribution, ensuite : Ben Heppner et Waltraud Meier sont tout simplement les plus grands. L’équipe artistique, enfin. Le chef finlandais Esa-Pekka Salonen, pour ses débuts à l’Opéra de Paris et son premier Tristan, retrouvera le metteur en scène Peter Sellars, dont la conception scénique s’appuiera sur l’univers visuel du vidéaste Bill Viola. L’occasion d’interroger Sellars sur sa vision de l’oeuvre : surpris en pleine répétition d’orchestre (il y assiste car pour lui la mise en scène procède de la musique), il nous répond avec une générosité, un sens de l’humain, une intelligence pédagogique qui font de lui un être d’exception. »
01 Apr 2005
Als Nachwuchshoffnung wird der amerikanische Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo weltweit gehandelt. Sein Münchner Debüt ist also fällig. In der Wiederaufnahme der bereits 1997 bejubelten Inszenierung von Claudio Monteverdis “L’incoronazione di Poppea” der Bayerischen Staatsoper – unter der Regie von David Alden und der musikalischen Leitung von Harry Bicket – ist er nun als Ottone zu sehen. »
30 Mar 2005
On Monday night, the Metropolitan Opera began another run of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” but without music director James Levine in the pit. He was at Carnegie Hall, directing his new band, the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Conducting at the Met was Philippe Jordan, the sensational young Swiss. He is the son of the esteemed maestro Armin Jordan; indeed, they are the most noted father-son conducting pair since the Kleibers. But Philippe will far outpace Armin. That is the safe betting, at least. »
29 Mar 2005
Rolando Villazon est un ténor à sang chaud. Ce fils de Mexico est capable de vous attendre sur une place venteuse de Vienne, par une après-midi teigneuse, tête et mains nues, dans le grand froid qui tient encore la capitale autrichienne en cette mi-mars. La veille au soir, il incarnait avec une grâce incroyable un fragile et magnifique Roméo dans le Roméo et Juliette de Gounod, monté à la Wiener Staatsoper. »
28 Mar 2005
When the soprano Deborah Voigt was dropped from a Covent Garden production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos last year she claimed it was her inability to fit into a sleek black dress that prompted her dismissal. »
26 Mar 2005
“If Puccini were alive today, I’d be in love with him. I am sure of it. He knew how to write for sopranos: he really loved them,” says Angela Gheorghiu. And this soprano knows Puccini’s heroines well, having most of them in her repertoire or in her plans. On her latest CD, a handsomely packaged set from EMI, she steps into the shoes of all his major soprano characters, with the exception of the adulterous Giorgetta in Puccini’s most impressionistic score, Il Tabarro. »
25 Mar 2005
“200 oder 300” Matthäus-Passionen hat Peter Schreier (69) schon hinter sich, als Sänger, seit den 80er-Jahren in der Doppelfunktion als dirigierender Evangelist. So auch an diesem Karfreitag im Gasteig, wenn er das Opus mit dem Münchener Bach-Chor aufführt (14.30 Uhr, Live-Übertragung auf Bayern 4). Und damit wohl zum letzten Mal hier zu hören sein wird: Zum Jahresende will Schreier, einer der größten Bach-, Mozart- und Schubert-Interpreten unserer Zeit, seine Gesangskarriere beenden. »
24 Mar 2005
In an introduction to the score for his “Darkbloom: Overture for an Imagined Opera,” which will have its premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra tonight, John Harbison calls the piece the remnant of a misguided project, an “unproduceable” opera based on a “famous and infamous” American novel. »
21 Mar 2005
CAMBRIDGE—James Levine doesn’t like pushy producers and stage directors any more than most opera lovers do.
In a panel discussion at Harvard last Monday centered on the BSO’s recent performances of Wagner’s ‘’The Flying Dutchman,” the music director spoke about the advantages of opera in concert. »
20 Mar 2005
He was the toast of the new Russian Communist regime, a young composer who had captivated audiences under the banner of the emerging cultural revolution.
But in 1936, Dmitry Shostakovich’s reputation plummeted after Stalin attended his immensely popular opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsenk, at the Bolshoi Theater. »
05 Mar 2005
Wien ist zwar Stätte vieler seiner künstlerischen Triumphe – und doch auch des vielleicht bitters ten Wermutstropfens in einer formidablen Karriere: Lorin Maazel, der am Sonntag 75 Jahre alt wird, war einer der kürzestdienenden Direktoren der Staatsoper, kapitulierte nach nur zwei Spielzeiten, weil die Angriffe gegen ihn unerträglich geworden waren und die Kulturpolitik, verbündet mit den Angreifern, versagte. Immerhin: Das so genannte “Blocksystem”, eine Spielplangestaltung in “kleinen Serien”, wie sie der Nachfolger Maazels dann nannte, gab zwar den Ausschlag für eine Kampagne gegen den dirigierenden Direktor, doch pflegt die Staatsoper es bis heute. »
04 Mar 2005
Singing offbeat, nontraditional roles can be a path to oblivion for an opera singer. For Brenda Harris, that road has led to fame, fortune and as much work as she can handle.
It also means that Harris often is learning new roles. »
03 Mar 2005
01. März 2005 Ein Rokokoherr mittleren Alters, Frack, Spitzenjabot, gepudertes Haar – könnte das nicht Mozart sein? Niemand weiß, wie der Komponist wirklich ausgesehen hat.
So galt es denn als „Weltsensation”, als die Berliner Gemäldegalerie ihren bisherigen „Herrn im grünen Frack” vor wenigen Wochen aufgrund einer computergestützten Analyse des Musikliebhabers Wolfgang Seiller als neu entdecktes Mozart-Porträt präsentierte. Gemalt hatte es der seinerzeit renommierte Münchner Porträtist Johann Georg Edlinger „vor 1790”, was aber nun auf „um 1790” umfunktioniert wurde. »
02 Mar 2005
We’re undeniably in the era of James Levine. The Cincinnati-born, 61-year-old conductor is right now art music’s Great Enabler. As music director of the Metropolitan Opera for nearly the last 30 years and in the home stretch of his first season as chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his potential for goosing the possibilities of 21st-century classical music performance is unique. »
26 Feb 2005
Der Berliner Bariton Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau gehörte über Jahrzehnte hinweg zu den weltweit gefeierten Liedsängern. Der fast 80jährige ist nach wie vor als Dirigent, Maler, Buchautor, Ehrengast aktiv – und wird heute im Konzert des Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchesters Berlin zum 100jährigen Jubiläum des Berliner Doms als Sprecher auftreten. Volker Blech sprach mit Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. »
26 Feb 2005
It is the day before the opening night. Zurich is agog for the new production of Monteverdi’s opera L’incoronazione di Poppea, but there is a snag. The Poppea has gone sick. A new one has had to be flown in from Frankfurt, and in only a matter of hours has had to be acclimatised to the radical staging and familiarised with the edition of the score that Zurich Opera is using. »
23 Feb 2005
Der 32-jährige Mexikaner Rolando Villazón hat sich in seinen wenigen Karrierejahren bereits als eine der größten Tenor-Hoffnungen erwiesen. Ein Interview mit dem nie stillsitzenden Lockenkopf ist wie eine Bühnenvorstellung. Manuel Brug hat es erfahren. »
18 Feb 2005
Phumzile Sojola got the call less than 36 hours before the concert.
University of Kentucky alum Gregory Turay, who was set to be the featured soloist on the Lexington Philharmonic’s Feb. 4 concert, was sick and might not be able to sing. The orchestra needed a tenor in the wings. OK, Sojola thought. He knew the scheduled arias. »
18 Feb 2005
Pas facile à coincer, Valery Gergiev. Le chef russe le plus charismatique de sa génération a voué sa vie au Kirov de Saint-Pétersbourg, dont il a fait l’un des théâtres lyriques les plus recherchés du monde. Mais il anime aussi trois festivals : les Nuits blanches de Saint-Pétersbourg, le Festival de Pâques de Moscou et celui de Mikkeli en Finlande. N’oublions pas non plus qu’il est directeur musical de l’Orchestre philharmonique de Rotterdam, premier chef invité du Metropolitan Opera de New York, et l’un des maestros préférés du Philharmonique de Vienne, qu’il dirige tant au Musikverein qu’au Festival de Salzbourg et en tournée. Avec un tel calendrier, guère de place pour des invitations à droite et à gauche, et s’il a fait récemment ses débuts aux «Proms» de Londres avec l’Orchestre symphonique de la BBC, c’était une exception dont on se demande si elle va se généraliser, donnant un nouveau tour à une carrière jusqu’ici focalisée sur quatre orchestres. »
17 Feb 2005
BERLIN – Marcello Viotti, the music director of Venice’s famed La Fenice Theater who also conducted at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and other leading houses, died at a German hospital after falling into a coma. He was 50.
Viotti died Wednesday night after being in a coma for several days at a clinic in Munich, Germany, his agent, Paul Steinhauser, said by telephone from Vienna, Austria. »
15 Feb 2005
Il y a un miracle Natalie Dessay. Sa Reine de la Nuit (dans La Flûte enchantée, de Mozart) ou son Olympia (des Contes d’Hoffmann, d’Offenbach), irrésistibles de présence et de drôlerie, ont déjà marqué l’histoire de l’opéra. On se régale de sa présence sur scène, de son tempérament explosif, on admire sa voix de soprano léger à la virtuosité sans limites, et on respecte la femme, diva humble et sincère. On aime Natalie, on croit la connaître, mais elle reste un mystère. Après une saison triomphale, couronnée par un enregistrement (Amor, consacré à la musique de Richard Strauss, chez Virgin Classics) et une victoire de la musique, soudain, patatras! Comme il y a deux ans, une opération des cordes vocales oblige la chanteuse à annuler des représentations. Le doute et la peur viennent ébranler ce petit bout de femme d’ordinaire débordant d’énergie. Pourquoi? Natalie Dessay s’en explique ici »
11 Feb 2005
Rolando Villazon has the opera world on a string. The young Mexican tenor has just completed a fairy tale year, with acclaimed debuts at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden in London and the Staatsoper in Berlin. He released his first CD, a collection of Italian arias; several critics ranked it among the best classical recordings of 2004. And his face graced the covers of a number of opera periodicals. »
09 Feb 2005
Maestro Scimone, cosa rappresenta per lei questo riconoscimento del consiglio regionale che la indica come come ambasciatore della cultura veneta nel mondo?
«In un primo momento, oltre che commosso, sono rimasto anche un po’ stupito soprattutto considerando il libro d’oro molto ristretto di questo premio, assegnato sinora solo a un Patriarca di Venezia e a un eroe. Poi ho pensato che il significato di questa scelta del consiglio regionale è il riconoscere come sia importante per la nostra regione l’arte e la cultura che sono l’elemento di identificazione più importante del Veneto». »
06 Feb 2005
When did the music die? And why? It will be 30 years in August since the death of Dmitri Shostakovitch. Next year also marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Britten. Aaron Copland, older than both of them, lived on until 1990 and Olivier Messiaen until 1992. But apart from these?
I can see them already. The protestations on behalf of the half-forgotten and semi-famous, the advocates of Henze and Berio, the followers of Tavener and Adès. Perhaps there will be a good word for Golijov or Gubaidulina, for Piazzola or Saariaho (enthusiasms I share). And maybe, even now, there remains someone who believes that Stockhausen should be mentioned in the same breath as Bach, the last of the true believers clinging to the shipwreck of modernism. »
02 Feb 2005
The BBC Symphony Orchestra confirmed yesterday that its new chief conductor from the first night of the 2006 Proms will be the Czech maestro Jirí Belohlávek. It was known two and a half years ago that Leonard Slatkin would be standing down from the job at the end of last season’s Proms, so the announcement about his successor has been a long time coming, but the welcome news of Belohlávek’s appointment is not a surprise. I floated him as the most likely choice in an article on these pages back in July last year. It was a hunch, but one based on a reasoned study of the form book, since he seemed to have precisely the qualities that the BBC should be looking for. »
01 Feb 2005
Le coeur des amoureux de bel canto va battre plus fort, mardi soir au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. La série «Les Grandes Voix» de Jean-Pierre Le Pavec accueille l’une des plus grandes dames de l’histoire de l’opéra au dernier demi-siècle. A un mois de son soixante-et-onzième anniversaire, Teresa Berganza précise qu’il ne faut pas espérer entendre le Chérubin ou la Rosine des années 50 : avec sa voix d’aujourd’hui, elle se consacre maintenant au récital, faisant la part belle au répertoire ibérique, qu’il soit espagnol (de Falla) ou argentin (Piazzolla). Mais elle a toujours la même discipline, la même élégance, le même pétillement : un petit bout de femme vif-argent et intarissable, qui vous donne l’impression qu’on s’est toujours connus. Rencontre avec une immense artiste, qui a participé à l’âge d’or de l’opéra. »
30 Jan 2005
Mozart-Tage in Wien, Mozartwoche in Salzburg. Und das alles 2005, wo doch das Mozartjahr erst 2006 droht. Vor lauter Ankündigungen und Vorausschauen, was die Welt, was Österreich im Besonderen im Jubiläumsjahr an Plänen ventiliert, droht Mozarts Musik zur Nebensache zu werden. Das ist ihr Glück. Denn so bleibt sie, während wohlbestallte Koordinatoren und Intendanten über Aktionen von hoch bezahlten Kasperln diskutieren, doch die Hauptsache. »
28 Jan 2005
``I’m Tom Brady’s best friend,’’ joked David Daniels. ``I’m sure he’d love to read that!’’
OK, the world’s leading countertenor isn’t really Brady’s bud.
``But I did meet him,’’ Daniels continued. ``It was when I sang (Handel’s) `Messiah’ in Ann Arbor.’’
Brady was quarterback for the University of Michigan football team when Daniels, now 38, was a graduate student there.
``A lot of times the football players would come to concerts – they were always trying to enlighten them to the music world, arts and culture – and he came backstage and I got to shake his hand,’’ Daniels recalled. ``If you asked him, he might remember me as this guy who sang like a woman.’‘ »
28 Jan 2005
With a voice as strong and clear as the winter wind through the cherry trees, Denyce Graves sang for all America last week at President Bush’s inaugural ceremony.
Graves, who was born and raised in Washington, D.C., is something of a musical emissary — she’s had the lead roles in opera houses all over the globe, and is considered one of the most dynamic mezzo-sopranos on the world stage. »
28 Jan 2005
Start buying pieces of fine art this week for 37 cents.
The Marian Anderson first-class postage stamp, the 28th in the Black Heritage series, debuted Thursday in Washington, D.C. Richard Sheaff designed the stamp, which is based on an Albert Slark oil painting. Sheaff previously designed nine stamps that include Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes, Roy Wilkins and Patricia Harris. »
26 Jan 2005
According to popular legend, one great operatic soprano comes along every generation. The years directly following the end of World War II were singularly blessed with the emergence of no fewer than three great divas.
The tempestuous and too-short life of Maria Callas, regarded by many as the greatest, ended in 1977. But her two greatest rivals lived into old age, by strange fate – the force of destiny? – dying within less than a month of each other. »
26 Jan 2005
VIENNA, Jan. 23 -It was just eight years ago that the Vienna Philharmonic, which doubles as the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, officially admitted the first woman to its august ranks. On Jan. 12, there were at least six in the pit for “Parsifal.” On the 13th, there was one in the pit for “Don Giovanni.” On Saturday, there was one at the head of the orchestra: Julia Jones, an English conductor who made her debut here in 2001, has conducted a number of times here since, and who led a robust “Così Fan Tutte” during the house’s second annual “Vienna Mozart Days” (which ends with a final “Nozze di Figaro” on Jan. 29). »
24 Jan 2005
A 20 ans, Marc Minkovski fondait les Musiciens du Louvre et, très vite, imprimait sa sensibilité gourmande sur le répertoire baroque, puis sur des Offenbach qui ont fait mouche à Lyon, Grenoble et Paris. On se souvient d’un grand Couronnement de Poppée à Aix-en-Provence, d’un admirable Pelléas et Mélisande, salle Favart, pour le centenaire de l’oeuvre en 2002. A l’Opéra de Paris, Gérard Mortier en fait aujourd’hui un pilier de ce qui ne ressemble pas à de la sagesse : le voici aux commandes musicales d’une nouvelle Flûte enchantée venue du Festival de la Ruhr, et donnée en pâture au délirant groupe catalan La Fura del Baus. Le chef, lui, s’occupe surtout de Mozart. »
21 Jan 2005
What is it that urges an eminent musician to spurn the mainstream record industry and set up on his own?
Some orchestras have been doing it for quite a while, bypassing the major companies and releasing competitively priced discs of live performances that regularly lead the market and at the same time help to promote the orchestras’ image. Where the London Symphony Orchestra led the way in that field, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, who already has a formidable backlist of recordings to his credit, is now blazing a trail for the individual artist by launching his own label, Soli Deo Gloria, the first two albums of which have just gone on sale. »
21 Jan 2005
For many years Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s operatic work Zaide was regarded as a fragment. More than an hour of music was preserved but that was only the arias. Originally they were linked by spoken text, none of which survived. The German musicologist and conductor Andreas Kroeper, who now lives in the Czech Republic, says he has found the missing text and has proved it belonged to Zaide.
Mozart started to compose the two-act Singspiel, set in a Turkish harem — a popular setting at that time, some time around 1780 in Salzburg. The libretto, developing similar plots of the period, was written by the Salzburg court musician Johann Andreas Schachtner. But Mozart soon realised a serious piece like that would not go down well with the Viennese audience whose tastes had turned to comic operas. »
18 Jan 2005
The coffin of Spanish Victoria de los Angeles, a distinctive soprano who sang most of the great lyric roles in most of the world’s opera houses, is placed inside the cathedral Nostra Senora del Mar during her funeral in Barcelona, January 17, 2005. Victoria de los Angeles died in hospital on Saturday at the age of 81. »
18 Jan 2005
Among history’s crowded pantheon of tormented genius-artists, Beethoven holds an honored spot.
Often he composed quickly and with little apparent struggle. But he was no Mozart, who typically composed with a facility and speed that some music scholars have described as “taking dictation from God.” Beethoven filled sketchbooks with musical fragments, doggedly reworking and refining them like a miner scratching for diamonds in a black-walled shaft. With his wild hair, scowling gaze, deafness—a particularly cruel infirmity for a musician—and volcanic temper, he is the very model of a modern angst-ridden artist. »
18 Jan 2005
Mozart left comparatively few major (or potentially major) works unfinished, and while it may seem daunting – presumptious even – for another musician to complete these scores, the lure of making an incomplete work whole is clearly too great to resist.
Can the results ever be more than hyphenated Mozart? Probably not. A musicologist steeped in Mozart’s musical moves may project what the composer might have done at any point in a work, based on what he did in similar scores, and the completion may sound thoroughly Mozartean. But Mozart often came up with solutions that are completely surprising. Part of what made him Mozart – in fact, part of what makes any great composer great – is unpredictability. »
17 Jan 2005
Elle s’en est allée rejoindre les anges, dont elle portait si bien le nom. Victoria de Los Angeles s’est éteinte samedi 15 janvier, à l’âge de 81 ans, à la clinique Teknon de Barcelone, où elle avait été hospitalisée, à la suite de troubles cardio-pulmonaires, le 31 décembre 2004. Née le 1er novembre 1923 dans la capitale catalane, Victoria Gómez Cima (ou Garcia Lopez), dite Victoria de Los Angeles, avait grandi dans une Espagne meurtrie par les guerres. La fille du concierge de l’université, qui travaillait sa voix dans les salles de cours vides, avait conquis le monde de l’opéra dès 1947 en remportant le grand Concours international de Genève, qui lui valut de débuter l’année suivante à la BBC dans le rôle de Salud de La Vie brève de De Falla. »
15 Jan 2005
Barcelona.—La decana de los cantantes líricos españoles, Victoria dels Ángeles, ha fallecido hoy a los 81 años en la Clínica Teknon de Barcelona, donde se encontraba ingresada desde el 30 de diciembre como consecuencia de una afección respiratoria.
La familia de la soprano ha comunicado que la capilla ardiente se instalará mañana en el Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya, entre las 12.00 y las 19.00 horas. El funeral de la cantante, nacida en Barcelona el 1 de noviembre de 1923, tendrá lugar en la Basílica de Santa María del Mar, el lunes a las 11.00 horas. »
14 Jan 2005
Nur wer mit den Eigentümlichkeiten Wiens und seiner Bewohner, ihren Empfindlichkeiten und Ab grenzungen, vor allem im Umgang mit den einverleibten Idolen, einigermaßen vertraut ist, kann ermessen, welch empfindlichen Nerv die Nachricht treffen musste, die am Dreikönigstag aus Berlin, ausgerechnet Berlin, verbreitet wurde, dass in der Berliner Gemäldegalerie ein bisher unbekanntes Mozart-Porträt aufgetaucht sei. Zwar wurde zugleich eine elektronische Kopie dieses Bildnisses mitgeliefert, auch der Name des Malers, Johann Georg Edlinger, genannt und mitgeteilt, es sei 1790 bei Mozarts letztem Aufenthalt in München entstanden, alles Nähere jedoch soll erst bei einem Vortrag am 27. Januar 2005 durch den Oberkustos der Berliner Gemäldegalerie, Rainer Michaelis, bekannt gegeben werden. Also just an Mozarts 249. Geburtstag. »
11 Jan 2005
The conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner — for 20 years one of the most famous names contracted to the recording company Deutsche Grammophon — has launched his own CD label, after recovering from the blow of the abrupt severance of his contract with DG.
Sir John faced a crisis when the company pulled the plug just as he was planning the gargantuan project of touring with and recording live the complete Bach cantatas throughout the year 2000, which would have resulted in over 50 CDs. »
07 Jan 2005
Musikgenie zwischen Verschwendungssucht und verhärmter Armut — doch aus Mozart-Porträts spricht auch Lebensfreude, Lust am Genuß und tödliche Krankheit. Höchste Zeit, über Amadeus-Legenden nachzudenken.
War Mozart dicklich und wohlgenährt? Ein neu aufgetauchtes Bildnis zeigt den Salzburger Meister in seiner späten Zeit, im Jahre 1790. Mozart war 34 Jahre alt und hatte noch gut ein Jahr zu leben. Die Sensation: Pausbäckig und jovial, den Jackenknopf mühsam über dem Bäuchlein geschlossen, bietet Mozart einen Anblick gesunder Lebensfreude und jovialer Genußfähigkeit. »
29 Dec 2004
For Mozart's Archrival, an Italian Renaissance By JASON HOROWITZ MILAN - For more than 200 years, Antonio Salieri's obscure opera "Europa Riconosciuta" ("Europa Revealed") was forgotten. Before its return to La Scala this month, the opera had not been performed... »
29 Dec 2004
Folks tirelessly trying to market classical music these days will settle on almost any hook to lure customers, from martini bars in lobbies and cutesy program titles to that reliable, when-all-else-fails measure, the deeply discounted ticket price.
I’m just old-fashioned enough to prefer come-ons that actually have something substantive to do with the music itself, and I’m a sucker for promotions that involve historic pegs – the anniversary of a composer’s birth or death, or of a composition’s first performance, for example. »
20 Dec 2004
The ageless baton By Allan Ulrich Published: December 20 2004 13:44 | Last updated: December 20 2004 13:44 The conductor Michael Tilson Thomas turns 60 this week and, despite a few streaks of silver in his hair, his is a... »
19 Dec 2004
E' morta Renata Tebaldi Era la "rivale" di Maria Callas SAN MARINO - Renata Tebaldi è morta alle 03.30 nella sua casa di San Marino. La grande cantante lirica, nata a Pesaro, avrebbe compiuto 83 anni nel febbraio prossimo. La... »
17 Dec 2004
The Wiener Staatsoper's 2004-2005 season includes Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, which premiered on 8 December. Krassimira Stoyanova performed the role of "Amelia" to rave reviews. Beginning 3 January 2005, she will appear at the Met's production of Turandot in the role... »
15 Dec 2004
Aiming For Her Very Top Note Tue Dec 14, 7:00 PM ET Curt Schleier Renee Fleming understands that natural talent isn't enough to assure success. In fact, Fleming said during a recent interview, natural ability can work against you. Take... »
13 Dec 2004
The Paris Opera Ballet School, founded by Louis XIV in 1713—it’s the world’s oldest academy for producing classical dancers—is now located in a utilitarian complex specifically built for it in Nanterre, on the bleak outskirts of the City of Light. But for more than a century it was located in the bowels of the lavish Palais Garnier, at the hub of urban elegance. It was there—cocooned in that opera house’s imposing Second Empire decorative excesses of varicolored marble offset by gilt and bronze; of statues, bas-reliefs, frescos, and mosaics; of deep red plush and heavy figured and tasseled drapery; of an infinity of mirrors and chandeliers—that I saw the daylong program this extraordinary school, the oldest and arguably the greatest of its kind, modestly calls its “Demonstrations.” »
13 Dec 2004
Notre sélection de DVD pour les fetes La rituelle ruée sur les cadeaux de Noel passe, cette année encore plus que la précédente, par le déferlement des DVD musicaux : archives, documentaires, retours sur les vieilles gloires ou concerts de... »
13 Dec 2004
Going to the Theater Miss May The Epoch Times Dec 12, 2004 Dear Miss May: I am very lucky and am able to go to NY soon for a weekend of theater and, well, just enjoying New York. I attended... »
13 Dec 2004
Anna Netrebko: A Happy Diva Singer Does Opera Music Videos Dec 12, 2004 7:45 pm US/Eastern Anna Netrebko in St. Petersburg Photograph: © Peter Rigaud There isn't a musical instrument on earth that can produce sounds as varied, as beautiful,... »
11 Dec 2004
Marriage and manners By George Loomis [Financial Times] Published: December 10 2004 02:00 | Last updated: December 10 2004 02:00 The general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, William Mason, likes to put his company's relationship with William Bolcom in... »
03 Dec 2004
"Nunca he sido un melómano" Es el tenor del momento, y sorprende que ostente la corona al reconocérsele sólo como un experto rossiniano. Odia las entrevistas porque le roban parte de su tiempo libre, un tesoro que valora desde la... »
03 Dec 2004
World of opera graced by the true grande dame By T.L. Ponick SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published December 3, 2004 Legendary coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland says she was "bowled over" upon learning that she would be a 2004 Kennedy... »
30 Nov 2004
The 'Voice' of the Darling Diva By BARBARA JEPSON November 30, 2004 New York For sheer beauty of sound, no soprano today can match Renee Fleming. Her rich, golden-hued voice shines and seduces; she can sustain a long-lined legato passage,... »
30 Nov 2004
Turning Tragedy into Art By Jeannie Williams 29 Nov 2004 An interview with mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who makes her New York Philharmonic debut this month. "I am drawn to these characters, the juicier the better, and sometimes that means... »
28 Nov 2004
La chanteuse Natalie Dessay s'explique sur ses nombreuses défections LE MONDE | 27.11.04 | 19h06 La soprano colorature a du subir une nouvelle intervention chirurgicale le 17 novembre. Depuis le début de la saison, les nombreuses défections de la soprano... »
28 Nov 2004
Eötvös : "Je ne cherche plus, je trouve" Après le lyrisme russe revisité dans Trois Soeurs, chef-d'oeuvre unanimement salué, et Le Balcon de Genet ramené du coté de la chanson française, reçu plus froidement, le troisième opéra de Peter Eötvös... »
26 Nov 2004
One for the opera buffs: 'Callas Forever' profiles a diva on the downslope Friday, November 26, 2004 By WILLIAM ARNOLD SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MOVIE CRITIC At first thought, Fanny Ardant would seem all wrong to play opera diva Maria Callas.... »
21 Nov 2004
He's a smooth operator John Allison [Times Online] Robert Carsen may be a showman but his intent is serious FOR more than a decade Robert Carsen has been one of the operatic world's most visible directors, but right now he... »
18 Nov 2004
Ascription of Identity: The Bild Motif and the Character of Lulu Silvio José Dos Santos The most controversial aspect of Alban Berg's opera Lulu — and one that has generated considerable criticism — is the composer's conception of the protagonist's... »
18 Nov 2004
"Pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck": Giambattista Marino, Claudio Monteverdi, and the bacio mordace Massimo Ossi Claudio Monteverdi's "Eccomi pronta ai baci" presents an odd pairing of a first-person female voice with a three-voice low male ensemble;... »
16 Nov 2004
LEE HOIBY: A Month in the Country Libretto by William Ball after the play by Ivan Turgenev The Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater presents Lee Hoiby's A Month in the Country on Wednesday, December 8 and Friday, December 10... »
12 Nov 2004
How the Met was fixed By Norman Lebrecht / November 11, 2004 The Metropolitan Opera House in New York regards itself, with some justice, as the world's greatest. In America, it has no close competitor: the Met's annual deficit can... »
10 Nov 2004
An American master premieres at City Opera An interview with Charles Wuorinen 10/26/2004 The world premiere of Haroun and the Sea of Stories features an inspired cross-section of artists among the most respected in their disciplines: Salman Rushdie, one of... »
09 Nov 2004
For a Fill-In Aida, a Triumph Long in Coming By ANNE MIDGETTE [NY Times] Angela M. Brown grew up singing gospel music in her grandfather's Baptist church in Indianapolis, but her father, an autoworker, didn't see that as the makings... »
08 Nov 2004
Dubious History - Miraculous Music By John Yohalem [Playbill Arts] November 1, 2004 I Vespri Siciliani, a collaboration between Verdi and librettist Eugène Scribe, produced some astounding music--but historical fact was sacrificed to fit the drama. John Yohalem delves into... »
03 Nov 2004
Signifying Nothing: On the Aesthetics of Pure Voice in Early Venetian Opera Mauro Calcagno1 Operas written in Venice in the 1640s feature surprisingly long melismas often setting seemingly insignificant words, in opposition to (although concurrently with) traditional madrigalisms. This magnification... »
03 Nov 2004
by Miguel A. DeVirgilio Dario Volonté was born on September 1, 1963, in Buenos Aires, although his family came from a humble household some 250 miles north of the capital, Entre Rios. His musical vocation began late after having discovered... »
03 Nov 2004
Contralto taking on fresh challenge in 'Il Trovatore' By TOM STRINI Journal Sentinel music critic Posted: Nov. 1, 2004 Ewa Podles, a leading international concert and opera contralto, will make her Milwaukee debut Saturday, courtesy of the Florentine Opera. She... »
02 Nov 2004
In today's Wall Street Journal, Heidi Waleson opines on the future of the Met under Peter Gelb's leadership. She maintains that, given his background with Sony, this is a radical choice. Comparing his work at Sony with the Met, she... »
31 Oct 2004
Brownlee lends voice to the subject of race By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff | October 31, 2004 African-American divas have swept triumphantly across the international operatic stage for decades, and in this country Leontyne Price became a household name and... »
28 Oct 2004
Carmen Forever By Octavio Roca October 19, 2004 Bizet's legendary heroine still inspires artists and opera lovers. The woman is fascinating, no question about it. Little by little, we are still getting to know Carmen. The fascination is strong, and... »
28 Oct 2004
US countertenor who is a wow in Europe By Francis Carlin Published: October 28 2004 03:00 | Last updated: October 28 2004 03:00 It is always a good sign when you find a singer attending a performance of something else... »
28 Oct 2004
MEMORIES OF ROBERT MERRILL: AMERICAN OPERATIC ICON by James Engdahl, Engdahl Artists International Robert Merrill, born Moishe Miller in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, passed away last Saturday, October 22, 2004, as he watched the first game of the World... »
27 Oct 2004
Wexford's dilemma for future operas By Andrew Clark Published: October 27 2004 03:00 | Last updated: October 27 2004 03:00 When Wexford's opera festival was young and innocent, audiences used to talk of "one for the head, one for the... »
27 Oct 2004
Scientists dig up family skeletons Luke Harding in Berlin Wednesday October 27, 2004 The Guardian It has been a mystery for more than a century - is a skull in an Austrian basement really that of arguably the greatest composer... »
22 Oct 2004
Not so hippy now Since the 1960s, René Jacobs has been a pioneer of the early music movement. Stephen Everson hears how his vision has evolved Friday October 22, 2004 The Guardian Anyone who still thinks "authentic" performances of baroque... »
21 Oct 2004
*New Repertoire Discoveries for Singers: An Interview with Michael Kaye* by Maria Nockin Did you ever wonder why that last Tales of Hoffmann you sang had all those photocopied sheets added in? Or why the version of "Butterfly" you learned... »
17 Oct 2004
Top composer Tavener turns to Islam for inspiration The Orthodox faith inspired him for more than 25 years, but after a rift with his spiritual adviser, the composer has rejected its 'tyranny' in a major work based on the Koran.... »
10 Oct 2004
El sexo en la ópera no es sólo vulgar: ya nos aburre Fuera de la escena, la mezzo sueca es áspera y poco acogedora. Sus escasas sonrisas son un premio y sus respuestas son rápidas y precisas. Una evidente robustez... »
10 Oct 2004
Mistakes? I've made a few... (Filed: 04/10/2004) Pierre Boulez, the greatest and most uncompromising composer-conductor of our time, is mellowing as he approaches 80. He talks to Ivan Hewett However hard one normally prepares for interviews, there's always the feeling... »
07 Oct 2004
*Deborah Voigt withdraws from Vancouver Opera's production of Der Rosenkavalier* Vancouver, BC ~ American soprano Deborah Voigt, who was to make her role début as the Marschallin in the company's première production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, has withdrawn from... »
07 Oct 2004
Many a tear was shed when soprano Licia Albanese sang. Now she is celebrating her signature work, 'Madama Butterfly.' Allan Ulrich, Special to The Chronicle Monday, October 4, 2004 Was she or wasn't she? Licia Albanese is adamant. "Diva? Hah!... »
06 Oct 2004
Deux reprises, des tournées, un DVD, le prix de la critique : La Belle Hélène par le tandem Minkowski/Pelly fut l’un des plus grands et des plus durables succès du Châtelet. De quoi donner envie de reconduire l’équipe gagnante dans un autre Offenbach : ce sera La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein. Mais à une condition : que la vedette en soit à nouveau Dame Felicity Lott, la plus française des chanteuses britanniques, dont la classe et le naturel s’imposent de l’opérette viennoise à l’opéra-bouffe français, en passant par la nostalgie du Chevalier à la rose ou le désespoir de La Voix humaine. Nous avons rencontré cette femme délicieuse début septembre, juste avant que le spectacle n’inaugure la nouvelle salle de Grenoble, «rodage» précédant les représentations parisiennes. »
01 Oct 2004
L'opéra au cinéma, entre chic et surprise LE MONDE | 30.09.04 | 14em5 La mise en scène d'opéra est, pour des cinéastes comme Benoît Jacquot, Atom Egoyan, Robert Altman... l'occasion d'expériences exceptionnelles. "Il y a dans l'opéra un truc qui... »
29 Sep 2004
In the October 2004 issue of BBC Music magazine, Amanda Holloway writes: The phrase most often used of Anna Netrebko is a 'package': stunning looks, acting ability and a gorgeous, effortless lyric soprano voice. The following is a profile... »
27 Sep 2004
By Jan Neckers The line of Decca-tenors seems to run straight from Del Monaco to Bergonzi to Pavarotti. Granted there are some intrusions by Giuseppe Campora, Giuseppe Di Stefano and Franco Corelli but their names are not widely associated with... »
22 Sep 2004
This is not a biography of the Jewish tenor. Just some personal thoughts on a few interesting aspects. Those interested in a biographical article and an outstanding discography better purchase the June 2000 issue of The Record Collector where your servant and Hansfried Sieben devoted more than sixty small print pages to the tenor. Those able to read German can still buy Alfred Fasbind’s biography published at the Schweizer Verlagshaus in Zürich 1992. It is still available in some German bookshops and maybe with the author himself (Rosenbergstrasse 16, 8630 Rüti, Switzerland). »
21 Sep 2004
Goldberg No. 27 By Brian Robins During the eighteenth century Naples was one of the largest and most vibrant cities in Europe. Hot, dirty and overcrowded, it was a city of teeming life and colour that flowed from court and... »
18 Sep 2004
Soprano still sings, and talks about it By David Patrick Stearns Inquirer Music Critic The majestic voice of Metropolitan Opera radio announcer Milton Cross became painfully flummoxed at the name Kiri Te Kanawa. It was the soprano's 1974 debut at... »
12 Sep 2004
William Bolcom: The `Wedding' planner By John von Rhein Tribune music critic September 12, 2004 Elden is William Bolcom's middle name, but it might just as well be Eclectic. He's perhaps the most versatile "serious" composer now at work in... »
08 Sep 2004
In 1966 Jørn Utzon was forced to quit as architect of the Sydney Opera House before it was complete. Next week, the first new interiors he and his son have designed will be revealed. Louis Jebb reports 07 September 2004... »
07 Sep 2004
Angela Gheorghiu "Sé lo que quiero en la vida" Todavía resuenan los ecos de su renuncia a esa Traviata que inauguraba la pasada temporada del Teatro Real. Después de su paso fugaz por el Liceu y por el reciente Festival... »
05 Sep 2004
Why the Dying Richard Strauss Couldn't Get Enough of 'Daphne' By BRYAN GILLIAM ON June 11, 1949, his 85th birthday, Richard Strauss performed at his piano for the last time. A camera crew was filming a short documentary on him... »
01 Sep 2004
Deborah Voigt, en México Una de las más importantes sopranos de Estados Unidos visitó nuestro país a finales del pasado mes de mayo para dar dos recitales con la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional. [remainder of article here]... »
01 Sep 2004
Plácido Domingo by Cristina Necula The term "force of nature" often applies to those human beings who encompass at once faith, passion, inexhaustible energy, and complete dedication to their mission in life. Their impact on the world is lasting, carrying... »
![Michele Mariotti [Photo by Amati Bacciardi (Pesaro) courtesy of Columbia Artists Music]](http://www.operatoday.com/Mariotti_MG_4200.gif)