Recently in Recordings
29 Aug 2010
Like her impressive recording of Lieder by Dvořák (Harmonia Mundi CD 901824), Bernarda Fink’s recording of a selection of Lieder by Brahms not only offers a fine representation of the music, but also demonstrate the singer’s command of this repertoire. »
29 Aug 2010
This high-concept Salome takes place in Nazi Germany.The set has two levels: on top, Herod revels with the banqueters; below, we see a dingy basement, full of kitchen workers, relaxed soldiers, and the prostitutes who help them relax. »
24 Aug 2010
Sibelius’s 1892 symphonic poem for soloists, chorus, and orchestra is in the tradition of the cantata-like symphonies of the nineteenth century, as found in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang or Mahler’s Second Symphony. »
24 Aug 2010
One of the leading lights of Berg’s Vienna was the architect Adolf Loos, the great crusader against ornament. »
24 Aug 2010
The greatest dramatic tenor and soprano roles have proven irresistible to Marcelo Alvarez, who started primarily as a lyric tenor, and Violeta Urmana, whose first career success came as a mezzo. »
18 Aug 2010
As the prelude plays, we see circles of fluorescent light moving slowly in uncertain black space. Are we seeing flights of flying saucers, as in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? »
18 Aug 2010
Robert Schumann’s only opera Genoveva (1850) is best known as a failure in its time and has since fallen into the list of succès d’estime, but with this new release, based on a production intended for television, conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt champions the work in his second recording of the score. »
15 Aug 2010
Does this Tan Dun opera prove or disprove that for East and West, the twain shall never meet? »
22 Jul 2010
The operas of British composer Jonathan Dove enjoy a fairly high level of both critical and popular support in the U.K., where his best known work, Flight, premiered at the prestigious Glyndebourne Festival. »
15 Jul 2010
Poulenc’s only full-length opera is widely admired and not infrequently performed, but its claustral nature makes it tricky to stage. »
14 Jul 2010
This Glyndebourne production is, as far as I know, the first recording of any semi-opera that manages to impart a strong sense of what this peculiar, and peculiarly British, genre is like. »
13 Jul 2010
In 1881 Wagner and his wife were discussing the myth of Eros and Anteros,
and Wagner remarked, “Anteros is Parsifal.” Wagner considered
Parsifal a figure opposed to sexual love, Eros’s opposite. »
27 Jun 2010
What sort of production would be optimal for an opera that with more style than content? »
18 Jun 2010
Recorded in May and June 2008, this new Unitel Classica Blu-Ray disc of Götterdämmerung is the final opera in the staging of Richard Wagner’s Ring der Nibelungen staged at the Palau de les Arts “Reina Sofia”, Valencia, by La Fura dels Baus, Valencia, conducted by Zubin Mehta, and directed by Carlus Padrissa. »
18 Jun 2010
A Franco Zeffirelli production for The Metropolitan Opera typically prompts the use of adjectives such as “grandiose,” or “gorgeous” on the positive end or “gaudy” and “gratuitous” on the negative. »
09 Jun 2010
Siegfried is a challenging opera to stage effectively, and the presentation by La Fura dels Baus in Zubin Mehta’s new Ring cycle merits attention on various counts. »
27 May 2010
The second of Zubin Mehta’s new Ring cycle on DVD, the staging of Die Walküre by La Fura dels Baus, is as engaging as the production of Das Rheingold in its innovative presentation and effective performance of one of Wagner’s most popular operas. »
20 May 2010
Listeners who have appreciated Gerald Finley’s stylish and moving
singing of baritone roles in operas by Mozart and other composers will be
pleased with the recent CD release of Great Operatic Arias in English. »
18 May 2010
Some fortunate operas have any number of fine live versions available on DVD. »
17 May 2010
Recorded live at the Palau de les Arts “Reina Sofia”,
Valencia, this new video of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold
is based on the staging of La Fura dels Baus, with Carlus Padrissa, stage
director, and featuring an international cast conducted by Zubin Mehta. »
20 Apr 2010
Previously released on DVD, the Netherlands Opera recording of
Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk »
20 Apr 2010
This disc neatly captures a central dichotomy of the career of composer Aaron Copland. »
19 Apr 2010
Opera festival DVDs often seem to be produced as tempting advertisements meant to induce viewers to consider a trip to that festival for the next season. »
11 Apr 2010
An anti-facist, anti-war opera written in Germany while the Nazis were in power? K A Hartmann’s Des Simplicius Simplicissimus Jugend was a brave act of conscience, even though the opera wasn't publicly performed until 1948. »
03 Apr 2010
Much of the fascination of the new DVD of Verdi’s Falstaff (Glyndebourne 2009) lies in the Richard Jones’s updating: the action takes place in 1946. »
01 Apr 2010
There are two reasons why you need to see the new Otello DVD (Salzburg Festival 2008).
»
29 Mar 2010
Once again, as in L’Etoile, Mark Lamos’s staging and
Robert Wierzel’s lighting nearly steal the show in the City Opera’s
revival of Madama Butterfly. »
27 Mar 2010
Premiered on 15 April 2008, The Minotaur is Harrison Birtwistle’s latest opera, and it stands well with the composer’s other stage work. »
25 Mar 2010
At one point in her career, Eva Marton appeared poised to be the true inheritor of Birgit Nilsson’s legacy roles: Wagner and Strauss’s most dramatic heroines, as well as key Italian roles (Puccini in particular). »
17 Mar 2010
Five years after the première of Pelléas et Mélisande, Wilhelm
Worringer published the twentieth century’s first great treatise on
abstraction in art: »
17 Mar 2010
For many, the fine recordings of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan by the late Karl Böhm seem to have emerged full-spring from the baton of Karl Böhm and the playing of the various orchestras he led. »
08 Mar 2010
Throughout his relatively long and decidedly successful career, Giacomo Puccini returned to those operas of his that had not, immediately or eventually, secured an important place in the standard repertory. »
10 Feb 2010
Michael Hampe seems to have been the director of choice in the 1980s for tastefully traditional Rossini productions. »
28 Jan 2010
The Times used to have a music critic who seemed to feel that singing,
especially in costume, didn’t count as serious music, though he reviewed
opera anyway. »
25 Jan 2010
We all wish Henry Purcell had written a few more operas like Dido and
Aeneas — simple to cast, simple to stage, offering endless
possibilities for either reserved or outrageous treatment, attractive to every
sort of audience. »
22 Jan 2010
While Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) is best known to modern audiences for his colorful programmatic works associated with Italian locations, his vocal music is also engaging. »
14 Jan 2010
Are you sitting comfortably? »
11 Dec 2009
This disc faces a marketplace already crowded with similar compilations from major companies who can raid their archives to offer competitive interpretations at bargain prices. »
11 Dec 2009
Emma Matthews is an English born soprano currently resident in Australia where she has sung with the state based opera companies as well as the national company Opera Australia where she is currently a soloist. »
17 Nov 2009
In the mid-1980s (just before the Riccardo Muti era began), Lorin Maazel often ruled the conductor's roost at La Scala. »
11 Nov 2009
The worlds of lieder and opera seem to share the same galaxy, while being countless light years apart. »
11 Nov 2009
The December opening of the La Scala season requires a notable production, and in 2001 a gorgeous new production of Verdi's Otello fit the bill. »
26 Oct 2009
Pascal Dusapin (b. 1955) is an engaging composer, and his recent works includes a chamber opera entitled Faustus, the Last Night, a unique setting of the legend and a fine contribution to modern opera. »
11 Oct 2009
A note on the inside back cover of the booklets for these two releases announces that they are part of a new Supraphon series dedicated to “archive recordings of complete operas not yet available on CD.” »
11 Oct 2009
A number of performances from the Sferisterio Opera Festival have been released in recent months. »
11 Oct 2009
Videos from the Bayreuth Festspiele typically feature the highest quality audio and video of any live performance documents. »
11 Oct 2009
The back cover description of this Medici Arts DVD can fairly be called misleading, though not dishonest. »
11 Oct 2009
Although this DVD comes on the Naxos label, an earlier CD version of the same performance went under the Dynamic label, specialists in rare repertory. »
11 Oct 2009
Dear non-German speaking Opera Today reader — what's your first guess as to the meaning of the biggest word in the title of this obscure Johann Strauss operetta? »
11 Oct 2009
Will the 22nd century still see the opera-loving world as fascinated by the ongoing saga of the Wagner family as the 20th did and the 21st does? »
04 Oct 2009
The only thing truly operatic in this work is the use of the word “opera” in the title. »
04 Oct 2009
Besotted admirers of certain lesser-known operas of debatable merit sometimes include conductors, singers and opera house managers with the power to get their cherished rarity on stage. »
20 Sep 2009
While the cover of this Decca two-DVD set mirrors that of Cecilia Bartoli's 2007 CD, Maria, the contents are not identical. »
20 Sep 2009
Reading the articles in the booklet for this set, it becomes clear that librettist Colin Graham was the driving force behind this opera's creation. »
