The film was half the length of the opera but included some additional scenes such as a huge outdoor battle scene - the FeldMarschall, absent from the opera, is seen doing his patriotic duty on the battlefield when he learns of his wife’s dalliances at home - an...
No sooner had I drafted my review of Simon Mayr’s Medea in Corinto, recently posted on OperaToday.com, than the world-premiere recording of Mayr’s Telemaco nell’Isola di Calipso reached me, an opera from 16 years earlier, when Mayr was 34 years old. Franz Hauk,...
Writing of McDermott’s Satyagraha in 2010, one of my colleagues wrote, ‘There are so many amazing imagesin this production that it’s hard to take them all in at once’. Here, it’s more a case of the are so many diverse visual images that it’s hard to make them come...
Romanian soprano Aurelia Florian sings Violetta in all ten performances (through October 17). She is young and pretty, her voice is strong and rich throughout all registers, and her high notes are splendid (she does not take the optional high E flat in the “Sempre...
Librettist David Harsent notes that there is no doubt that Judas’s betrayal led to Christ’s death, but begs us to ask, what did Judas believe was his ‘purpose’? After all, if he had not ‘fulfilled’ this role, chosen or predetermined, mankind would not have been saved....
This, and the striking opening of the first piece, Palestrina’s motet Laudate pueri, set me ruminating about nature of an ‘ensemble sound’, and although the following tangential digression might be a little indulgent, it is not irrelevant to my experience and review...
The Lyric Opera Orchestra and the Lyric Opera Chorus, under the direction of Sir Andrew Davis and Michael Black respectively, provided excellent accompaniment. Indeed, several of the selections showcased the talents of both groups as a significant part of this...
Today, singers and their pianists are often more willing also to explore repertory by composers who are much less well known. Also, a CD can carry much more music than the typical LP. Carolyn Sampson—an established light soprano—here offers an entire, well-stocked...
As we journey from the dungeon-esque darkness of the Queen’s nocturnal demesne towards the gleaming sun-disc which bathes the final chorus in the luminosity of enlightenment, a Dantesque night is truly turned into day. However, in 2013, I found the performance, while...
Conductor Isaac Selya and his orchestra of twenty-seven played the overture with its emotion-inducing harp music as the red sun slipped behind the mountains, leaving orange clouds and purple shadows to introduce the mysteries of night. Director and Designer Josh Shaw...
If Simon Rattle can achieve such excellence in the cramped confines of the Barbican Hall, imagine how Britain's cultural life would be transformed if a world class concert hall with state of the art facilities were built. The arts are central to the nation's economy...
That is marketing shorthand for Philadelphia Opera Festival 2017, and in longhand, this is a nonpareil, landmark event. Never was this more evident than at the world premiere of We Shall Not Be Moved, a musically compelling and deeply moving new piece of lyric theatre...