Finale of Guillaume Tell at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome
Antonio Pappano, conductor
Gerald Finley, Guillaume, baritone
John Osborn, Arnold, tenor
Malin Byström, Mathilde, soprano
October 19, 2010
October 19, 2010
October 18, 2010
October 18, 2010
Renee Fleming and Sage Ross were among those attending the opening of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson on Broadway, reports the New York Social Diary.
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EMI will be issuing a recording of Rossini’s opera Guillaume Tell made during the three performances of the opera this month at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Gerald Finley, John Osborn, and Malin Byström, conducted by Antonio Pappano, reports an article in Spanish at abc.es.
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Andreas Scholl now has a Facebook page.
October 16, 2010
October 16, 2010
“Now 84, [Sir Colin] Davis inspires the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus to a performance of vigour and refinement, and it’s for their contribution — and Gerald Finley’s suave, stylish Iago — that this recording stands out.
“Simon O’Neill’s tight-voiced Moor and Anne Schwanewilms’ un-Italianate Desdemona were adequate for the concert performances at which this recording was made, but LSO Live needs better casting if it wants to compete in the central operatic repertoire.”–Andrew Clark, for FT.com, review recently released recording of Verdi’s Otello, 3 stars
October 15, 2010
October 15, 2010
Juan Diego Flórez is going to be a father. His wife is three months pregnant, says an article in Spanish at netjoven.pe.
Article about Paulo Szot, dallasvoice.com
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Opera Britannia review of the Met’s Boris Godunov, 3 stars
October 14, 2010
October 14, 2010
Bedbugs have been found in “non-public areas” at the Metropolitan Opera House, says the Wall Street Journal.
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October 13, 2010
October 13, 2010
Sets not good enough for marvelous ‘Godunov’
But cast and conductor shine in powerful Met production–James Jorden, New York Post
‘Boris Godunov’ review: Show makes for long evening at the Metropolitan Opera, nj.com
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Opera Orchestra of New York is now on Twitter.
October 12, 2010
October 12, 2010
New release today in U.S.: recording of London Symphony Orchestra performance of Verdi’s Otello — Simon O’Neill, Gerald Finley, Anne Schwanewilms, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
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My current listening: Haydn symphonies nos. 41, 58, and 59.
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October 11, 2010
October 10, 2010
Liszt songs — Matthew Polenzani & Julius Drake
The first compact disc in a new Hyperion series dedicated to the complete songs of Franz Liszt is scheduled for release in Great Britain on November 1, 2010, says amazon.co.uk. The singer is Matthew Polenzani and the pianist is Julius Drake.
U.S. release date is November 9, 2010. CD, amazon.com
Liszt: The Complete Songs, Vol. 1, CD, arkivmusic.com
The track listings can be found at the site of Hyperion Records.
Product description:
The start of another Hyperion Lieder series is always cause for celebration. In advance of his bicentenary in 2011, we turn to a composer whose songs, against the vast bulk of his compositions in larger genres, were considered insignificant for well over a century.
A collaborator with some of Europe’s best singers, such as the great French tenor Adolphe Nourrit and the husband–wife duo of Feodor and Rosa von Milde (the first Elsa and Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin), Liszt used song as a compositional laboratory in which to experiment with “Zukunftsmusik”, or “music of the future”, including some of his most finely wrought works. A cosmopolitan artist who traveled prodigiously during his years as a virtuoso performer from 1838 to 1847, he chose song texts written both by denizens of Mount Olympus (Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Hugo, Tennyson, Tolstoy, Petrarch) and amateurs, the latter often aristocrats from Liszt’s glittering social circles. From their words he created songs that changed the very definition of the genre, that are a bridge to such later masters as Hugo Wolf, Sergei Rachmaninov and Richard Strauss.
This first volume in the series features the American tenor Matthew Polenzani who has been astounding Met opera audiences in recent years with his expressive and ardent performances. He is accompanied by the curator of the series and Hyperion regular, Julius Drake.
October 9, 2010
Das Rheingold
I saw the Metropolitan Opera’s high-definition broadcast of Wagner’s Das Rheingold this afternoon at the “cineplex” in Foxborough. I enjoyed the performance about as much as I could have expected, Das Rheingold not being an opera I consider of any great musical or dramatic interest. All the cast were good. I’d say that Eric Owens as Alberich and Stephanie Blythe as Fricka were the most impressive members of the cast.
The much-touted sixteen-million-dollar set did not appear to me to be worth its price. Most of the action takes place in front of it. I guess we are supposed to think that the performance is wonderful if the action takes place in front of a quite expensive modern hunk of junk, but would be awfully old-fashioned if it took place in front of a painted backdrop or some such thing, even though the performance would be entirely the same except as to whatever it is the performance is taking place in front of.
The audience behaved very well, better than most audiences in an opera house.
