Opera News articles from May 2005

Opera News archives from May 2005

The Prince of Wales.(Viewpoint)
May 1, 2005... A century ago, when the British Empire was at the high noon of its glory, many British singers, including opera singers, sought to add a veneer of respectability to the somewhat raffish reputation of their craft by acting as "English" as...

The Gay Gotham Chorus, conducted by Jonathan Babcock, will present "From the Grand Tier: Great Opera Choruses" on June 18, at 8 P.M., at Manhattan's Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew.(Opera Watch)(Calendar)
May 1, 2005... 1. The GAY GOTHAM CHORUS, conducted by JONATHAN BABCOCK, will present "From the Grand Tier: Great Opera Choruses" on June 18, at 8 P.M., at Manhattan's Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew. The program will feature the world premiere of "Virtue," a...

Opera Colorado has commissioned Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally to compose a new work in celebration of the inauguration of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at the Denver Performing Arts Complex.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... 2. OPERA COLORADO has commissioned JAKE HEGGIE and TERRENCE McNALLY to compose a new work in celebration of the inauguration of the ELLIE CAULKINS OPERA HOUSE at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. RENEE FLEMING will sing the first performance...

Norwegian director Stefan Herheim, whose unconventional production of Giulio Cesare was a success for Den Norske Opera this past February, will stage La Forza del Destino for Berlin Staatsoper in September 2005.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... 3. Norwegian director STEFAN HERHEIM, whose unconventional production of Giulio Cesare was a success for Den Norske Opera this past February (see OPERA NEWS online), will stage La Forza del Destino for Berlin Staatsoper in September 2005....

On February, 15, in a ceremony at The Town Hall in Manhattan, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a commemorative stamp honoring Marian Anderson.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... 4. On February, 15, in a ceremony at THE TOWN HALL in Manhattan, the U.S. POSTAL SERVICE unveiled a commemorative stamp honoring MARIAN ANDERSON. Among the attendees at the celebration were former Metropolitan Opera box-office manager ALFRED...

At the Met's March 12 matinee of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, cast members Katarina Karneus, Matthew Polenzani,Carlos Chausson, Claudia Waite and their colleagues welcomed two special visitors backstage: sisters Elizabeth And Carolena Mariconti.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... 5. At the Met's March 12 matinee of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, cast members KATARINA KARNEUS, MATTHEW POLENZANI,CARLOS CHAUSSON, CLAUDIA WAITE and their colleagues welcomed two special visitors backstage: sisters ELIZABETH and CAROLENA MARICONTI....

On the beat: Kennedy Center takes a noble stab at Blitzstein's tricky Regina; Luker treats her audience to some new treasures in Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... To commemorate MARC BLITZSTEIN's centenary, the Kennedy Center presented a semi-staged-plus concert version of Regina, Blitzstein's 1949 opera based on Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. The performances took place in mid-March, as part of the...

Being Bryn: acclaimed novelist Colm Toibin examines the simple Welsh background that continues to inform Bryn Terfel's life and career.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2005... It is Covent Garden in the bleak midwinter. In the old days, a character in an Oscar Wilde play could wonder whether the London fog caused the sadness in Londoners, or whether it was in fact the sadness that caused the fog. Now, in the...

The conqu'ring heroine: Sarah Connolly: stakes her claim to the lyric mezzo rep.
May 1, 2005... If it's hard Sarah Connolly off the opera stage, blame it on trouser roles. Most mezzos end up singing them from time to time, but Connolly is sensational in them, completely obscuring her own self behind that of the prince or knight or emperor...

Is it taps for the traditional English pub?
May 1, 2005... AS a pub, the Nags Head surely must have served a fair share of opera types throughout its one-hundred-plus-year existence in Covent Garden. But you'd never know it--and the Nags Head itself hasn't a clue. "Opera?" hollers the baby-faced day...

London calling: a photographic portfolio of the best of the British capital.
May 1, 2005... "Originally the London residence of the Duke of Buckingham, BUCKINGHAM PALACE was purchased in 1761 by George III. The current palace gates were designed and made in 1914, during the reign of his great-great-grandson, George V. ...

The English table: in recent years, London's culinary reputation has been upgraded to world-class heights.(Directory)
May 1, 2005... 1 Criterion [pounds sterling] [pounds sterling] [pounds sterling] Classic French; lively scene, neo-Byzantine gold mosaic interiors. Piccadilly Circus W1 Tel: 020 7930 0488 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 2 Bibendum [pounds sterling] [pounds...

London luxe...: a sampling of the best of the best ... Great Britain style.(Directory)
May 1, 2005... HOTELS 1 Claridge's [pounds sterling] [pounds sterling] [pounds sterling] [pounds sterling] It's impossible not to think of Noel Coward when striding through the Deco polish of the Foyer Restaurant. One of London's smartest accommodations....

Splendor in the grass: Glyndebourne remains one of the world's toniest festivals, but Rodney Milnes finds evidence that its atmosphere is more relaxed than it once was.
May 1, 2005... I first went to Glyndebourne rather more than half a century ago, and as we drove up to the crest of the hill beneath which the Christie family mansion, with opera house attached, nestles, there stood a shepherd, with his crook, in a smock and...

A most auspicious star: the solitary art of composer Thomas Ades, artistic director of Great Britain's prestigious Aldeburgh Festival.
May 1, 2005... It's not easy being a prodigy. Just ask the wagonloads of burned-out underachievers who once were hailed as flame-bearers of their art forms. Markella Hatziano, any one? Nina Rautio? There are enough of them to fill an opera house. If you're an...

Edinburg: a case study: the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, is the Queen's official residence in Scotland; Edinburgh's Calton Hill, stands at the top of Prince's Street in the center of the city.(Column)
May 1, 2005... Deprived, in a clinical sense, is a capital city without a state to call its own. Majestic capitals of Eastern Europe used to feel the neurosis, when they were still mere puppets of Communist Russia, and for 300 years symptoms have been...

Letter from Glasglow.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... In 2003, Opera performed Wagner's Ring cycle at the Scottish Edinburgh Festival, as well as in Glasgow and Salford, to huge national and international acclaim. For many U.K. observers, the company's tetralogy--conducted by--music director...

The best of the European festivals: voices of summer.(Calendar)
May 1, 2005... AUSTRIA BREGENZ FESTIVAL July 20-August 21 Sales/Box Office P0B 311 A-6901 Breqenz Telephone: 43 5574 407 6 Fax: 43 5574 407 400 E-mail: ticket@breqenzerfestspiele.com Website:...

Houston.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... Lysistrata, or the Nude Goddess, Mark Adamo's second opera, shares with Aristophanes's play the names of some characters and a basic situation. In both works, the women of Athens and Sparta, weary of unending war, make a pact to withhold sex...

Chicago.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... Staging Handel's oratorios as operas is generally quite viable, as both genres display the composer's prodigious gifts as a dramatist. Occasionally, Handel's massive oratorio choruses can slow down even the most imaginative stage action, but in...

New York City.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... Camille Saint-Saens, who used to visit North Africa to savor its culture in depth, would have had trouble recognizing it in designer Richard Hudson and stage director Elijah Moshinsky's 1997-98 Samson et Dalila, which returned to the Met stage...

Seattle.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins says he had "never been asked so often by so many to revive any work" as Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas, which returned to Seattle on February 26. Given its world premiere by Houston Grand...

London.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... The Royal Opera has moved on to Die Walkure, the second stage of its new Ring cycle, directed by Keith Warner and conducted by music director Antonio Pappano (March 5). For Warner, an Englishman regarded by some as a prophet without honor in...

Cardiff.
May 1, 2005... Welsh National Opera, founded in 1946, has moved at last into its first purpose-built home, the vast new Wales Millennium Centre, constructed in the area of Cardiff Bay, a major site for redevelopment in the Welsh capital. Just next door to the...

Berlin.
May 1, 2005... In 1974, Volker Schlondorff made his debut as an opera director with Kata Kabanova in Frankfurt. Two years later, he staged Hans Werner Henze's We Come To The River at Deutsche Oper Berlin. The composer had written the soundtrack for...

Budapest.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... Things had been going quite splendidly at the Hungarian State Opera's new Un Ballo in Maschera at Erkel Theater (seen February 19). But when conductor Gergely Kesselyak attacked the downbeat of Act III before the applause died down, Renato...

May online edition of Opera News.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... NORTH AMERICA: The Met revives Nabucco with Levine pacing Guleghina and Putilin, Don Carlo with Luisi conducting Furlanetto, Radvanovsky, Margison and D'Intino, Tosca with Conlon conducting Licitra and Guleghina; New York City Opera's spring...

Vivaldi: Orlando Furioso.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... VIVALDI: Orlando Furioso Lemieux, Cangemi, Larmore, Hallenberg, Staskiewicz; Jaroussky Regazzo; Ensemble Matheus, Choir "Les Elements," Spinosi. Text and translations. Naive OP 30393 In the past few decades, with the considerable help...

Vivaldi: Arsilda.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... VIVALDI: Arsilda Cavalli, Sciannimanico, Fedi, Kennedy, Rossi; Cornwell, Foresti; Modo Antiquo, Sardelli. CPO 999 740-2 It must be official by now: in the world of recorded opera, Vivaldi is the new Handel. There are scads of Vivaldi...

Friml: The Vagabond King.(Sound Recording Review)
May 1, 2005... Wright, Ross; Christopher, Woods, Howle; Ohio Light Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Byess. Libretto. Albany, Troy 738-39 Rudolf Friml is passe these days, but he was not always so. When Victor Herbert--then enmeshed in a power struggle with...

Angela Gheorghiu.(Sound Recording Review)
May 1, 2005... Angela Gheorghiu "PUCCINI" Arias. Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Coppola. Texts and translations. EMI Classics 57955 This rewarding Puccini collection from Angela Gheorghiu runs the...

Verdi: Les Vepres Siciliennes.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... VERDI: Les Vepres Siciliennes Brumaire; Bonhomme, Taylor; Baran; BBC Chorus and Concert Orchestra, Rossi. Text and translation. Opera Rata V303 (3) With this highly, recommendable Vepres Sicilennes, solidly led by, Mario Rossi, Opera...

Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos Tomowa-Sintow, Gruberova, Schmidt, Vance, Miljakovic, Yachmi; King, Berry, Duesing; Vienna Philharmonic (Salzburg Festival, August 6, 1982), Sawallisch. Notes, synopsis, no libretto. Orfeo 625 042 Perhaps one...

May online edition of Opera News.(Recordings)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... The songs of Amy Beach; Beecham conducts Die Walkure; Britten leads Saint Nicolas; the artistry of Jessye Norman on CD and DVD; new recordings of operas by Ferrandini, Donizetti and Kalman; Craft's Stravinsky; Rossi-Lemeni and Carteri in La...

Massenet: Thais.(Opera Review)
May 1, 2005... MASSENET: Thais. Mei, Carraro; Joyner, Pertusi, Fel; Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice, Viotti. Production: Pizzi. Dynamic DVD 33427, 137 mins., subtitled Thais is one of the great guilty-pleasure operas of all time, but the...

Russell Oberlin: America's Legendary Countertenor.(Video Recording Review)
May 1, 2005... RUSSELL OBERLIN: America's Legendary Countertenor Camera Three Telecast (1962), Radio Canada Telecast (1961), interview with Russell Oberlin (2004). Arias by Handel Britten and A. Scarlatti; songs by St. Godric, Purcell, Schumann and Wolf....

May online edition of Opera News.(Video)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Kleiber's bubbling Munich Fledermaus from 1987 is deflated by a coarse production; a disappointing 1974 Glyndebourne Idomeneo with Richard Lewis; La Scala's glamorous 1989 Adriana Lecouvreur, with Freni; a very, brief telecast of Caballe in bel...

Obituaries.(Obituary)
May 1, 2005... MARCELLO VIOTTI Vallorbe, Switzerland, June 29, 1954--Munich, February 16, 2005 The sad and shocking news was that Marcello Viotti died, in Munich at 8 P.M. on Wednesday, February 16. Having suffered a stroke a week earlier, while...

Dateline.(Calendar)
May 1, 2005... METROPOLITAN OPERA (Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-6000; www.metopera.org) May 2 La Clemenza di Tito (Mozart). Diener, Murphy, von Otter, Connolly; Lopardo, Pisaroni; Levine, Ponnelle, Ponnelle May 3 Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi)....

Bullish on Britain.(Coda)
May 1, 2005... "A feast for Baxians everywhere." So opens a 1999 review in Gramophone magazine of a recording of music by Arnold Bax (a recording that even the enthusiastic reviewer admits isn't all "top drawer Bax"). You don't get this kind of writing in...