Opera News articles from November 2001

Opera News archives from November 2001

DEALING WITH TRAGEDY.(following the U.S terrorist attacks)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
November 1, 2001... Some of the nation's proudest cultural institutions cluster here in Lincoln Center, about five miles from the World Trade Center, which is now referred to by most news organizations as Ground Zero. Distance spared those institutions from...

LETTERS.(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2001... HYPERCRITIC * OPERA NEWS is to be faulted for not sending a critic more sympathetic to a performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder than Alan Wagner [August 2001]. Wagner glibly finds Schoenberg "wallowing in post-Wagnerianism," while...

CORRECTIONS.(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2001... The review of Fabio Armiliato's Verdi disc [July] states that it includes "the first recording in more than half a century of `Inno delle Nazioni.'" A 1995 CBC CD, Rarities by Rossini and Verdi, features a performance of the piece by Richard...

OPERA WATCH.(current events)(Brief Article)(Column)
November 1, 2001... 1. THE 92ND STREET Y will present THE SCRIMSHAW VIOLIN, a new musical-theater piece by Bruce Saylor (music) and Jonathan Levi (libretto), on December 3 and 4. Based on a short story by Levi published by Granta magazine in 1997, Scrimshaw is the...

ON THE BEAT.(opera singers James Morris, Cole Vinson)(Brief Article)(Interview)(Obituary)
November 1, 2001... Morris's greatest challenge; Waters on his early struggles; Cole gives pointers to the next generation; Scholl's Wayfaring Stranger gets lost Recently, I telephoned JAMES MORRIS while he was at San Francisco Opera, in the midst of a run of...

THE POP SIDE.(Karen Morrow)(Interview)
November 1, 2001... Karen Morrow Not long ago, at a gathering at the Manhattan apartment of playwright-actor Charles Busch (The Tale of the Allergist's Wife), someone slapped in a videocassette and exhorted all the guests to "watch this -- you're not going to...

SoUND BiTES: Sara Fulgoni.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Creating title role in Tobias Picker's Therese Raquin this month at Dallas Opera will mark a turning point for British mezzo-soprano Sara Fulgoni. This will be the first time that she has sung in a world premiere, and she is relishing the...

LONDON CALLING.(career of George London)
November 1, 2001... FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH. GEORGE LONDON MADE HIS MET DEBUT AS AMONASRO. CONRAD L. OSBORNE ANALYZES THE ARTISTRY THAT MADE LONDON ONE OF A SELECT FEW SINGERS WHO CAN GENUINELY BE CALLED "GREAT." When the Metropolitan Opera's 1951-52 season...

L'Amour, The Second Time Around.
November 1, 2001... Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin has had a smoother ride than most new operas have: it's being revived this month at Paris's Theatre du Chatelet, and next summer it's slated for Santa Fe. Paris, which initially booed many a masterpiece,...

BASS HIT.(Rene Pape)
November 1, 2001... RENE PAPE, POGNER IN THE MET'S REVIVAL OF DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG THIS SEASON, IS THE NEWEST BASS THAT EVERYONE'S RAVING ABOUT. Rene: two syllables. Pape: likewise. As in Papageno? "Ja, or Paparotti," the bass quips with gruff,...

THE THREE FACES OF NORMA.(authorship and analysis of the opera)
November 1, 2001... Priestess, lover, leader -- JOHN YOHALEM examines the complex nature of Bellini's heroine, who returns to the Met this month after twenty-year absence In the summer of 1831, Bellini and his librettist, Felice Romani, wished to create a...

The Campanella Line.(opera conductor Bruno Campanella)(Interview)
November 1, 2001... One of today's masters of bel canto style, conductor Bruno Campanella gets ready to lead this month's revival of I Capuleti e i Montecchi at Lyric Opera of Chicago If there is one domain where the singer can be said to reign supreme, it is...

Letter from Sicily.(Brooks Peters, narrative)(Column)
November 1, 2001... Throughout its history, Sicily has been celebrated as many things: the Garden of Persephone, the playground of Arab princes and the prize of Norman kings. Waves of conquerors seized it as their own, leaving behind a continent's worth of...

The Endangered List.(opera world leaders comment on under-appreciated operas)
November 1, 2001... It might be Ginastera's Bomarzo, or maybe Massenet's Sapho. We all have a favorite opera in the gone-but-not-forgotten category. BETSY MINGO asks some of the opera world's leading lights to pick their nominees for most unjustly neglected work...

BERLIOZ: Les Troyens.(Hector Berlioz, opera sound recordings)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... BERLIOZ: Les Troyens [] DeYoung, Lang, Mingardo; Heppner, Tarver, Mattei Milling; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Davis. Text and translation. LSO Live LSO0010 CD (Empire, dist.) It's fitting that Hector Berlioz should have been...

MOZART: Don Giovanni.(Review)
November 1, 2001... MOZART: Don Giovanni (in English) [] Cullagh, Tierney, Plazas; Magee, Bayley, Banks, Shore, Robinson; Philharmonia Orchestra, Parry. English text. Chandos CHAN 3057(3) The choice to record a well-known and much-recorded opera in...

PUCCINI: Tosca.(Review)
November 1, 2001... PUCCINI: Tosca [] Gheorghiu; Alagna, Raimondi, Fissore; Tiffin Children's Choir, Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Pappano. Texts and translations. EMI Classics CDS 5 57173 2 Far from another wheel on the...

PURCELL: Dido and Aeneas.(Henry Purcell, opera CD recording)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... PURCELLL: Dido and Aeneas [] Pudwell, Haller, Duthoit; Harvey White, Maire; Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet. Text in English, French, Spanish, German. Glossa GCD 921601 (Qualiton, dist.) Considered the quintessential English opera (until the...

LEHAR: Fruhling.(Franz Lehar, opera sound recording)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... LEHAR: Fruhling [] Krahnenfeld, Browner; Worle, Kohler; Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Goritzki. Text and translation. CPO 999 727-2 (Naxos, dist.) In Franz Lehar's Fruhling (1922), a shy young composer named Lorenz falls in love with a...

SMAREGLIA: Nozze Istriane.(Antonio Smaregelia, opera sound recording)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... SMAREGLIA: Nozze Istriane [] Vassileva, Lytting, Storey Mastromarino, Surjan, Capuano; Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Verdi, Trieste, Severini. Text and translation. Bongiovanni GB 2265/66-2 (Qualiton, dist.) Like so many of the...

HAYDN: Der Apotheker (Lo Spezide).(Joseph Haydn, opera sound recording)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... HAYDN: Der Apotheker (Lo Speziale) [] Meszaros, Browner; Morino, Moller; Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Goritzki. Italian text and German translation only. Berlin Classics 0017122 (Koch, dist.) Just because Haydn's operas are not uniformly...

PREVIN: Diversions; Songs.
November 1, 2001... PREVlN: Diversions; Songs [] With Bonney, Fleming; Vienna Philharmonic/London Symphony Orchestra, Previn, conductor and piano. Texts. DG 289 471 028-2 The paradox of Andre Previn's recent vocal music is that while it doesn't sound like the...

WOLF: Goethe Lieder.(Hugo Wolf, sound recording)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... WOLF: Goethe Lieder [] McGreevy; Johnson, piano. Notes, text and translations. Hyperion CDA67130 In a time when most record companies are cutting back severely on classical releases, it is heartening to see that Hyperion's traversal of the...

J. MARTIN: The Glass Hammer.(Review)
November 1, 2001... J. MARTIN: The Glass Hammer [] Sylvan; Breitman, piano. English texts. Koch International Classics 3-7419-2HI Cuban--American composer Jorge Martin's song cycle The Glass Hammer consists of fifteen selections from Andrew Hudgins's...

SCHUBERT: Schiller Lieder.(Review)
November 1, 2001... SCHUBERT: Schiller Lieder [] Bruns; Eisenlohr, piano. Text translations. Naxos 8.554740 Martin Bruns and Ulrich Eisenlohr are hardly household names, but maybe they should be. Their disc of Schubert's Schiller-Lieder, the latest...

NOVEMBER ONLINE EDITION OF OPERA NEWS.
November 1, 2001... An American song recital from Carole Bogard; Pauline Tinsley in 1976 broadcast of I Gioielli di Madonna; Werner Egk's Columbus; two historic Geneva performances conducted by Ernest Ansermet; DG remasters Fischer-Dieskau/Fricsay Don Giovanni;...

CORRECTION.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Empire Music Group distributes the CDs of La Damnation de Faust (LSO Live 0008) and Haddon Hall (The Divine Art 21201) reviewed in September.

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: NORTH AMERICA: SEATTLE.(Der Ring des Nibelungen )(Review)
November 1, 2001... Land of strong lumberjacks and even stronger coffee, Seattle moves ever onward toward its unlikely transmogrification into the Bayreuth of the West. In little more than a quarter-century, the city's intrepid operagoers have had three separate...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: NORTH AMERICA: SANTA FE.(Santa Fe Opera season)(Review)
November 1, 2001... This year's Santa Fe Opera season, the first under new general director Richard Gaddes, offered the company's usual sort of mix: one old favorite (Lucia di Lammermoor), two fairly regular semi-standards (Falstaff, Wozzeck) and two rarities...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: NORTH AMERICA: CENTRAL CITY.(Gloriana)(Review)
November 1, 2001... Central City Opera crammed the panoply and passions of Gloriana, Benjamin Brittens third large-scale opera and his most theatrically spectacular, into its intimate (550-seat) theater this past summer. Though the opera received a concert...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: NORTH AMERICA: LENOX, MA.
November 1, 2001... As Seiji Ozawa wound up his penultimate season as chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra this past summer at Tanglewood, he affirmed this festival's renewed commitment to opera, both on an advanced-student level in Tanglewood's...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: NORTH AMERICA: VIENNA, VA.(Britten, Benjamin)(Wolf Trap Opera)(Review)
November 1, 2001... To complement its production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wolf Trap Opera had the advantages of a quaint, intimate, barn-like theater nestled in a verdant grove, an eager young cast and even a balmy evening outside (July 20) but the...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL: GLYNDEBOURNE.(Fidelio)(Review)
November 1, 2001... The Sussex opera house had not staged Beethoven's masterpiece in twenty years before Simon Rattle raised his baton to conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the Fidelio overture on May 17. The band had a slightly bumpy night --...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL: ST. PETERSBURG.(Kirov Opera Company)(Review)
November 1, 2001... With its new production of Die Walkure, introduced on June 19 as part of the Stars of the White Nights Festival, Kirov Opera not only has reached the midpoint of its new production of the Ring but has now mounted five of the ten "mature" operas...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL: BREGENZ.(opera festival, Austria)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Each season, the Bregenz Festival presents one opera indoors, in the Festspielhaus, and another outdoors, on a floating stage in the Bodensee. This season, intendant Alfred Wopmann once again dared to enter the danger-zone of the repertory,...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL: VIENNA.(Nabucco)(Review)
November 1, 2001... Surprisingly, Verdi's Nabucco had never been shown at the State Opera until the production that opened on May 31 (seen June 6). Director Gunter Kramer sees the work simply as a "family drama," which in a way it is, but he was unable to ignore...

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL: MELBOURNE.(Opera Australia)(Andrea Chenier)(Review)
November 1, 2001... There is something fundamental about Andrea Chenier. Like Il Trovatore, its action involves the raw exposure of those emotions that make opera unique -- the overwhelming impulses of romantic love, the heroic defiance of tyranny and social...

MEYERBEER: Les Huguenots.
November 1, 2001... MEYERBEER: Les Huguenots [] Denning, Peacock, Bellamy; Leech, Carlson, Capasso, Welker, Blasius; Deutsche Oper Berlin, Soltesz. Arthaus Musik DVD 100157, 156 mins. (Naxos, dist.) Riding the DVD tide, Arthaus Musik offers Deutsche Oper's...

Molto Agitato: The Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera.
November 1, 2001... Molto Agitato: The Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera by Johanna Fiedler Doubleday, 384pp. $30 In Chapter 37 of her new history of the Met, Johanna Fiedler takes on the convoluted story of the company's current Carmen...

Mary Lewis: The Golden Haired Beauty with the Golden Voice.
November 1, 2001... Mary Lewis: The Golden Haired Beauty with the Golden Voice by Alice Fitch Zeman Rose Publishing, 246 pp. $24.99 Soprano Mary lewis is a character worthy of a Jacqueline Susann novel. Raised in poverty, she became a star of the Ziegfeld...

Bravo! Brava! A Night at the Opera: Behind the Scenes with Composers, Cast and Crew.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Bravo! Brava! A Night at the Opera: Behind the Scenes with Composers, Cast and Crew Text and color illustrations by Anne Siberells Oxford University Press, 64pp. $19.95 This introduction to opera is a curious hybrid of primer and reference...

Wigmore Hall: A Celebration.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Wigmore Hall: A Celebration Edited by Julia MacRae The Wigmore Hall Trust, 224pp. 15 [pounds sterling] (approx. $21) (36 Wigmore Street, London W1U 2BP Tel: 44 207 486 1907 Fax: 44 207 224 3800) Wigmore Hall has a special place in Londons...

Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography by Anne Edwards St. Martin's Press, 352 pp. $27.95 Visiting the Jacqueline Kennedy fashion exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was struck by how much Maria Callas had in common with the former...

DEAD MAN WRITING.(Marc Blitzstein and notes for opera Sacco and Vanzetti)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2001... Living American composers don't realize how lucky they are. A worst-case example of what can happen after they're dead or lose control over their work took place in Westport, Connecticut, on August 18. Lured by the promise of a...