I care a lot about The Marriage of Figaro. I used to get into very heated arguments with the other classical music person in my high school, who was obsessed with Prokofiev. Mozart is bland and predictable, he said, with too narrow an emotional range. This point of view baffled and vexed me, and when [...]
Though Heather and I enjoyed Friday night’s performance of Der fliegende Holländer at the Met, the other critics (at least, the two I could find) were not terribly enamoured. Here are some other reviews: The New York Times: “…except for the singing of Deborah Voigt, who brought steely power and lyrical elegance to her first [...]
On Friday evening, ATC’s New York correspondent and I enjoyed opening night of the Met’s Der fliegende Holländer, starring Deborah Voigt. We’ve decided to review it jointly, as a back-and-forth dialogue between us. Neither of us had seen Hollander before, and we loved talking about it as a work as well as about this specific [...]
[Cecily's note: this review comes courtesy of my lovely friend, Heather, who is spending the spring in NYC. With this and the possible Dutchman tomorrow, we here at ATC are engaging in a bit of blog tourism before the Toronto opera scene kicks into gear next week with Figaro] In the first act of Partenope, [...]
If all goes well, tomorrow night I’ll be attending the opening of the Metropolitan Opera’s Der Fliegende Holländer, in New York, starring the renowned Deborah Voigt as Senta. This is a bit of a consolation prize for my aborted trip to Berlin. A million things could go wrong between now and then (including most likely [...]
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
I just returned from the COC’s free Opera 101 event (for Der fliegende Holländer) at the Drake Hotel. There was a very interesting discussion on “interpretive/modern” productions of operas, whether opera is relevant in today’s world or whether it is a museum piece, and how to manage the unpleasant associations that are unfortunately part of [...]
I just found Renee Fleming’s Twitter account. Can anyone think of other opera celebs (or, normal people who have interesting things to say about opera) I should be following? (My twitter username is cecilybrenda. One day I might create a separate account for alltimecoloratura, but right now my recent posts are all about finally winning [...]
Back when I was an avid reader of rec.music.opera in the late 1990′s, there was a discussion about why modern opera composers write in such opaque musical styles rather than the sweet, soaring, melodic style of the most popular opera composers. “Where is the new Puccini?” someone wondered. “The new Puccini has been around for [...]
First: new (to me) and interesting opera blogs! opera-toonity – lighthearted opera blog by Gale, who is writing an opera-themed comic novel Opera Rat – opera discussion from the perspective of a non-insider Second, all about me: I spent Tuesday evening volunteering for Opera Atelier’s Versailles Gala, where I administered a rum tasting (rum is [...]
If you’re like me, and encountered the story of Manon Lescaut solely through the operatic adaptations of Puccini and Massenet, you might think of the character of Manon as a naive, slightly bird-brained, affluence-loving faun, and des Grieux as a kind, guileless man utterly undone by love. Perhaps you might have also been a little [...]
