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New Met ‘Rusalka’ Reflects Tradition In Surreal Images

By James L Paulk
NEW YORK – Spooky! Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka starring Kristine Opolais at the Met is a twisted hybrid bordering on a parody of convention. If capricious and confusing, it's also beautiful and intriguing.

Esfahani Stretches Harpsichord’s Era From Then To Now

By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW - Mahan Esfahani is a terrific musician with a beautiful touch and technique to burn. He is also an audaciously contemporary programmer, turning the usual marketing of harpsichord players on its Baroque head.

Brass Group Sets Spark To Ottawa Chamber Festival

By Charles Pope, Jr.
OTTAWA, Ontario – High-decibel intensity marked the onset of Chamberfest, an annual two-week event that's getting bigger and better. The Canadian National Brass Project launched it with classic fanfares and a world premiere.

Bach, By The Sea, Rubs Shoulders With Varied Fare

By Richard S. Ginell
CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. – The theme of the 78th Carmel Bach Festival is “Bach, Bohemia and Beyond,” with Dvořák, Bartók, Zelenka, and even Ligeti in the mix with old Herr Bach, plus a concert version of The Magic Flute.

10-CD Boulez Set Offers Portrait Of Young Firebrand

By Richard S. Ginell
DIGITAL REVIEW - Perhaps the most interesting of all the Pierre Boulez repackagings is a collection that revisits his tumultuous early days as an intellectual bomb thrower and musical style setter at the head of the Domaine Musical.

European Jewish Culture Preserved In Song Collection

By Gail Wein
The Stonehill Jewish Song Collection — over a thousand songs on 39 hours of recordings — provides a reminder of a once-stable life in the old country. Dr. Miriam Isaacs has spent three years working on the project.

‘Two Women’ Melds Cinema, Verismo In SF Opera Debut

By Susan Brodie
SAN FRANCISCO - Marco Tutino’s new opera is a flashy hybrid of verismo opera and neorealist cinema that tells of war crimes in an Italian village after Mussolini's fall. Vivid staging and a strong cast helped lift a listenable score.

Ojai Festival Hails Boulez Amid Blitz Of 47 Composers

By Richard S. Ginell
OJAI - This year's music director, percussionist Steven Schick, has programmed works by 34 living composers, including Pulitzer winner John Luther Adams, who'll be represented by two pieces in their West Coast premieres.

From ‘Liebesverbot’ To ‘Ring,’ Wagner Echoes in Leipzig

By James Paulk
LEIPZIG - Oper Leipzig, in the composer's home town, presented the first three installments of its new Ring cycle, along with performances of Parsifal, Tannhäuser, and from Wagner at age 23, the rarely done Das Liebesverbot.

Dresden Fest’s Varied Programs Sizzle And Chill

By Rodney Punt
DRESDEN - "Fire Ice" is the theme of the 2015 Dresden Music Festival, an extravaganza of eclectic offerings devised by German cellist Jan Vogler, who has transformed the event since taking over in 2009.

Premieres Abound As Festival Salutes American Creators

By Richard S. Ginell
LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Philharmonic's Next on Grand Festival, running through May 31, features seven world premieres and programs led by music director Gustavo Dudamel and creative chair John Adams.

Rihm’s Thorny Concerto Leaves Listener In Lurch

By Robert Battey
WASHINGTON, D.C. - His music toys with antecedents and expectations; it is full of ideas and contrasts; there is often a dramatic arc. But when all is said and done, Wolfgang Rihm's new piano concerto is much ado about very little.

Marionettes Bring Charm, Finesse On Trek From Austria

By Richard Todd
OTTAWA - The Salzburg Marionette Theatre has toured North America with a playful show built around Schumann’s Papillons and Debussy’s Boîte à joujoux. Remarkably life-like puppets teamed with pianist Orion Weiss. Paris is next.

As Smoke Clears, Atlanta SO Turns To Joyful Sounds

By James L. Paulk
ATLANTA — The orchestra that Robert Shaw made famous finally got down to musical business with belated opening weeks led by music director Robert Spano. Short notice after a nine-week lockout saw 31 substitutes filling in.

Previn At 85 Sees Festive Debut For Double Concerto

By Mary Ellyn Hutton
CINCINNATI — André Previn basked in a Queen City of the West welcome for the sunny violin-cello showpiece he wrote for Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson. They'll take it to five North American stops in 2015, then on to Europe.

Six ‘Brandenburgs’: Baroque Moderne From Chicago SO

By Lawrence B . Johnson
CHICAGO - A radiant traversal of Bach's six “concerts avec plusieurs instruments” by the Chicago Symphony under Nicholas Kraemer showed how far we’ve come in assimilating, or perhaps accommodating, Baroque performance practice.

‘Love Potion’ Makes Intriguing Fare In Synagogue Setting

By Benjamin Pesetsky
BROOKLINE, Mass. - For Swiss composer Frank Martin's rarely performed 1940 chamber opera treatment of the Tristan and Isolt myth, Boston Lyric Opera converted Temple Ohabei Shalom into a theater-in-the-round.

Machover ‘Cocoon’ Tunes Listener To Vibe Of The Voice

By Adeline Sire
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - You'll feel your vocal vibrations when you sit in MIT MediaLab's Cocoon and experience the intensity of the oRb, an ostrich-egg-like interactive creation of composer Tod Machover and his team.

Les Violons du Roy Take Regal Sound To Canadian West

By Bill Rankin
EDMONTON, Alberta - An eight-stop tour by the Quebec chamber orchestra has an early romantic flavor, with an arrangement of Schubert's String Quartet in D Minor (Death and the Maiden), plus Mendelssohn and Schumann.

Canadians Twice Remember Fallen With ‘War Requiem’

By David Gordon Duke
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Two cities honored Remembrance Day weekend with Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. In Vancouver, a great tradition is upheld. In Victoria, under conductor Tania Miller, a first endeavor has shining worth.
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