Long Beach Opera Spins Up Ellington Scrap ‘Queenie Pie’
By Richard S. Ginell
SAN PEDRO, CA - It would figure that a musician with the colossal ambition and fearlessness of Duke Ellington would think to write an opera, but few know that he actually did, sort of. Long Beach Opera shows plucky spirit by fleshing out Queenie Pie.Hilliard Ensemble, On Farewell Tour, Model of Finesse
By Leslie Kandell
NEW YORK - "A cappella male quartet" is a phrase that suggests mellow guys crooning in seersucker jackets and straw boaters. But none of that applies to the Hilliard Ensemble, who are a long way from barbershop. At 40, the group says this year's the last.Holocaust Specter Haunts Weinberg Opera ‘Passenger’
By Mike Greenberg
HOUSTON - Mieczysław Weinberg’s long-forgotten opera The Passenger, in which a surprise encounter forces a woman to face her Auschwitz past, has arrived at Houston Grand Opera in the premiere production from Bregenz, Warsaw, London and Madrid.Fine Voices, Wit Buoy ‘Il Trittico’ At Opera Carolina
By Perry Tannenbaum
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Founded in 1948 on a shoestring budget of $125, Opera Carolina is presenting Puccini's "Il trittico" complete for the first time in its 65th anniversary season. But two of its component one-acts are deep in the company's DNA.Wu Man Presents New Pipa Concerto And Sonoma Glows
By Robert P. Commanday
ROHNERT PARK, CA - The culture gods are smiling on California's Sonoma County. Wu Man gave the U.S. premiere of Zhao Jiping's Concerto No. 2 for Pipa in Weill Hall, where the Santa Rosa Symphony thrives.Bassoonist LeClair Brings Back-Bench Favorite To Fore
By Gail Wein
NEW YORK - All eyes and ears will be on Judith LeClair, longtime principal bassoon of the New York Philharmonic, when she plays Mozart's Bassoon Concerto with the orchestra Jan. 16-22. This time, she has a brand new cadenza.Brave New ‘Parsifal’ At Chicago’s Lyric Is Mixed Success
By Kyle MacMillan
CHICAGO -- Lyric Opera of Chicago deserves credit for taking a risk on a new, unconventional production of Richard Wagner's Parsifal. It has its weaknesses, but it also offers a refreshing take on this valedictory work.Musical Mosaic Honors 75th Year Of Kristallnacht
By Paul Hyde
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- The Greenville Symphony's remembrance program, led by Russian-born music director Edvard Tchivzhel, was part of the city's Year of Altruism, a local all-volunteer celebration of compassion and diversity.Explorer Morlot Links Boulez and Mahler in Seattle
By David Gordon Duke
SEATTLE - Ludovic Morlot, the Seattle Symphony's music director, showed a penchant for adventurous programming with the pairing of Boulez's Notations I-V and Mahler's Symphony No. 6 at Benaroya Hall.Wagner’s Mystique Still Resonates at Controversial Bayreuth Festival
By Scott Cantrell
This isn't a Ring year at Bayreuth, the playlist this summer comprising the other "major" operas. The renowned acoustics are indeed amazing, with a distinctive glow of resonance. Here's a 2012 Festival roundup -- Tannhäuser, Dutchman, Tristan, Parsifal and Lohengrin.The New Orford Quartet in Toronto
I first heard the New Orford Quartet last winter, under less-than-ideal conditions: in a pre-concert performance at a Toronto Symphony concert, in the lobby of Roy Thomson Hall. With the inevitable background noise, it was hard to hear every nuance of their performance – but I heard enough to want to hear them again. So when I learned that the New Orfords would be playing a concert at Gallery 345, a warehouse space in Toronto’s West End, I made plans to attend. Unfortunately, very few other people made similar plans.
Bayreuth for Beginners II: You never forget your first time
The tourist map of Bayreuth immediately plunges one into the deep Bavarian world of Richard Wagner. To get to the Festspielhaus, get yourself to Kaiser Wilhelm Square, reachable via Friedrich V. Schiller Street, Karl Marx Street, or Goethe Street. From there proceed up Nibelungen Street, cross Meistersinger Street. At the junction of Parsifal Street and Tristan Street the avenue enters the park and becomes Siegfried Wagner Allee. Instead of entering the park you can proceed to the right along Tristan Street, then turn right
Chicago Symphony’s 2012-13 Plans Highlight Wagner, Stravinsky and Waterway Themes
Preview: Music director Riccardo Muti announced a sprawling season at Symphony Center, including an exploration of the impact of the world's great waterways on...
The Forgotten Leinsdorf Centenary
This has been a year of centenaries for a number of 20th-century podium giants born in 1912 – Georg Solti, Kurt Sanderling (who missed his 100th by just a year), Igor Markevitch, Sergiu Celibidache – all of whom still have their fame, or at least a cult. Yet a fifth, Erich Leinsdorf (1912-1993), remains in a curious state of limbo, not exactly reviled but not particularly loved. One wonders why. Perhaps his outspoken ways, of not suffering fools or even worthy adversaries kindly, often expressed
The Mental Milieu of ‘Nixon in China’
John Adams' Nixon in China, finally performed here in San Francisco to considerable acclaim, is a great opera, but not in the usual way
Orchestre symphonique de Montreal Closing Concert, May 28, 2012
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End-of-Season Concerts with the Orchestre Metropolitain (Montreal) June 9 & 10, 2012
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The Deutsche Oper’s new ‘Lohengrin’ gets Wings but does not take Flight
By Rebecca Schmid, Berlin: War looms largely in the background of Lohengrin, yet one wouldn’t expect to find tombstones and blood-stained uniforms. The director Kaspar Holten, in his German debut at the Deutsche Oper, takes a morbid, socially-critical approach to Wagner’s blend of fairy-tale and historic drama. As the Danish native states in the program notes, the victory column to the German-Danish war of the late nineteenth century is only a few kilometers from the opera house, something which he
The Juilliards in Canada
As a non-driver, I don’t often venture into suburban realms beyond the northern border of Toronto. But I was up that way on March 28, to hear the Juilliard Quartet at the Markham Theatre play works by Hadyn, Martino and Beethoven. This hall is a nice size for chamber music, but the acoustic is dry. In this unforgiving environment all is laid bare, and it’s possible to hear everything that’s going on inside a string quartet. But first let’s take a look at the quartet itself. The Juilliard Quartet