Top tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres dared to duel at the Concertgebouw. Both emerged victorious, and not just because of the volley of sensational top notes.
Director Peter Konwitschny's staging of Cherubini's Medea critiques rejection and mistreatment of refugees. A strong new German translation and a talented cast make this a must-see.
A fascinating modern production of Cherubini's masterpiece Medea. Lise Davidsen is especially noteworthy while the rest of the cast give luminous performances.
A voice with the proportions of a cathedral; a higher register that's entirely secure; an attention to text. Rosenblatt Recitals gave a tantalising preview of a singer who will have a stellar career.
La Verdi dispatched each of the works with panaché under audience favourite Oleg Caetani. There is plenty of swagger to their playing at present – a Gallic cock with plenty of feathers in its tail.
Prague’s classical music community is walking a little taller and prouder this week. Collegium 1704 stepped up on Saturday night with an 18th century opera program that offered an inspirational reminder of how period music can and should be played.
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra presented a versatile and truly international menu to its audience last week in a thrice-programmed concert titled “Heavenly Schubert” although it was Shostakovich who proved the strongest draw.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem is one the most performed of his works, famously unfinished at the time of his death, but completed at the demand of his widow (money was, as ever, in desperately short supply) by his pupil Franz Xaver Süβmayr.
Anticipation is running high for the kick off of San Francisco Opera’s summer season on Friday, June 8, 2012, with the local premiere of John Adams’s Nixon in China. As a sort of appetizer to the five-week season music director Nicola Luisotti and his players gave an orchestral concert on June 3 at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Scorned womanhood has no better archetype than Euripides's Medea. And you're unlikely to see a more powerful or affecting Medea than Nadja Michael's performance in Cherubini's opera Médée, in the first production of the new season at La Monnaie in Brussels (De Munt, if you're a Flemish speaker.)Like all good Greek tragedy, we all know the story.
The opera is way too dark. It runs far too long. It’s requires a soprano with vocal cords of amalgamated steel to sing the title role. No wonder Cherubini’s Medea is rarely performed. According to OPERA America records, the opera hasn’t been performed in the United States in nearly 20 years.
En ouverture de leur saison et préfigurant la célébration des 250 ans de Mozart, le Classical Opera, offrait au Barbican un concert de l’inachevé. Un programme monumental et une interprétation fidèle, pour un rendu presque trop soigné.
