A debut album from the new darling of the opera world: Aigul Akhmetshina, the young mezzo soprano from Bashkortostan. While training with the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Artists Programme in London, Akhmetshina has performed the role of Carmen in Peter Brooks’ condensed version of Bizet’s opera and later understudied the titular role in the main house while performing the {…}
Cellini’s golden “Trovatore” from 1952 is arguably one of the most enduring in discographic history. It has always been a favorite of English-speaking critics, bringing together the Met’s roster of international superstars: Björling, Milanov, Warren, and Barbieri. In Italy, its critical fortune has been more mitigated; yet when pressed, even as staunch a skeptic as the notoriously exacting Elvio Giudici {…}
If it were not for Franz Schubert, the incommensurably prolific Carl Loewe would be the undisputed champion of 19th century art songs. Older, by just two months, Loewe epitomizes Biedermeier aesthetics with their charming naivety and quasi-lackadaisical trust in God. They materialize in apolitical narratives, and the cultivation of the private sphere – from tales of old to homely {…}
(Photo credit: Celeste Gaia) Better understanding the beginnings of a musical genre is vital for sustaining the genre into the modern day. Available documentation of these origins is often scarce, especially when a genre dates back to the 17th century. But, some anecdotes always seem to stand the test of time: because they are destined to. Italian soprano Giulia Bolcato {…}
There is something to be said about the proverbial aura of live performances, especially in the case of “Parsifal” and recordings from its native Bayreuth. The pleasure is double – cynics might argue – in the absence of visual extravagance, incl. kinky stage designs and the intrusion of AR into the scenography. Thankfully, Deutsche Grammophon does not impose the latter; {…}
Transcriptions are not just a measure of any given opera’s popular success. They are also tokens to their longevity and, in the case of Richard Wagner, a bourgeois substitute for the lengthy and very costly stage works not often performed in 19th and early 20th century theaters. Instead, it would be customary to relish the melodic sweeps of the “Tannhäuser” {…}
The Beaufort Scale, in marine terminology, is a qualitative measure of wind force and the empirical description of its various effects first on the sails of 19th century frigates and later, with the advent of steam engines, on the changing behavior of the sea. In contemporary composition, “Beaufort Scales” is also the preter-scientific title to Christopher Cerrone’s newest release, published {…}
This is the sixth of Hèctor Parra’s stageworks, but only the second by the Spanish composer to be issued commercially on disc. His earlier “Hypermusic Prologue“ from 2009 was a mind-numbingly complicated sonic experience—one of those conceptually overblown music-theater experiments that every “serious” European composer of the past decades has felt impelled to foist on audiences. But in the ten {…}
“A te, Puccini.” – The title to Angela Gheorghiu’s latest release has all the ring of a bitter-sweet tribute, a melancholy love declaration right in time for the centenary of the composer’s death in 1924. The program is not your usual Puccini; instead, it is a compilation of 17 songs, including one world-premiere (“Melanconia!”), written mostly for informal purposes like {…}