“L’Italiana in Algeri” is quintessential Rossini, from its lighthearted tunes to the many twists of its delightfully ingenious plot. As a result, there is no shortage of exemplary recordings, with the 1978 DG release of Claudio Abbado standing out among the indispensable milestones in the piece’s discographic history. In 2024, it is the turn of Pan Classics to present their {…}
In her first solo recital on CD, Erin Morley gives her all. “Rose in Bloom” presents like a carefully arranged flowerbed which, in a horticultural twist, invites in the musical exploration of roses and peonies (Rimsky-Korsakov and Ricky Ian Gordon), tulips (Ricky Ian Gordon), lilacs, and daisies (Rachmaninoff and Ivor Novello). “Like a grand garden with structured plots and wider {…}
“In the Shadows” is the title of baritenor Michael Spyres’ latest solo recital for Erato and Warner Classics. It traces a musical genealogy from Méhul, Weber, and Auber to the Romantic period of Wagner whose “Rienzi” and “Lohengrin” are, to various extents, the culmination point of the artistic developments since the early 19th century. Musical Ancestry The program is certainly {…}
The doctrine of Purgatory, largely based on a few vague lines of apocryphal scripture, is an oft-misunderstood facet of Catholicism. The catechism never explicitly refers to it as a place. Rather, it’s described as a process of purification for dead believers who must be fully cleansed before entering heaven. Of course, this hasn’t kept artists and theologians from imagining purgatory {…}
In 2023, Carlo Rizzi and the British label of Opera Rara resurrected Mercadante’s unjustly neglected “Il Proscritto” – the story of the exile Giorgio Argyll’s return to Scotland and the ensuing, tragic love triangle at the heart of Salvadore Cammarano’s rather unlikely libretto. In 2024, conductor Rizzi turns his attention to another exile: the former tribune Settimio who is the {…}
To coincide with the centenary of the death of the composer Charles Villiers Stanford, the Somm label has released a new disc entitled “Cushendall,” comprising his three Irish song cycles, “A Fire of Turf,” “A Sheaf of Songs from Leinster” and “Cushendall,” along with two arias from his opera, “Shamus O’Brien” and the “Blarney Ballads,” performed by mezzo-soprano Sharon Carty, {…}
The CD release of “Parsifal” under Philippe Jordan is not exactly news. The production dates from the 2021 season of the Vienna State Opera when the gritty, and no less controversial, staging of Kirill Serebrennikov received widespread attention. It was a secular “Parsifal,” highly politicized, and more akin to the oppressive climate of the Soviet Gulag than the Romantic exclusivity {…}
“Havel havalim, hakol hevel” from Kohelet 1:2 is commonly translated as “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” or equally pessimistic, “All is futile.” Yet “hevel” can also mean “vapor” or “mist,” and by extension “breath.” It dons an existential facet which blends with the divine or, in other words, the life force which God instills in Creation. To Nicholas Weininger {…}
This is the second major opera based on the writings of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose case study “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” was adapted by Michael Nyman in 1986. “Awakenings,” by American composer Tobias Picker, is inspired by Sacks’ 1973 account of treating victims of encephalitis lethargica. Nicknamed the “sleeping sickness,” this coma-like condition is {…}