Tag: Opera

2019, Music

Turandot live at the Four Seasons Centre October 27, 2019

I’ve seen a number of operas in my life, but I’ve listened to far more on CD or digitally. This is the first time, that I can recall that I have seen an opera I’ve listened to much ahead of time or at least, one I’ve listened to as many times as Turandot. So this …

2018, Music

Hadrian by Rufus Wainright Live at the Four Seasons Centre, October 17, 2018

This was the second ever performance of Rufus Wainwright’s second opera, Hadrian, which tells the story of Emperor Hadrian’s final day of his life, as he mourns his dead male lover. I should say at the outset that this is only the third 21st century opera I’ve ever seen, most of the operas I know …

1954, Movies

Carmen Jones (1954, Otto Preminger)

This is a weird one: a film of a Broadway musical based upon Bizet’s Carmen, but which has only been adapted in terms of plot, not in terms of the music (really). Why is that weird? Well, an all black cast, set in North Carolina and Chicago in the ’40s, and they’re singing…French opera.

2018, Music, Theatre

The Nightingale and Other Short Fables live at the Four Seasons Centre, May 13, 2018

Back in 2008 or 2009 or so, the Canadian Opera Company put on a radically different performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “3 act” opera The Nightingale, buttressed by additional pieces in order to actually make the runtime somewhat comparable to a normal opera. (The Nightingale runs less than an hour.) I don’t know who initially curated the selections …

1983, 1985, 1999, 2001, Music

Higglety Pigglety Pop!; Where the Wild Things Are (2001) by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Oliver Knussen, starring Cynthia Buchan, Lisa Saffer et al

This disc features both of Oliver Knussen’s “children’s operas,” based on books by Maurice Sendak.

1924, 1928, 1978, 1980, 1992

From the House of the Dead (1980) by Leos Janacek, performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Staatsopernchor conducted by Charles Mackerras featuring Jiri Zahradnicek, Ivo Zidek, Vaclav Zitek

This disc pairs Janacek’s last (and shortest?) opera with two unrelated chamber pieces performed by an entirely different orchestra, grumble.

1790s, 2016, Music

A Little Too Cozy Live at Studio 42 at the CBC May 20, 2016

On Friday we saw a modernization of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, an opera I have never heard before. This adaptation sets the opera in a reality show where contestants are supposed to pledge their love to each other without actually meeting, similar to the original plot I assume.

1921, 1925, 1926, 1977, 2006, Music

Káťa Kabanová; Cappriccio; Concertino (1977, 2006) by Leos Janacek, performed by Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Charles Mackerras featuring Elisabeth Söderström, Peter Dvorský, Naděžda Kniplová

This set pairs a Janacek opera with two of his chamber music pieces. It’s an odd pairing, but in the era of the CD it was a regular thing when an opera failed to fill out two discs.

1910, Music

Humperdinck: Königskinder (2012) by Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, Chor der Oper Frankfurt, conducted by Sebastian Weigle et al

My initial impressions of Humperdinck were not great, even though I started with his most famous work. This one though, the opera version of a “melodrama” he wrote in 1897 – because the author of the original story wouldn’t consent to an opera – is really great. All the attempts at “big tunes” with the …

1888, 2005, 2015, Theatre

Julie by Philippe Boesmans and Luc Bondy, Live at the St. Lawrence Centre, November 19, 2015

This is a 2005 chamber opera based on the 1888 play Miss Julie by August Strindberg. I have never read Strindberg, and I don’t know if I’ve read much naturalist literature or drama, so this was a new experience for me.

1935, 1957, 2012, Music

Simplicius Simplicissimus (2012) by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, performed by Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Choir, Juliane Banse, Petermarsch, Will Hartmann conducted by Markus Stenz

From the very opening bars it’s clear that this is no ordinary opera. And though that’s true of the most path-breaking and challenging operas of the early 20th century – I am thinking chiefly of Berg’s work – this one is perhaps more shocking given the (seemingly) more traditional stance of the composer.

1979, Music

Einstein on the Beach (1976, 1979) by Philip Glass

I am a very big fan of John Adams’ Nixon in China from pretty much the moment I heard it. It seemed impossible to me that two seemingly diametrically opposed styles of music could be merged s seamlessly. It’s safe to say it changed my (musical) life.

2000, 2012, Music

L’amour de loin by the Canadian Opera Company

I’m pretty sure I forgot to tell you that we went to a performance of Tosca a few weeks ago. For me it was a real experience to see a Puccini, even one I didn’t know. I know reviewers felt like the leads were a little wooden but having only seen a couple operas in …