Music
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Boston Baroque's Les Indes Galantes Triumphs
Amanda Forsythe and Aaron Sheehan Shine as Vocal Soloists
By: - May 10th, 2011Boston Baroque director Martin Pearlman contends that Rameau's music is great enough that a full staging is unnecessary. Well ... However, his crack orchestra, soloists, dancers and conducting chops almost made you believe.
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George Wein Honored by SPAC
34th Year of Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival
By: - May 09th, 2011Jazz impresario George Wein, often referred to as the “father†of modern music festivals, will be honored by Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Saturday, June 25 for his role in founding SPAC’s Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival, one of the longest-running and most celebrated jazz events in the world.
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James Levine Out for the Summer
Cancels Tanglewood and Met Japan Tour
By: - May 07th, 2011The ongoing saga involving the health of BSO and Met Opera artistic director, James Levine, has taken another turn for the worse. After months of speculation he will not appear at Tanglewood this summer. He will not join the Met during its upcoming tour of Japan. He is penciled in to conduct Don Giovanni at the Met on October 13 but let's wait and see.
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Maria Padilla at Opera Boston
Donizetti Rarity Features Splendid Singing
By: - May 07th, 2011Donizetti's rarely produced opera "Maria Padilla" serves as a showcase for local diva Barbara Quintiliani, who nails the role as if she learned it in the cradle, but its ridiculous plot and Opera Boston's cheesy production prevents it from being an emotionally satisfying evening.
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Boston Symphony Orchestra
2011-2012 Schedule of Performances
By: - May 06th, 2011The Opening Night concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2011-12 season will give music fans an extraordinary opportunity to hear Anne-Sophie Mutter in a program of Mozart Violin Concertos Nos. 3 and 5, when she returns to the Symphony Hall stage on Friday, September 30, to make her first BSO appearances in the dual role of conductor and soloist.
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David Daniels Thrills in Orfeo ed Euridice
Metropolitan Opera Revives Mark Morris Production
By: - May 06th, 2011Even if you only go to name the hundred characters from the past who sit in a amphitheater above the stage proceedings, this Mark Morris production, with counter tenor David Daniels singing Orfeo, is well worth a visit.
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Met Summer HD Encores
Play It Again Sam
By: - May 05th, 2011Beginning June 15, the Met will once again present Summer HD Encores, a series of screenings from the groundbreaking Live in HD series, in more than 425 movie theaters across the United States.
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Verdi's Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera
Zeljko Lucic Stars in the Title Role
By: - May 04th, 2011Verdi considered Rigoletto his greatest opera and in the hands of conductor Fabio Luisi and the singer Zeljko Lucic it is easy to see why. George Bernard Shaw, who didn't like anything, thought Verdi had burned the role of Rigoletto into the music. '
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Jazz Entrepreneur George Wein Two
Storyville to Newport
By: - May 03rd, 2011When Louis and Elaine Lorillard visited Storyville they approached George Wein about doing something in Newport that summer. Inspired by Tanglewood he came up with the notion of a Jazz Festival. The Lorillards, who later divorced, supported the first seasons from the founding of the Festival in 1954 until the Beer Riot of 1962. Two years later Wein returned until a riot wrecked the festival in 1971.
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Boston Lyric Opera's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Magic Lost in Misconceived Production
By: - May 02nd, 2011The Boston Lyric Opera presented a musically splendid but dramatically misconceived production of Benjamin Britten's magical Shakespeare adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," So what went wrong at the Shubert Theatre Friday night?
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George Wein Part One
From Boston's Storyville to Newport Jazz Festival
By: - May 02nd, 2011While attending Boston University on the GI Bill seven nights a week, and Sunday afternoon, George Wein earned a living playing jazz piano. Eventually he started a nightclub featuring his own band. Then Wein booked George Shearing for a week at Storyville and the jazz club took off. Later that led to an invitation from the Lorillards to help found the Newport Jazz Festival.
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OPERA America 2011
Conference to Meet in Boston May 7 to 11
By: - Apr 30th, 2011The Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Boston will co-host OPERA America’s 2011 Conference in Boston from May 7 to May 11. The self-described “National Service Organization for Opera†was founded in 1970 and is based in New York City. It is dedicated to the “creation, presentation and enjoyment of opera.†Its annual conference takes place in different cities and is billed as the largest gathering of opera professionals in the United States.
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In Durance Vital - Part II
More Nuggets from Old Friends
By: - Apr 27th, 2011As noted in my first installment of this series, to experience artists in top form almost a half century after they first caught your attention is a marvel indeed. We welcome back our renowned contributor after a winter in Arizona. Where he hibernated and caught up on the latest CDs.
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New York City Opera Channels Stephen Schwartz
Seance on a Wet Afternoon now an opera
By: - Apr 21st, 2011Lauren Flanigan is the perfect dramatic soprano to create the complex character of a medium in Stephen Schwartz's first opera based on Mark McShane's Seance on a Wet Afternoon.
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Zhou Long’s Madame White Snake
Opera Boston Production Wins Pulitzer Prize
By: - Apr 20th, 2011Opera Boston presented the world premiere of Madame White Snake on Feb. 26, 2010 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston, where there were three performances and one preview. Madame White Snake, the first opera commissioned by Opera Boston was conceived by its librettist, Cerise Lim Jacobs, of Brookline, Massachusetts, and her late husband Charles.
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Fred Taylor of Scullers Part Two
Fifty Nine Years in Show Business
By: - Apr 18th, 2011After nine years of working for the Serta Mattress Company a career in show biz started somewhat by accident. In 1952 Fred Taylor made a reel to reel tape of Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond at Storyville. After that as Taylor says "One thing led to another." For the past 21 years he has been booking jazz for the renowned Boston club Scullers.
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Muti and Chicago Symphony Storm Carnegie
The Battle for Berlioz is Joined
By: - Apr 18th, 2011No one shares his passion for music and its healing power more fully than conductor Riccardo Muti, back full force from health and accident problems earlier this year. A neighbor asked me how old the Maestro was, and then guessed 'forty.' May Muti bring us music for another four score and ten -- at least.
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Fred Taylor on Jazz in Boston, Part One
When Copley Square Was Swingin
By: - Apr 17th, 2011For the past 21 years Fred Taylor has been booking the renowned jazz club Scullers. Before that he ran the legendary Jazz Workshop and Paul's Mall. With razor sharp memory Taylor discussed highlights of a career in music that started almost by accident in 1952. With amateur equipment he recorded Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond at Storyville for Fantasy Records. He has been at it ever since.
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Ilona Kudina at Scullers
A New CD: Nothing But Illusion
By: - Apr 16th, 2011In her native Latvia Ilona Kudina was initially trained by her father. There was no formal training in jazz which she heard on the radio or jammed with musicians in clubs. Eventually she earned a scholarship to the renowned Berklee College of Music and has remained in Boston since graduation. The gig at Scullers also served to launch a superb new CD Nothing But Illusion.
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Wilco Solid Sound Update
Improved Camping Amenities
By: - Apr 13th, 2011The previously announced Solid Ground tent site has been enhanced since its initial announcement. The nearby site, offered by MASS MoCA in partnership with the city of North Adams, will include a food service tent with late night hours, pay-per-use showers and simple recreational gear for kids (basketballs, etc.) plus porta-potties and drinking water.
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Capriccio at the Metropolitan Opera
Renee Fleming Enchants
By: - Apr 12th, 2011The HD broadcast of Capriccio will be screened nationwide on April 23rd. It is a delightful production of a Strauss opera and should not be missed.
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Levine Returns at Carnegie and Met
Maestro Masterful and More....
By: - Apr 11th, 2011Not only were the Maestro's great interpretative powers on display, but also a hopeful sense that he is now coping with whatever disability he has and will continue to conduct into the indefinite future. Evgeny Kissin, the brilliant Russian-born pianist, was backed up by the Levine in a great afternoon of music.
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Trouble at New York City Opera
2011-2012 Season Suspended
By: - Apr 08th, 2011The New York City Opera is a wonderful institution, providing an opportunity to mount worthy operas others won't or can't and introducing new talent of the highest order. But it can't fill a large house and perhaps needs a smaller home. Whatever the outcome, the Opera's survival is worth the effort.
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Metropolitan Opera HD April 9
Le Comte Ory as Good as it Gets
By: - Apr 07th, 2011Three great acting singers, Joyce Di Donato, Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flores provide the most elevated operatic singing in a story as silly and fun as anything you've seen, including a threesome in bed singing trios.
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The Juilliard415 at Carnegie Hall
Dorothea Roschmann and David Daniels Perform Handel
By: - Apr 05th, 2011Not shy and retiring, Handel wrote that his own work was full of novelty and exquisiteness. He was right, and in the hands of these consummate performers, his music was simply delicious.
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