Music
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Petrenko to Berlin Philharmonic
Boston Breathes a Sigh of Relief
By: - Jun 22nd, 2015Andris Nelsons' name has whirled in the air around Berlin. He succeeded Sir Simon Rattle at Birmingham and it is Rattle who is stepping down in Berlin. Nelsons was a natural choice. The orchestra made its announcement today: Kirill Petrenko is their man. Recently he has triumphed at the Munich Opera where we heard his wonderful Lulu.
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Sheryl Crow Rocks Tanglewood
If It Makes You Happy
By: - Jun 22nd, 2015The Tanglewood 2015 season opened with Sheryl Crow backed by Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops.
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Season Finale: Schubert and Beethoven Trios
Year-End Wrap up at the Rosen Salon
By: - Jun 21st, 2015Music salons at Joseph and Christina Rosen's are a treat. Over the course of a season, you can hear up and coming pianists, singers, and contemporary composers. The warhorses of music sound fresh and inviting. Only one of the pleasures of an evening is hearing Joe Rosen perform on the clarinet.
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Monteverdi Trilogy Heads to the Berkshires
Early Music Festival Travels to Great Barrington
By: - Jun 18th, 2015Every two years the Boston Early Music Festival schedules a week of concerts and operas that make Boston the world capital of early music. This year's focus was on Claudio Monteverdi, the first great opera composer. All three of his surviving operas were given stylish productions and featured some of the best singers of early music in the world. Taken from Greek myth and ancient Roman history, the stories resonate with the lives we live today.
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Gilbert Conducts Joan of Arc at the Stake
Marion Cotilliard Simply Magnificent as Joan
By: - Jun 13th, 2015The North American continent does not have military heroines. A 17th century Mexican nun, Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, was censored for her apostatic writings, but never picked up a sword. Without queens and saints, we have struggled into modern times. For comfort when France was challenged, as it often has been in history, the country looks to its patron saint, Joan of Arc, who helped end the Hundred Years War before she was burned at the stake. The New York Philharmonic reminded us of her trials in the ineffably moving composition of Paul Claudel and Arthur Honegger.
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Joan of Arc, Patron Saint of France by Marion Cotilliard
Honegger, Claudel and Alan Gilbert Join Forces
By: - Jun 09th, 2015On June 10, 2015, Alan Gilbert will present Honegger's most famous composition, Joan or Arc at the stake. Modestly, Honegger said he only followed the inspiration of his librettist Paul Claudel. Their collaboration was inspired. Gilbert discussed the dramatic oratorio with Come de Bellescize, the stage director, and Pierre Vallet, who assisted Seiji Ozawa with his production of the oratorio.
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The Monteverdi Trilogy at Boston Early Music Festival
Biennial festival puts on more concerts than you could possibly attend.
By: - Jun 02nd, 2015Since its founding in 1981, the Boston Early Music Festival has become one of the leading cultural organizations in Boston, a city not lacking in them. Its biennial festival draws performing groups and audiences from all over the globe. Its focus is on a historically informed Baroque opera - this year it is doing three! All three of Monteverdi's surviving operas in one week. What bliss.
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Carnegie is Busting Out All Over
The Iconic Hall Has Brought Music to Every Corner of New York
By: - Jun 01st, 2015Throughout the five boroughs of New York, Carnegie Hall has presented live music to audiences of every age nd every hue. Community colleges, town halls, libraries and churches have opened their doors to music makers. Catching up at the seaason's end we heard Julia Bullock and Renate Rohling at St. Michael's Church in Manhattan and the Whistling Wolvves in the extraorinarily inviting Weill Music Room in Carnegie's new wing.
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Bizet's Carmen in Sunset Park Brooklyn
Indominatable Regina Opera Scores Again
By: - May 23rd, 2015With four hundred seats cushioned in plush red velvet to match the red velvet curtain donning a stage almost as tall as the Metropolitan opera's, the Regina Opera Company plays to a packed house full of the much-to-be envied millenials, their children, their parents. Everyone enjoyed great opera.
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The Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
Wizard Nézet-Séguin Conducts
By: - May 15th, 2015Music as diverse as Nico Muhly, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff all sprang up from the Philadelphia Orchestra in rich dynamic and tonal swoops as the conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, drew forth resplendent sounds and shapes. From the beating of a woodblock to a celestial harp, Nézet-Séguin dances as he conducts and his body movements, which are smooth rather than exaggerated, convey to both the musicians and the audience the breath of the phrasing.
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Keith Lockhart Celebrates 20 Years with Pops
With Bernadette Peters at Tanglewood July 5
By: - May 15th, 2015After one of the worst winters on record yet again Spring means six glorious weeks of the Boston Pops. We participated in the gala opening night launch of Keith Lockhart's 20th season. His guest was Broadway star Bernadette Peters. It provided a preview of their appearance together at Tanglewood on July 5.
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Gerald Finley: Master and Devil
Teaching the Art of Generosity
By: - May 12th, 2015Gerald Finley is showing young singers a moment, steering them, helping them build their unique gifts as he conducts a Master Class at Juilliard. He emphasizes intimacy as the connection between the singer in full, his personality and spirit released out to the world in song. Finley took time off from his thrilling performance as Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress at the Met.
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The Road of Promise by the Collegiate Chorale
Ted Sperling Conducts a Kurt Weill Blockbuster
By: - May 07th, 2015Kurt Weill had had theatrical success with Three Penny Opera and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny when he was approached by Max Reinhardt to compose music for a pageant highlighting the plight of Jewish people in Germany and throughout the world. The Collegiate Chorale presented an oratorio based on the pageant.
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Duncan Rock Rocks BLO's
Libertine Gets his Come-upance in Mozart Classic
By: - May 04th, 2015The Boston Lyric Opera's production was stylish and emphasized the opera's comedy over its more serious elements. It featured young singers, the hunky Duncan Rock as the Don and a fiery Jennifer Johnson Cano as Donna Elvira.
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Mozart's Magic Flute Set in a Masonic Symbol
Night and Sunlight Battle at the Manhattan School of Music
By: - May 02nd, 2015The symbol of the Free Masons frames the set of the Manhattan School of Music production. A circular insert reveals the interior dramas of the opera: the imprisonment of Pamina, journeys through the forest, the home of the Queen of the Night. An effective transition from sun to moon locates us in the various worlds of the opera.
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Susanna Phillips Shines as Agrippina
Boston Baroque Does Popular Handel Opera
By: - May 01st, 2015Based on the most dysfunctional family in ancient Rome, "Agrippina" shows title character's drive to crown her son Nero, Emperor. This witty production features brilliant singing by an excellent cast.
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Martha Reeves & the Vandellas Rocks P’Town
Payomet Launches 2015 Season
By: - Apr 25th, 2015The Payomet Performing Arts Center got a jump on the season with two performances of the vintage Motown group Martha and the Vandellas. In mid April it was still chilly on the lower cape but the group caused a Heat Wave at Town Hall in Provincetown.
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Tenor Joseph Calleja Wows Crowd at Jordan Hall
Maltese Tenor Heralds Return of Romantic Singing
By: - Apr 23rd, 2015Although he stuck primarily to Italian and French arias and songs, Calleja showed his range, singing in Russian, Spanish and English. A true entertainer, he cracked jokes while delivering heart-stirring vocal thrills, despite suffering from a cold.
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Röschmann and Uchida Captivate Carnegie
Sleeping Songs Arise
By: - Apr 22nd, 2015The poet who provides the lyrics for Schumann's Liederkreis which opened this extraordinary program at Carnegie Hall speaks of song sleeping in all things. Song came alive in concert with Dorothea Röschmann with the heartbeat of the piano in Uchida's hands.
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Martha and the Vandellas in Provincetown
Payoment Performing Arts Center April 18 & 19
By: - Apr 16th, 2015Martha and the Vandellas will have them dancing in the streets. Commercial Street in Provincteown this weekend. Actually, inside Provincetown Town Hall for an early launch of the season. Saturday night is sold out but there are tickets available for the Sunday performance. Other upcoming events include Loa Lobos and Spuyten Duyvil.
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Les Violons du Roy Loft Purcell at Carnegie Hall
Dorothea Röschmann, A Dark and Pure Dido
By: - Apr 13th, 2015Before Bach and Purcell don't instantly call to mind slapstick, but there is was, and marvellously done, onstage at Carnegie Hall. Purcell's The Fairy Queen was written to please: we missed the singing monkeys, but had two delightful fairies sung by Lesley Emma Bouza and Sheila Dietrich to tease a bumbling, drunk Stephen Hegedus until he collapsed in a heap. So much for the warm-up.
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New Hampshire Music Festival
Progrtam from July 7 to August 6
By: - Apr 09th, 2015The New Hampshire Music Festival (NHMF) has announced its 2015 summer season to be held from July 7 through August 6 in Plymouth and the surrounding communities of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. With a theme of “American Landscapes,†the festival’s 63rd season will explore and celebrate American music and the great outdoors.
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Boston Symphony Orchestra 2015-16
Under Conductor Andris Nelsons
By: - Apr 03rd, 2015BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra in thirteen extraordinarily wide-ranging programs in the 2015-16 BSO season.
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Gotham Chamber Opera
Excerpts from Shakespeare's Musical
By: - Mar 28th, 2015Ever innovative and daring, yet pleasing to audiences young and old, the Gotham Chamber Opera is a go-to company for an ear-tingling, eye-catching experience. The Tempest Songbook stretches its limits in unusual ways. Composer Kaija Saariaho joins Purcell. Martha Graham dancers give us characters dead and aive. Neal Goren and his musicians pull it all together.
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Piotr Anderszewki Revels in Bright Tones, Dark Hall
Bach and Schumann Entrance at Carnegie
By: - Mar 20th, 2015Twas a concert at Carnegie and all through the house, was quiet and darkness and nary a noise. From out of the dark came tones silvery and bright. They might have been struck by stars this night. But at the piano sat the Polish pianist and composer, Piotr Anderszewski, lofting Bach and Schumann. The beauty of Bach shone in a new light. Schumann's love messages to his future wife have never been more persuasive.
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