Monthly Archives: March 2015

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk – Amsterdam 2006

Written when the composer was only 26, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is the greatest opera written after the death of Puccini. It’s combination of satire, suffering, audacity, energy, inspired vulgarity, and youthful abandon make it unique on the lyric stage. Add to this perhaps the most brilliant score ever written for the theater and you…


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Tutto Verdi: La Traviata

Does the world need another recording of La Traviata? Of course not. But if your goal is present all of Verdi’s opera on DVD  you must give birth to another version of Verdi’s poor sinner. Fortunately, The Teatro Regio di Parma’s production of Traviata is first rate. No other Verdi opera is so dependent on…


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We’re Number One

You may have heard that Texas leads the US in new employment. Well, here’s one reason. The University of Texas at Austin is the state’s flagship institution of higher learning. It takes a lot of administrative support to keep such a big university turning out scholars in  Architecture to Writing and  everything in between. There…


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La Donna Del Lago – Tanti Affetti

Someone recently said that there’s more to Rossini’s La Donna Del Lago than ‘Tanti Affetti’, the aria for the opera’s title character that concludes the work. Well if there is, it doesn’t amount to much. The opera might best be considered an exercise book for bel canto singing rather than an emotionally and artistically rewarding…


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Florida Grand Opera’s Student Program

On the evening of Friday the 27th of February I attended a dress rehearsal of the Florida Grand Opera’s new production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. I was invited to the rehearsal by FGO’s Public and Media Relations Manager Brittany Mazzurco. She was interested in increasing public awareness of the company’s Education and Outreach program…


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Walking Through the Airport

These thoughts occurred to me while walking the 4 miles that separate American Airlines arrival gates and baggage claim at Miami International Airport. I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences to the one I describe below when in public spaces. Ahead of me was a man of about 40 who was talking loudly and gesticulating with…


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Cleveland Orchestra Plays Beethoven and Shostakovich in Miami

Not surprisingly the Cleveland Orchestra spends part of the winter in Miami. On Saturday evening February 28 the band, led by its Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, played Beethoven’s 5th Symphony followed after the intermission by Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. The venue was the Knight Concert Hall. They had played the same composers’ 3rd and 6th symphonies…


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