Category Archives: Opera
Ewa Podleś Dies
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th February 2024Ewa Podleś the great Polish contralto died on January 19 in Warsaw. Podleś was a contralto who while she sang a broad range of roles was especially known for the florid parts of Handel and Rossini. I’ve already written about her in a piece that contains numerous clips of her singing. Ewa Podleś – The…
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Carmen in HD – 2024
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th January 2024Bizet’s Carmen is so great a masterpiece that it can withstand anything a deranged opera company can throw at it. Opera is a fragile art form, particularly in the 21st century. But with productions like Carrie Cracknell’s staging of today’s HD telecast combined with the recent new operas that started this season’s series the company…
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Elektra – Three Deaths
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st January 2024Four of Richard Strauss’s operas are masterpieces – Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and Die Frau Ohne Schatten. The second of these, Elektra, is considered his most harmonically adventurous work. It is often said that Strauss retreated from modernism after Elektra. I’m not sure that’s true. He used the harmonic language suited for the story he…
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Sleepwalkers
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th January 2024Sleepwalking is a disorder that combines sleep and wakefulness. It typically consists of simple repeated behaviors. More complex actions are rare and when reported are of dubious authenticity. It is this latter form of the disorder that finds its way into literature and opera. Episodes of somnambulism last from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. The…
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Finale 40 – Götterdämmerung
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th January 2024The concluding scene of Wagner’s four-opera slog through Norse mythology ends with the Immolation Scene. Its action is described below taken from the Wikipedia article on the opera. Depending on your taste the cycle is one of art’s greatest achievements or it is a vast Sahara dotted with lush oases. I am of the latter…
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Nabucco in HD 2024
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th January 2024Today’s telecast of Verdi’s first masterpiece featured two of the singers who appeared the previous time Nabucco was broadcast in HD. Elijah Moshinsky’s 2001 production first appeared in the series seven years ago. Liudmyla Monastyrska was Abigaille then and now as was Dmitry Belosselskiy as Zaccaria. The title role today was performed by the Georgian…
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Unfinished Operas
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th December 2023The usual reason an opera by a distinguished composer remains incomplete is death. Sometimes, however, the composer loses interest, or as in one of the examples below suffers from gargantuan writer’s block. A few examples of unfinished operas are presented here. A few are very well known, others barely a footnote. They are presented in…
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Beverly Sills
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th December 2023Born Belle Miriam Silverman in 1929 in Brooklyn to immigrant parents she acquired the nickname “Bubbles” as a child. Its shadow stayed with her as a friendly reminder of her early days. She started singing when she was three and began vocal lessons at seven. She adopted her professional name Beverly Sills at nine. She…
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Florencia en el Amazonas in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th December 2023Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s opera was the Metropolitan Opera’s third HD telecast of this season. The work was first performed by the Houston Grand Opera in 1996. This run is Florencia’s first appearance at the Met. Much has been made over two features of the opera neither of which has any bearing on its artistic…
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Finale 39 – Benvenuto Cellini
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th November 2023Hector Berlioz was among the most innovative and original of all the great composers. His first opera loosely based on an episode from the Renaissance artist’s memoirs was written in 1838. It sounds like nothing that preceded it. The music moves like the molten metal that is used to cast Cellini’s famous statue of Perseus…
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