Monthly Archives: April 2023
Champion in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th April 2023Terence Blanchard’s second opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones which opened the Met’s previous season was such a hit (it will be back next season) that the company staged his first opera Champion this year. The opera tells the story of five time boxing champion Emile Griffith. Musically Blanchard’s first opera is not as…
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Pronoun Dysphoria
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th April 2023Pronoun madness has progressed to the point where even innocuous ones like us and we have been reshaped beyond analysis. Consider the following sentence from a New York Times article about bird flu published on April 23, 2023. The second sentence of the fourth paragraph reads as follows: “The Book of Matthew may assert that…
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Straws, Camels, and the United States
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th April 2023Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaint. ——————————————William Osler —————————————————— In addition to the…
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LSO Pre Concert Talk
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd April 2023Linked below is a Powerpoint presentation of a talk I gave yesterday before the Lubbock Symphony’s performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto #1 followed by Shchedrin’s arrangement of Bizet’s Carmen for String Orchestra, Timpani, and Percussion. If you wish to make use of this presentation, download all the files to the same folder. You must have…
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Faust – The End
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th April 2023Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, very loosely based of Part1 of Goethe’s Faust, was once so frequently performed that its constant presence at New York’s Metropolitan Opera caused the house to be derisively dubbed the Faustspielhaus. Today the opera, while still performed is not as frequent a visitor at the world’s lyric theaters as it was…
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Der Rosenkavalier Not in HD – 2023
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th April 2023When I arrived at the theater where I have been watching the Met’s HD telecasts since they started about 17 years ago I was informed that the theater’s sound system had failed and accordingly the show would not go on – at least not where I was. I returned home in time to catch the…
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Sing For Your Life – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th April 2023This evening the Met will present its first performance of Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion about the life of boxer Emile Griffith. The leading role will be sung by Ryan Speedo Green whose life story is worthy of its own opera. It’s already been the subject of a book – Sing For Your Life: A Story…
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Falstaff in HD 2023
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st April 2023Robert Carsen’s production of Verdi’s valedictory masterpiece Falstaff was first telecast by the Met in December 2013. It returned today with a new cast. Verdi’s last work for the stage is an operatic sport. There is no work in the canon like it. Its melodic fecundity, mercury-like pace, vocal ingenuity, and its deep insight into…
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