Monthly Archives: October 2024
Finale 42 – Tosca
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th October 2024Puccini’s Tosca has been an audience favorite since its premiere in 1900. It has everything one could ask for in an opera: beautiful and dramatically apt music, a gripping story that wastes not a line or note, and one of opera’s most spectacular endings. Tosca, an operatic diva, jumps from the parapet of the Castel…
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Great American Composers – Irving Berlin
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th October 2024Irving Berlin (1888-1989) was the greatest songwriter in American history. Born in Imperial Russia his father, an itinerant cantor, brought his family to America after their house was burned to the ground during a pogrom. Irving was 5 years old when he arrived in New York. Raised in Dickensian poverty he was out on the…
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Grounded in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th October 2024The Met telecast Jeanine Tesori’s new opera today. It also opened the company’s current season. The opera is an extended version of librettist George Brant’s one-woman play of the same name. The protagonist (Jess) is a woman jet pilot who is grounded because she gets pregnant after a one-night stand. She decides to keep the…
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Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th October 2024Chronic urticaria is defined as wheals (hives), angioedema (swelling), or both that has been continuously or intermittently present for at least 6 weeks, in contrast to acute urticaria which is an episode of less than 6 weeks duration. This condition is common affecting about half a million Americans. It has recently been the subject of…
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John Charles Thomas
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th October 2024America had a profusion of baritones in the 20th century. One of the most prominent then is much less so today. He’s the subject of this article. John Charles Thomas (1891-1960) was born in Meyersdale, PA. He was interested in singing from an early age. From 1910 to 1912 he studied voice at Baltimore’s Peabody…
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Macular Degeneration and Drusen
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th October 2024Macular Degeneration (MD) affects central vision. It is most commonly observed in people over the age of 60. It is much more common in whites than in blacks or hispanics. Severity is divided into early, intermediate, and late types. The late type is additionally divided into “dry” and “wet” forms, with the dry form making up…
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The Tales of Hoffmann in HD – 2024
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th October 2024Bart Sher’s production of Offenbach’s valedictory masterpiece was telecast by the Met for the third time. The last time was in 2015. Each time it’s different. I’ll start with the opera’s ending. It has more versions than a politician’s biography. Today after what once was the end of a Met staging of The Tales of…
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Finale 41 – A Masked Ball
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd October 2024First performed on February 17, 1859, Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera had a long labor and difficult birth. Originally intended for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples it had so much trouble with the censors that Verdi withdrew the work and moved it to the Teatro Apollo in Rome. The biggest problem disturbing the censors…
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