Author Archives: Neil Kurtzman
Respighi and Verdi
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th December 2024Below are the program notes I wrote for the upcoming concert of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra – Saturday, January 18, 2025. Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) was the only important Italian composer of his era better known for his instrumental works than for his operas. Though he wrote nine operas, they are almost never performed. His orchestral compositions, on the…
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Feodor Chaliapin
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th December 2024Feodor Chaliapin ( 1873-1938) was perhaps the greatest singing actor of the 20th century. His voice was on a par with Caruso’s (also born in February 1873) while his acting ability was at least equal to that of Maria Callas. He was born to a peasant family in Kazan Russia. After vocal studies with a…
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Finale 43 – Three From Anna Bolena
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th November 2024Today is a Black Friday special – three finales for the price of one. Donizetti’s Anna Bolena was his 37th opera and his first success. He is the undoubted holder of the Persistence in Lyric Composition Award. He wrote over 30 operas after Bolena, a few of which were also successful. Anna Bolena is about…
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Puccini 100 Years After
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th November 2024Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the death of the last great master of Italian opera – Giacomo Puccini. So great is the composer’s hold on opera’s audience that of the seven most performed operas at the Met three are by Verdi, three by Puccini – the remaining one is Carmen. There is nothing I…
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Tosca in HD 2024
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd November 2024Puccini’s political melodrama was presented at the Met for the 1017th time. This performance was the fourth presentation of the opera on the Met’s HD series. All three leads sang their roles for the first time at the Met in this season’s run. David McVicar’s traditional staging works very well. Presenting a Puccini opera as…
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Religion and Politics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th November 2024Religion, regardless of form or complexity, has been a constant in all human societies for as long as we can recall. Politics is likely just as ancient. I’ll define religion as the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods. The reader can extend the definition if so…
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The Greatest Musical Composition Ever – VI
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th November 2024Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is one of art’s mightiest thunderbolts. Written about the same time as the 9th Symphony, it was first performed in Saint Petersburg, Russia on April 7, 1824. The mass is scored for a quartet of vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra. The first three parts were performed in Vienna a month later. A performance…
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The Ghost of COVID
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th November 2024Niall Ferguson is a brilliant historian and commentator on current events. The following fragment of a sentence is from a recent article on the election. […the Covid vaccines that saved a significant number of older voters’ lives in 2021.] Ferguson’s topic is not the COVID vaccine, it’s politics. But he obviously thinks the vaccines were…
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Giuseppe Giacomini
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th November 2024Giuseppe Giacomini (1940-2021) was one of the greatest tenors active during the last 30 years of the 20th century. Despite the excellence of his singing, he never achieved the widespread fame accorded his exact contemporaries – Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Nevertheless, his career was quite successful; he appeared at all the major opera houses,…
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Tucker Video – Vesti La Giubba (1974)
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd November 2024On November 16, the great American tenor Richard Tucker performed Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at the Met. The opera was recorded and intended to be released paired with Cavalleria Rusticana, featuring Franco Corelli in the leading tenor role. The project was never marketed for some unknown (at least to me) legal reason. Tucker’s reading of…
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