Author Archives: Neil Kurtzman
Turandot – Three Endings
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th July 2025Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, was left unfinished at his death in 1924. There were notes about the composer’s plans for the conclusion of the work that was almost complete. All that was lacking was the final scene, during which Calaf (the Unknown Prince) and Turandot declare their love. He’s already done so, but she has…
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The Mozart Requiem
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th July 2025Mozart’s last composition, his Requiem Mass K 626, was left incomplete when he died on December 5, 1791. It was finished by the composer’s student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. The extent to which he relied on notes left by Mozart is uncertain. Süssmayr’s other compositions are rarely performed and do not reach the level of his…
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Lakmé
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th July 2025Clément Philibert Léo Delibes (1836-1891) was a French composer best known for his ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876), as well as the opera Lakmé (1883). While the opera is still performed in France, it is rarely done outside its native country. The Met has performed the work 63 times, but its last staging was in 1947. The opera contains…
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Una Voce Poco Fa
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th July 2025Rossini’s setting of the first of Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy, The Barber of Seville, is arguably the greatest comic opera ever written. Its zany zest, unparalleled mirth, overwhelming energy, and musical beauty and inventiveness place it in a spot occupied only by the Marx Brothers. The Count Almaviva is infatuated with Rosina, an heiress whom her…
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The Age of Diagnosis – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st July 2025A British neurologist has written The Age of Diagnosis – How our obsession with medical labels is making us sicker. Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan’s book is divided into a prologue, an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion. Each chapter deals with a specific disease or diagnostic category that suffers from the unintended consequences of overdiagnosis. This…
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COVID Vaccination During the First Timester of Prgenancy
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th June 2025A study of pregnant women in Israel who received the COVID-19 vaccination during the first trimester of pregnancy has been released in a preprint PDF – ie, it hasn’t been through peer review. The vaccine used in Israel was almost entirely the Pfizer BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine. Pregnant women were excluded from the pivotal randomized clinical…
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Astor Opera House Riot
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd June 2025I’ve just written about massacres that are depicted in opera. Here’s a real massacre that happened in front of a New York City opera house. The date was May 10, 1849, the theater was the Astor Place Opera House. I briefly mentioned it in an earlier post. The riot resulted in as many as 32…
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Around the World in 73 Years
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th June 2025Memory is a highly fallible record of the past. This divergence from fact to fancy increases with age and its attendant distance from the recalled event, as well as the fog and confabulation that the accumulation of years inevitably accrues. Despite these difficulties, I started recalling all the cities in which I had heard serious…
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Opera Massacres III – Verdi and Wagner
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th June 2025So many different outsiders have controlled Sicily that if an alien power were to conquer Earth, it would likely start on that island. Among the temporary rulers of the place are the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Muslims, the Normans, the Angevin French, the Bourbons, and now the…
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Opera Massacres II – Berlioz and Saint-Saens
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th June 2025Hector Berlioz (1803-1860) completed three operas. The second of these, Les Troyens, is based on Books Two and Four of the Aeneid. Berlioz wrote the libretto himself. It took him two years to write the words and music for the opera, from 1856 to 1858. Most musicologists consider it to be his masterpiece. It’s as impressive…
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