Signor Gaetano is the title of tenor Javier Camarena’s latest CD release. It is entirely devoted to the music of Gaetano Donizetti, hence the title. Gli Originali is conducted by Riccardo Frizza who is the musical director director of the Donizetti Festival in the composer’s hometown of Bergamo. The recording took place at the Teatro…
It is now obvious that the COVID vaccines now routinely administered to just about everybody willing to take them has not stopped infection by and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Data from the CDC show that deaths from the virus occur more often in vaccinated subjects than in those that have not received the vaccine….
The most fully realized riot in all opera is the one that ends the second act of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. It’s a gigantic free for all involving everyone in the neighborhood including nine of the meistersingers. Beckmesser starts a serenade full of errors that are marked by Hans Sachs striking his cobbler’s hammer. “David wakes…
Hector Berlioz (1803-66) was a composer of such unique gifts that he deserves a place among the great composers all to himself. So original were his ideas and talents that even after more than a century and a half after his death, we still struggle to keep up with him. He invented the modern symphony…
In chapter 13 of The Pickwick Papers Dickens describes an election for the House of Commons in the borough of Eatanswill. There are two parties – the Buffs and the Blues. The two candidates, Slumkey (Blue) and Fizkin (Buff), have only one concern – getting elected. They and their supporters will resort to any chicanery…
The outstanding public intellectual, Heather Mac Donald has written a penetrating analysis of the current state of medical education, practice criteria, and organizational structure. Appropriately called the Corruption of Medicine, it details the horrible pit the profession has thrown itself into. Gone is first do no harm. In its place is the patient be damned…
Steven E Koonin has written a book Unsettled: What climate science tells us, what it doesn’t, and why it matters. The volume is not very long consisting of mostly data (yes data!) and endnotes. It is a sober analysis of a subject that has been a field of landmines maiming the facts that underpin an…
Limmie Pulliam is an American tenor who is just emerging to operatic prominence. As you’ll hear from the excerpts below he is a dramatic tenor ideally suited for the big Verdi tenor roles. Later this month he is due to sing three performances of the master’s Otello in a concert version with the Cleveland Symphony…
The third movement of Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E flat has one of the greatest melodies found in music of any variety. It’s comparable to the best of Bellini or Verdi. His opus 47 was written in 1842. It closely followed his Piano Quintet (opus 44) in the same key. Both works influenced Brahms…
More operas likely have been written, including the one that introduced the art form, about the Orpheus myth than any other subject. Today the Met’s HD series presented Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice set to a libretto by Sarah Ruhl based on her 2004 play of the same name. The story in this version is told from…