Tag Archives: La Sonnambula
La Sonnambula Returns to the Met
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th March 2014When I was studying music at Williams College my professor Robert Barrow, the chairman of the department and a figure of magisterial austerity, said that whenever he went to the Met to hear Wagner he always demanded a seat behind a post. I can’t remember if the old Met really had a seat behind a…
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Ah Non Credea Mirarti – Bellini and Thalberg
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th October 2013Vincenzo Bellini (1801-35) was born in Catania,Sicily and died before his 34th birthday outside of Paris. He was beautiful, delicate (Heine described him as a sigh in pumps), and could write melodies of unsurpassed beauty. Everyone loved his melodies – Wagner, Verdi (he said the melodies are long, long, long), and Chopin who was influenced…
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La Sonnambula in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st March 2009Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Bellini’s gentle masterpiece which was booed after its first performance at the Met was sent all over the world today. And it wasn’t the worst thing since Jacopo Peri. It wasn’t even in the same league of awfulness as Calixto Bieito or Robert Wilson. It was just ordinary silliness. Part…
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Zimmerman Booed at the Met
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd March 2009Bellini’s La Sonnambula received its first performance tonight in Mary Zimmerman’s new staging. Much has been made of her decision to move the opera’s locale from a Swiss village to a New York rehearsal hall. Considering her assault on Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor it seemed foolish to bring her back for another shot at a…
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