Tag Archives: Rossini
The Greatest Musical Composition Ever – 1
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th January 2021Obviously there’s a contradiction in my title. There can’t be more than one greatest musical composition ever written. My purpose is to list music so good that while you’re listening to it, it seems to be without peer – at least until you happen on the next greatest work. My plan for this series is…
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Cessa di più Resistere
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th August 2020‘Cessa di più resistere’ is the tenor aria that closes Rossini’s Barber of Seville. There’s a few minutes of music that follows it, but the bravura piece is effectively the opera’s end. That is when it’s performed. It’s so difficult that that it was dropped from the opera shortly after it’s premiere in 1816. So…
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A Few Patter Songs
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th December 2014In the spirit of the holiday season, here are a few patter songs. This form is one of Western Civilizations greatest achievements. While the patter song precedes him, Rossini is the undisputed champion. Below are three of the master’s best examples of rapid fire comic singing. The first from the Barber of Seville is sung by the…
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La Cenerentola in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th May 2014Rossini is life. He reinvented Italian opera when he was 20. And every Italian composer who followed him is in his debt. Today’s HD telecast of Rossini’s version of Cinderella showed why. Cenerentola (Rossini calls her Angelina) has been done 38 times by the Met, all in Cesare Lievi’s 1997 production. His semi-surreal sets and Maurizio…
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Largo al Factotum – Not the Usual Suspects
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th August 2013Everybody know Rossini’s aria, especially the cartoon makers. So I thought I’d present six versions of the piece without resorting to either an Italian or American baritone limiting my selections to singers not known for this role. The word are presented below, first in Italian and then in English. The Barber of Seville is almost…
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Dumas and Rossini: The Count Goes to the Opera
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 8th April 2013Chapter 88 of Dumas great novel of revenge and adventure, The Count of Monte Cristo, is called ‘The Insult’. Here are a few excerpts pertinent to this brief note: Albert went to his room, and dressed with unusual care. At ten minutes to eight Beauchamp arrived; he had seen Chateau-Renaud, who had promised to…
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Maometto II at Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th July 2012On July 14 the Santa Fe Opera premiered the new critical edition of Rossini’s Maometto II. Originally written for Naples in 1820, the opera has a strange history. After the piece failed in Naples Rossini rewrote it for Venice in 1822. There it had a happy ending. In 1826 he extensively redid the opera and had it performed in Paris as…
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Armida Not Live in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th May 2010I was out of the country when Rossini’s rarity Armida was telecast live from the Met May 1. Accordingly, I went to the repeat broadcast. Never before performed at the Met Rossini wrote the piece in 1817 for Naples’ San Carlo as a vehicle for his future wife Isabella Colbran. Renée Fleming was the reason…
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Cenerentola at Glimmerglass
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd August 2009The Alice Busch Opera Theater is on the shore of Otsego Lake (aka as James Fenimore Cooper’s Glimmerglass). The austere but lovely 914 seat theater has housed Glimmerglass Opera’s productions since 1987. The company now presents about 40 performances of four works each Summer. On Friday August 21 Glimmerglass mounted its penultimate performance of its…
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Recording of the Week – Thalberg/Rossini Variations
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th June 2009I’ve mentioned Sigismond Thalberg’s fantasies on Italian operas before. They are a poetical take on the great Italian operas of the piano virtuoso’s time. Francesco Nicolosi has been a champion of Thalberg’s music for decades. Recorded in Budapest in March of 1992 Variations on Operas by Rossini contains fantasies on themes from four Rossini operas:…
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