Tag Archives: Santa Fe
Shostakovich and Korngold in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st August 2019Two major works by Dmitri Shostakovich and Eric Krongold were presented yesterday evening by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. They were preceded by a bit of fluff by Alfred Schnittke – Mo-Zart for Two Violins, after Mozart’s K 416d. For the carnival season of 1783 Mozart wrote some music for his family’s use. Most…
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Rachmaninoff and Schubert in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th July 2019The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival presented Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque in G min and Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata as part of its Music at Noon series. A full house was in attendance for the 45 minutes of music that constituted the lunch hour program. The trio was played by pianist Wei Luo, violinist Jennifer Gilbert, and cellist…
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Stars of America Ballet in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th August 2018Daniel Ulbricht is a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. He is also the founder and director of Stars of American Ballet a touring ensemble “devoted to presenting high caliber dance performances, as well as education and outreach programs.” The company which had performed in Portugal earlier in the week presented two programs…
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Donner and Blitzen in Santa Fe Plus L’Italiana in Algeri
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th August 2018On Thursday August 4 there was a terrific thunderstorm over the Crosby Theater of the Santa Fe Opera. The show, appropriately Dr Atomic, continued even though the stage and surrounding area were drenched. The following afternoon an even more explosive storm hit the central area of Santa Fe causing a prolonged blackout. So we went…
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Stravinsky, Dohnány, and Schubert in the Afternoon
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd August 2018The Santa Fe Music Festival gave a short concert starting at noon today. The first piece was Stravinsky’s Octet for Winds. An ensemble conducted by Lawrence Foster gave a lively reading of the 1923 score. Listening to Stravinsky after The Rite of Spring is like reading Euclid for his entertainment value. I have at least…
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Santa Fe’s Clever Candide
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st August 2018Leonard Bernstein’s Candide has more versions than a shark has teeth and almost as many parents. Its genre is hard to characterize; so let’s call it an opera in the same way that The Magic Flute and Fidelio are designated operas though they contain a lot of spoken dialogue, as did the original version of…
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Santa Fe Chamber Music Season Opens
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th July 2016The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival opened its 2016 on Sunday July 17 with three works. First was the semi-obligatory nod to a living composer, in this instance the festival’s music director – Mark Neikrug. He played the piano accompanying clarinetist Todd Levy his Kaleidoscope for Clarinet & Piano. Neikrug wrote Kaleidoscope in 1980. Levy is the…
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Santa Fe Opera’s First Roméo et Juliette
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th July 2016The Santa Fe Opera presented its first ever performance of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette last night in a new production directed by Stephen Lawless. And it was a knockout, a home run, a hole in one. This opera depends almost entirely on its two title characters and they delivered. A sensitive conductor is also essential….
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La Fanciulla Del West in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th July 2016Puccini never wrote anything like the first act of La Fanciulla Del West. Its melodic weave which moves from orchestra to voice and back again owes a lot to Debussy, though its author is clearly Puccini. To an audience familiar with his previous four operas, this type of operatic writing was off putting and confusing which…
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Salome in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th August 2015John the Baptist lost his head last night in Ruritania. That seems to me to be where director Daniel Slatter set Strauss’s sonic boom. I expected the Prisoner of Zenda to appear before Narraboth killed himself. All the men except the Baptist were dressed like they thought the show was written by a different Strauss…
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