Opera

Opera Album Review: Baroque Music Enlivens the Boston Music Scene and Two New French Recordings

September 17, 2024
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The Boston Early Music Festival announces its 2024-25 season, and our critic welcomes world-premiere recordings of operas by Mondonville and Destouches, splendidly sung and glitteringly played.

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Opera Album Review: The Music of Georg Philipp Telemann — Finally Getting Its Proper Recognition

September 8, 2024
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You want Baroque energy and Early Classic poise? Here’s a first-rate recording of a one-act, one-singer opera by Telemann along with some of his imaginative orchestral works.

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Opera Album Review: First-Ever Recording of “Shamus O’Brien” — A Long-Forgotten Delight by One of Britain’s Savviest Composers

September 2, 2024
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A success in 1890s London and New York, the engaging Irish comic opera “Shamus O’Brien” finally gets Its world-premiere recording

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Opera Album Review: One of Saint-Saëns’s Best Operas — Finally on Disc!

August 15, 2024
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We have a recording of “Déjanire,” its first ever. And it’s splendid, with a superb cast, an insightful conductor, and the orchestra and chorus of the very city in which it was first performed a century earlier!

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Opera Album Review: The Met’s Biggest New-Opera Hit — Kevin Puts’s “The Hours”

August 8, 2024
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When the front page of the newspaper is getting me down, I can feel at least somewhat buoyed by remembering that we live in a world that can produce such profoundly touching and empathetic works of art as Kevin Puts’s “The Hours”.

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Opera Album Review: Meyerbeer’s Disturbing Look at a Demagogue, “Le Prophète” (1849) — at Bard Summer Festival and on a New Recording

July 19, 2024
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Long one of the most-performed French operas, “Le Prophète,” thanks to some splendid performances, feels as vivid and relevant as ever.

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Opera Album Review: A Devilishly Good First Recording for Louise Bertin’s “Fausto”

June 26, 2024
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Much praised by Berlioz and others, this Italian opera (composed for the great mezzo María Malibran) brings a notable female composer out of the shadows.

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Opera Album Review: A Major New Opera that the Met Has Ignored — Tobias Picker’s “Awakenings”

June 22, 2024
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This world-premiere recording lets us hear one of the most effective recent operas, based on the famous book by Dr. Oliver Sacks.

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Opera Album Review: Cyrille Dubois Does French Opera Arias — A Major Release to Treasure

June 3, 2024
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French opera arias, many recorded for the first time, by the enchanting tenor Cyrille Dubois. The vocal treasures here include a stirring 1842 denunciation of slavery in the Caribbean.

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Opera Album Review: “Circé,” A Big Hit from the 2023 Boston Early Music Festival, Now Enchantingly Recorded

May 13, 2024
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The BEMF performed the work in July 2023 in New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, to enormous enthusiasm.

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