Attention is being paid today to talented composers who have been sidelined or disdained because of their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Reynaldo Hahn qualifies on several counts.
Opera
Short Fuse Podcast #36: An Interview with Neal Goren, Conductor and Artistic Director of Catapult Opera
New podcast host Elizabeth Howard talks to Neal Goren about contemporary opera: the trends, attracting new audiences, and how opera can be adapted for the internet.
Opera Album Review: Rossini’s Splendid Passover Opera for Paris — “Moïse et Pharaon”
Just in time for Passover: another fine world-premiere Rossini recording, the 1827 French version of his Moses-in-Egypt opera.
Opera Album Review: An Opéra-Comique from 1832 Shines Again in a Superb Recording
Performed 1600 times in Paris, then forgotten, Hérold’s brilliantly witty, Le pré aux clercs shines again in a splendid recording.
Opera Album Review: Saint-Saëns’s Opera about a Little Silver Bell Works Its Magic
The world-premiere recording of a first rate production of a brilliant, fantastical opera, unstaged and unheard since 1914.
Opera Album Review: Croatia’s Best-Known Opera, “Ero the Joker” — Folk Fun and Games
Croatia’s best-known Opera is like The Bartered Bride or a lighter-spirited Porgy and Bess: tuneful, engaging, and stageworthy.
Opera Album Review: Donizetti’s Teacher Takes Center Stage — Mayr’s “I Cherusci”
This splendid world-premiere recording proves that, as an opera composer, Johann Simon Mayr had “the whole package.”
Opera Album Review: Before “Carmen,” There Was Massenet’s Spanish-Tinged “Don César de Bazan”
World premiere recording of an utterly delicious 1872 comic opera, recorded without spoken dialogue, so you can just revel in the music and the singing.
Opera Feature: Should We Be Updating Operas So They Address Present-Day Issues?
Philip Glass’s librettist Arthur Yorinks offers his thoughts on whether and how to update an opera as the Boston Lyric Opera releases its revamped and filmed version of The Fall of the House of Usher.
Listening During Covid, Part 4: Fascinating Vocal Adventures from Different Times and Places
I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.