Opera

Opera Review: “HER | alive.un.dead” — The Sacrifices We Make in the Name of Love

May 20, 2023
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HER | alive.un.dead proves that some stories are best told by trusting the audience’s imagination.

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Opera Album Review: “Naughty Saint Vitalis” Targets Celibacy in the Priesthood

May 16, 2023
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Swiss composer Richard Flury’s engaging comic opera is a celebration of the life spirit, and a criticism of celibacy as a practice that cramps and distorts an individual’s basic humanity.

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Opera Album Review: A One-Hit Wonder Hits Another One Out of the Park

May 8, 2023
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A marvelous first recording of a highly engaging opera by Baroque composer Bernardo Pasquini, known until recently for a single piece: “The Cuckoo.”

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Classical Concert Review: Boston Baroque’s “Iphigénie en Tauride”

April 22, 2023
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By Aaron Keebaugh Lithe and economical, Boston Baroque’s superb production of Iphigénie en Tauride proved the old adage that less can be more. Iphigénie en Tauride, an opera in four acts. Libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard. Music by Christoph Willibald Gluck. Performed by Boston Baroque. Martin Pearlman, conductor. Mo Zhou, stage director. At GBH’s Calderwood Studio,…

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Opera Album Review: The Love of a Fish-Man for a Terrestrial Woman, French-Baroque Style

April 12, 2023
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A masterful composer of French Baroque violin sonatas displays another side of his immense talent in this first-rate new recording of his Scylla et Glaucus.

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Opera Album Review: A Major German Baroque Opera — Reinhard Keiser’s “Ulysses” Gets a Spiffy Recording

March 28, 2023
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Photo: Anton Saecki.

All in all, an ear-opening introduction to an important opera composer — and to the little-known tradition of German-language (with Italian touches) Baroque opera.

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Opera Album Review: A Groundbreaking French Grand Opera Receives Its First Major Commercial Recording

March 25, 2023
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Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable paved the way for major works by Meyerbeer himself, Halévy, Verdi, Wagner (in German), Saint-Saëns, Massenet, and others — and this splendid performance shows why.

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Classical Music Album Review: Paul Bowles’s “A Picnic Cantata” — A Bittersweet Charmer

March 19, 2023
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Festival of American Song Records has released an elegant, touching performance of the totally delightful half-hour long “Picnic Cantata.”

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Opera Album Review: A Major Baroque Opera in English Receives a Stylish Recording

March 15, 2023
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Aside from English pronunciation issues, the singers put over this remarkably polished and attractive opera by one of England’s great seventeenth-century composers with great panache, matching the superb instrumentalists.

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Opera Interview: Director Anne Bogart Takes on “Bluebeard’s Castle/Four Songs”

March 14, 2023
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“We take the audience on a journey that’s not part of a traditional approach to opera.”

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