Opera

Classical Album Review: “The Other Cleopatra”—Three Major Opera Composers Bring Us the Forgotten Queen of Armenia

July 29, 2021
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A delightful recording — and the first ever! — of arias from Hasse’s and Gluck’s operas about Tigranes and Cleopatra of Pontus. Plus four arias by Vivaldi for that same Cleopatra.

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Opera Album Review: August Enna’s Wagnerian “Kleopatra” — Revived on Danish Soil After 122 Years

July 27, 2021
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August Enna’s colorful and vividly melodramatic score does justice to the robust exoticism of H. Rider Haggard’s novel.

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Opera Album Review: Up There with Handel and Vivaldi — One of Gluck’s Earliest Operas, in Its First-Ever Recording

July 18, 2021
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This world-premiere recording of Gluck’s Demofoonte is stylishly performed, under the experienced hand(s) of conductor/harpsichordist Alan Curtis.

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Arts Reconsideration: The 1971 Project — Celebrating a Great Year in Music (July Entry)

July 16, 2021
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Arts Fuse writers continue their countdown of great music celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and this month’s list includes Little Feat, Jonathan Edwards, Hot Tuna, The Red Detachment of Women, and Jimmy Witherspoon & Eric Burdon.

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Opera Album Review: A Captivating World-Premiere Recording of One of the Most Oft-Performed Operas in the 17th Century

July 15, 2021
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Cross-gender disguises and comic banter liven up the melodrama in this presentation of Antonio Cesti’s famous opera, thanks to a spirited and virtuosic traversal by a mostly Italian cast.

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Opera Commentary: Labor Action at the Met — “Wear Your Union Colors!” — Update

June 26, 2021
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Locked-Out MET Stagehands and Skilled Craftspeople ,Joined by Union Supporters, Launch First-of-Its-kind Interactive “Virtual Picket Line.”

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Opera CD Review: Congolese Tenor Patrick Cabongo Steps into Stardom in a World-Premiere Recording of Meyerbeer’s “Romilda e Costanza”

May 26, 2021
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The composer of Les huguenots and L’Africaine was already an accomplished master at age 26, as this first-rate recording reveals.

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Opera Album Review: An Extremely Effective Operatic “Pasticcio” Made by Vivaldi from His Own Arias and Those by Other Composers

May 21, 2021
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Vivaldi put this opera together using, in part, arias associated with two famous singers: the “Moorish” (i.e., half-African) Vittorio Tesi and the castrato Farinelli.

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Classical CD Review: A Simon Mayr Comic Opera That’s Really Funny — and Performed with Flair

April 16, 2021
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At this point in his career, Mayr is contributing to the development of the musicodramatic conventions that would set the stage for the masterpieces of Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi.

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Opera CD Review: Two Splendid World-Premiere Recordings Rediscover an Exotic Master of Song — Reynaldo Hahn

April 5, 2021
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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.

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