Opera
Author Ethan Mordden serves up plenty of entertaining yarns, sometimes as exaggerated as the genre to which they pay homage.
Grétry’s Raoul Barbe-Bleue — the story of the original lady-killer, Bluebeard — receives its world premiere recording and it’s splendid.
Is it any wonder? An opera that angered Louis XIV in 1677 brings enormous pleasure in 2020.
Metamorfosi is a marvelously effective and amusing one-act opera that would suit college opera workshops splendidly.
Immortal Beloved is a CD that will appeal to lovers of fine singing and to people curious about some hidden corners of Beethoven’s output.
Prince of Players is based on a play that also yielded the movie Stage Beauty, and it’s one of the best new operas to come along in years.
Opera CD Review: Gunther Schuller’s Splendid 1970 Children’s Opera Gets Its World-Premiere Recording
A Grimm, but not grim, opera about a Fisherman, his Wife, their Cat, and a wish-granting Flounder.
An 1829 opera about Elizabeth I and her supposed lover — enlivened by underhanded threats, virtuous resistance, remorse, and an attempted poisoning — proves well worth reviving.
The practice of re-using large chunks of an opera for a new plot and new words may sound implausible to us, but in Rossini’s hands the result is delightful and surprisingly coherent.
Arts Commentary: Reviewing Music, Re-viewed
Our opera-loving reviewer contrasts his own pieces, written 48 years apart, on the same Offenbach operetta.
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